The movie, alas, was a predictable gloss. The duets album was more “Duets II” than “Sinatra-Jobim.”
So what’s a Ray Charles fan to do? Run out and get this video. It’s a treasure.
The typically great Rhino notes tell the whole story of its unearthing, but the gist is this: Ray, perhaps at the height of his powers (1963), brought his best band and best configuration of Raelettes to Brazil for a live TV broadcast. The rehearsal and the program are presented in their entireties, including weird Brazilian commercials in the second set (the broadcast).
Ray is just flat astounding, in a spectacular sampler of just about everything he did: economical, bop-inspired blues piano, swinging arrangements of unlikely material (“You Are My Sunshine,” “My Bonnie,”), breathy-but-Bird-ish sax playing (on one of the couple of impressive instrumentals), and above all, otherworldly singing.
Vocally, the guy had a bottomless bag of tricks to draw from, and he’s in perfect command, rhythmically and melodically throughout them all: wordless growls, stuttery double-time phrases, behind-the-beat extrapolations, an ungodly falsetto. Usually I don’t like what Sondheim calls “now” singers, the kind that are always inserting meaningless little interjections into the lyrics. Ray’s the ultimate “now” singer, but it’s such a natural part of his style, it’s perfect. His “Wait a minutes,” his “I’m gonna tell yous,” his “Whoaaaaas” are all in musical and lyrical context somehow, and are like marvelous little jazz curlicues or the optional grace notes in Bach. Astounding.
Get this.
Article comments
1 - Eric Olsen
thanks CC, sounds great, I wasn't even aware of this - I thought the duets album was quite a nice suprise, btw, a very nice end-o-career statement
2 - ClubhouseCancer
I thought there were just too many underwhelming tracks on the duets album, and no particularly outstanding arrangements.
Michael McDonald!
Play one song from this Brazil show, and the duets album will be quickly forgotten. Strangely, I like "Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word" from the new album.
The best one-disc comp of Ray, BTW, is the cut-down of his 3-disc Atlantic Years box. All the 1955-60 hits are there, and every one is unassailable.
3 - Temple A. Stark
I got this up on Advance.net
I shortened your name to Clubhouse there, though.
Here's one link to one of the ADV pages.
You'll be there, just look :)