While I was distilling yesterday’s playlist of versions of Duke Ellington’s Prelude to a Kiss, I wound up with four extra takes I desperately wanted to include — but they all came from the same singer — June Christy. And when June records the same Ellington tune four different times across nearly twenty years, that’s not an overflow… that’s a feature!
So today, the last day of the month of June, The Misty Miss Christy gets the spotlight. Let’s drop the needle on all four...
1. The Kentones Keep Up (1945/46)
June’s first encounter with “Prelude to a Kiss” came shortly after she joined Stan Kenton’s band, when she recorded it for the Capitol Transcription Service:
These transcriptions were for radio use and not commercially available at the time.
2. A Friendly Gem (1949)
With Kenton temporarily disbanded, June cut another version with pianist Johnny Guarnieri:
The circumstances are a little murky, and the recording didn’t see daylight until the 1990s, but it’s a lovely, intimate reading — almost like stumbling across a forgotten acetate in a studio closet.
3. The Lost Duet Track (1955)
During the sessions for the Capitol album Duet, June and Stan reunited for a studio take of Prelude to a Kiss:
It didn’t make the original LP — who knows why — but it resurfaced as a bonus track on the early‑1990s CD reissue. Those first-wave CD years were a treasure hunt, with “lost” recordings suddenly stepping into the light.
4. Rugolo Brings the Brass (1963)
Finally, we land in 1963 with the version that did get released at the time, from June’s Capitol album Big Band Specials:
Arranged and conducted by fellow Kenton alum Pete Rugolo, it’s a bright, confident, big-band take that lets June glide right over the top.
June clearly had a soft spot for Prelude to a Kiss, and we in the Warehouse are grateful she shared it with us not once, not twice, but four times across nearly two decades. A little constellation of Christy moments orbiting one Ellington classic.
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