Where to go after The Capitol Transcription Sessions?

I’ve been listening to the June Christy/Peggy Lee THE CAPITOL TRANSCRIPTION SESSIONS box set and it’s fast becoming one of my all-time favorite albums. I just love the smoky romantic jazzy vibe. I’ve never heard Peggy Lee before and I was just wondering where can I hear similar music? I understand these are “transcription” records, did Peggy Lee record anything “regular” records with these small jazz combos? I especially love the ones by The Four of a Kind (from “Someday, Sweetheart” to “How Long Has This Been Going On?”). Just beautiful mellow stuff.

Glad that you enjoyed Peggy Lee's Capitol transcription recordings. Next, try her McGregor transcriptions, which are from around the same period -- January 1945, to be exact. (The Capitol batch was recorded between 1946 and 1949.) It is actually a fairly small bunch -- less than 20. Almost all of them are found in the following CD:



Note that one of the songs which you mentioned [“Someday Sweetheart”] is also heard here -- in a different, slightly earlier version. The accompaniment is the same quartet featured in the recordings that you favor, augmented in this instance to a septet through the addition of clarinet, sax, and trumpet (Billy May's).

Caveats: you will be getting a budget production -- no liner notes, nor much in the way of discographical information. More crucially, the sound quality of this release (also available on cassette tape) is not of the same high caliber as that of the Mosaic boxed set. All the selections are in need of slight speed correction. The track runs faster than it should, and Peggy’s voice sounds a bit more girlish than usual, though very pleasant all the same. Despite such shortcomings, the entire CD makes for very pleasant listening. (If we leave aside the need for pitch correction, the sound is fine -- crystal clear -- and the playing quite jazzy. Besides, no better version of that material has shown up on the digital market as of yet.) Inexpensive CD copies can be found with relative ease.

Ivan

While this writer defers to Ivan in almost all things Peggy Lee, I would suggest the following albums on CD: World Broadcast Recordings 1955 (2017), Mink Jazz (1998), Peggy at Basin Street East (2002) and Basin Street East Proudly Presents Miss Peggy Lee (1995).

Thanks fort the kind words, Rgoettsch. Yours are all recommendations that I can only second -- enthusiastically so, in the case of the CDs from Capitol Jazz and Collectors’ Choice! (As for the World CD set, I was waiting for the person seeking advice to get back to us, so that we could recommend it as his third purchase, and as the conclusion of his exploration of Peggy’s transcription catalogue ...)

Ivan