Genius + Soul = Jazz/My Kind of Jazz

Artist: Ray Charles
Label: Rhino / Wea
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Format: Original recording remastered
Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1

UPC: 081227281427
EAN: 0081227281427
ASIN: B000003424

Release Date: 1997-06-10

Genius + Soul = Jazz/My Kind of Jazz

Related Categories:

General

| Blues | Styles | Music

General

| Jazz | Styles | Music

Soul-Jazz & Boogaloo

| Jazz | Styles | Music

Classic R&B

| R&B | Styles | Music

General

| R&B | Styles | Music

General

| Soul | R&B | Styles | Music

Rhino Records

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Tracks:

From The Heart
I've Got News For You
Moanin'
Let's Go
One Mint Julep
I'm Gonna Move To The Outskirts Of Town
Stompin' Room Only
Mister C
Strike Up The Band
Birth Of The Blues
Golden Boy
Booty-Butt
This Here
I Remember Clifford
Sidewinder
Bluesette
Pas-Se-O-Ne Blues
Zig Zag
Angel City
Senor Blues

Similar Items:

The Genius of Ray Charles
The Genius Hits the Road
Sweet & Sour Tears
Ray Charles and Betty Carter/Dedicated to You
Ingredients in a Recipe for Soul/Have a Smile With Me

Album Description

Charles' only all-instrumental LPs on one CD! 1961's Genius + Soul = Jazz is a big band jazz workout featuring the Count Basie Band and arrangements from Quincy Jones. It includes the Top 10 hit "One Mint Julep." The proto-acid jazz of 1970's My Kind Of Jazz contains the funky hit single "Booty-Butt." Digitally remastered for best-ever sound!

Customer Reviews:

Another masterpiece from the legendary Ray Charles.......2004-12-24

What can I say? Ray Charles is kickin' it with my man Quincy Jones on this one. It's full of jazz, blues, funky R&B and a lot of flavor from the big bands. This is more of a jazz/big band album since Quincy Jones 1969-70 classic WALKING IN SPACE.
A must-have.

One good one, one not so good.......2004-10-04

Genius + Soul is fantastic! Ray Charles on the B-3-what more do you need to know? If you do need to know more, it features players like Clark Terry, Thad Jones, Fathead Newman, Frank Foster and Roy Haynes-- in fact, on some of the tracks the band is the then-current version of the Basie band, minus the Count of course --with arrangements by Quincy Jones and someone named Ralph Burns, who is just as good. It rocks. It's too bad Ray doesn't sing more-just on I've Got News for You, I'm Gonna Move to the Outskirts of Town and sort of on One Mint Julip--but still, this is as soulful as jazz gets.

On the other hand, My Kind of Jazz is clearly filler, which Rhino, to its credit, pretty much admits. There are extensive new notes on Genius + Soul written for the 16 page booklet included with this reissue, including comments on every track, but on My Kind of Jazz there are all of two paragraphs (the first paragraph starts "With the added space available in the CD format"-in other words, we had some extra space to fill). It's pretty good if you're a fan of big band music, kinda got a little funk goin' on, although not nearly as much soul or blues feel as Genius + Soul, and other then Blue Mitchell I've never heard of the players (the drummer is listed as "unknown"). But you'd never know this was a Ray Charles album. His piano is low in the mix, and his few solos are undermiked and unusually tentative-sounding. And in general it's a little on the generic side, unlike Genius + Soul, which is Ray all the way, vocals or no.

I still gave it the whole CD four stars because Genius + Soul is just so damn good.

Not Ray at his best.......2000-12-17

I feel bad disagreeing with the other reviewers, who seem to love this album, but I think its pretty uninspired and I don't like it much. The arrangements are often pretty limp, the soloing isn't great, Ray doesn't sing but on 2 songs, which is too bad because his voice is as expressive as his piano playing. This disk sounds to me like Ray Charles trying to cash in on the soul-jazz movement of the mid-to-late 1960's by adopting that style - and given that Charles is an innovator of the first order, his adoption of a style he didn't invent doesn't come off right, to my ears. Don't get me wrong, Ray Charles is a great jazz artist, but I think the place to hear it is on "Soul Brothers/Soul Meeting," his late 1950's teaming with Milt Jackson, or on David "Fathead" Newman's solo records of the 1950's, where you can hear Charles's classic band doing some excellent straight-ahead jazz. Still, it gets three stars because some parts aren't bad, and because its Ray Charles.

Some of Ray's finest and best efforts.......2000-05-18

I love Ray Charles, and out of everything I have that he's recorded, this disc gets played the most. The rich mixture of Latin tempos, big band, jazz orchestra, and Ray's intoxicating organ and lyrics jump out and grab you from the first song to the last. This is music you can't sit still to and just reeks with class and Ray's brilliant musical talent. One listen and you're hooked.

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