The situation: a tape of a concert performances in England and Germany during the 70s by Ray Charles was discovered at Fantasy Records. Ray’s voice was clear but his band was badly muffled and barely audible.
The action: not wanting such a valuable property to be lost, it was decided to wipe out Ray’s original band and use the contemporary Count Basie band led by Bill Hughes to record new backing arrangements for Ray’s songs. Sid Feller, who had arranged for Charles’s original band, was brought in to write the new charts. According to Feller, Charles would “often point to Basie charts as templates. He wanted that thick harmony in the reeds. He wanted those clean horn punches. He wanted it simple like Basie, and he wanted it strong. Mostly, though, he wanted that Basie swing.”
Result: Ray Charles was dead and Count Basie was dead but they were ghoulishly brought together so that a “new” album could be created.
Ray Charles was unique in having appeal for both raw punters and devoted jazz fans. Predictably this artificial union didn’t work. Ray’s performances never varied much from his high standard, and his singing here is fine. Former Basie trombonist Hughes led a good band. But the two never mesh and, with Ray not responding spontaneously to the band’s performance and vice-versa the combination sounds pretty lifeless. Joey DeFrancesco, who died recently, is heard briefly on organ.
Discography
Oh, What A Beautiful Morning; Let The Good Times Roll; How Long Has This Been Going On?; Every Saturday Night; Busted; Crying Time; I Can’t Stop Loving You; Come Live With Me; Feel So Bad; The Long And Winding Road; Look What They’ve Done To My Song; Georgia (48.38)
Charles (v); Bill Hughes (tb); Joey DeFrancesco (org) and others. England, Germany, 1970s and USA, c. 2005.
Tangerine Records TRC21241
