Ray Charles: Genius + Soul = Jazz

 

Genius + Soul = Jazz

1961

Personnel: Ray Charles (vocal, organ); Marshall Royal, Frank Wess, George Dorsey, Earle Warren (alto saxophone); Frank Foster, Billy Mitchell, Budd Johnson, Seldon Powell (tenor saxophone); Charlie Fowlkes, Haywood Henry (baritone saxophone); Philip Guilbeau, Thad Jones, Joe Newman, Clark Terry, Eugene Young, John Frosk, Jimmy Nottingham, Joe Wilder (trumpet); Henry Coker, Urbie Green, Al Grey, Benny Powell, Jimmy Cleveland, Keg Johnson, George Matthews (trombone); Freddy Green, Sam Herman (guitar); Eddy Jones, Joe Benjamin (bass); Sonny Payne, Roy Haynes (drums).

The key to listening to this album is to try and forget that it is Ray Charles. Especially in 2010, we have over 50 years of collective cultural expectations and assumptions about his music, if you can manage to drop those for these recordings you will appreciate this music at a different level. This isn't "Georgia on My Mind" or "I Got a Woman", as great as those tunes are. This is magnificent jazz by incredible musicians, not a novelty recording by a pop star. Count Basie's band, Charles on a Rudy Van Gelder-hacked Hammond B3, and Quincy Jones and Ralph Burns to arrange, this is good stuff.

There is one comparison with "The Great Kai and J.J.", the album I reviewed last week. I made the point that the opening song on the record, "This Could be the Start of Something Big", was played much "too earnestly" and could have used a bit more of a "toungue-in-cheek" attitude. If you want an example of how to play a slightly cheesy tune (this one happens to sound like an old-fashioned roller rink melody, especially on the B3), listen to "Stompin' Room Only". It still made me cringe the first time I heard it, but in the best possible way to cringe. It is cheesy. Sweet lord is it cheesy. But it's great. Charles and the band play the melody lines with what can only be described as sophisticated sarcasm, then come the solos, which are incendiary. They are good solos not just for this tune, or this album, they would be good solos on just about any jazz recording. 

The success has everything to do with the fact that Ralph Burns arranged this piece. Not to denigrate Quincy Jones, the other arranger that worked on the album, but Burns works magic here, managing to bring together Creed Taylor's pop sensibilities as producer with the unique demands of creating music that is not insipid and trite. And trust me, this isn't easy to do with this tune, it is an old-fashioned, corny composition from the 20s that might be brilliant and great in context, but doesn't always match modern musical sensibilities.

I think that some of lack of recognition due to Burns should be fixed by the last track on the record, "Birth of the Blues". The original liner notes describe the song: "This Ralph Burns arrangement generates a good blues feeling and is a fine vehicle for Charles' organ artistry." It seems like Dick Katz (liner notes author) could have been a little more kind and energetic in his assessment. I agree that Charles is great on this tune. But I don't think that Katz appreciated what Burns was able to do with the arrangement. Compare the horns on this version with Sinatra's version - a show tune designed to appeal to the unwashed masses (let's always remember that Sinatra would have been on American Idol had it been around - the man sold out faster...you want a male vocalist worth listening to check out Johnny Hartman). The voicing of the horns actually makes sense here - it is after all, the blues. Most of the versions of this song I have ever heard, turn it into a bombastic exercise in brass pyrotechnics, like Sinatra's. Burns gives it the feel it should have.

(I realize that I am largely ignoring Quincy Jones contributions. I am o.k. with that. He gets too much attention anyway, and being the music snob that I am, I like focusing on the more obscure stuff that isn't overplayed, and discussed, and worshipped. He is a good musician, composer, and arranger, but he will get his due - Jones recorded for impulse! and his stuff will fall under my axe eventually.)

I almost don't feel like it is necessary to review the two tunes with Ray singing - "I've Got News for You" and "I'm Gonna Move to the Outskirts of Town". So I won't. They are great.

I do have at least one mild criticism of the album. That is "Moanin'", Bobby Timmons tune, originally and most famously done by Art Blakey. I don't know if it is because that is a rather distinct composition with a structure that makes creative interpretations of it difficult, but the version on "Genius" just doesn't have much to it. It is enjoyable to listen to, but there isn't any provocative about it. It occurred to me that it has the same feel of a jazz tune played by a very talented, but relatively inexperience high school jazz band.Those kids can sometimes play their hearts out and be really entertaining. But my problem: this is a Quincy Jones arrangement being played by the Count Basie Orchestra (sans Basie) and Ray Charles; I think we have a right to something more than mere competence especially given the excellent work on the rest of the album.

This is a good record.  It is definitely worth owning if you can find it, but you need to be careful.The Amazon download of the album is "My Kind of Jazz" (an o.k. album by Charles, but not impulse! and not of the same quality) not "Genius". It is worth noting that in April, a compilation of Charles' jazz recordings is being released that includes "Genius". I would point out that his other jazz recordings are not nearly as good as "Genius", so you might want to just find a used copy of the late-90s release of "Genius" that included "My Kind of Jazz" (which Amazon has, but not to download). Unless you are a serious fan of Ray Charles, the new 2-disc set might be overkill. But I can assure that "Genius" is well worth the effort and price.

The Great Kai and J.J.

The Great Kai and J.J.

1961

J.J. Johnson, Kai Winding--trombone; Bill Evans--piano; Paul Chambers & Tommy Williams--bass; Roy Haynes & Arthur Taylor--drums

This is the first Impulse album, produced by Creed Taylor, one of the few records he did produce for the label before leaving to take over Verve.

I have two statements that are important to understand what I think about this album:

1. As a collection of individual musical performances this is a brilliant record.

2. In a small ensemble, 2 of the same instrument (especially trombones) make it a novelty performance that detracts from the musical gestalt. This might have been overcome, but Creed Taylor is probably not the producer for this project, given his connections with the worst of the pop music genre.

I think you have to first recognize and appreciate that the first track on the first Impulse album is "This Could be the Start of Something Big". Frankly, I could have done without this tune, it lacks any kind of subtlety. It's missing, I suppose, maturity: how obvious is this? Not only the title's allusion to the start of the new record label, but also that it is a big band-style tune that Steve Allen used as the theme song for his incarnation of the Tonight Show. If they had played the tune with a tongue-in-cheek styling, (I have seen several reviews that call it "witty".) it might have added something to the album, but the tune was played too earnestly, too conformist for it to be able to stand up 50 years later.

Along those same lines is the 6th tune on the album, Side by Side.Remember the lyrics, give this a little thought, and you have to ask yourself, did they seriously record this for a trombone-duet album? I understand that it has become a standard that everyone performs. But sweet lord...have a little bit of self control. And trombone players wonder why they don't get any respect. It is a good thing that Ebony and Ivory hadn't been written yet, these two would have been all over that one.

I think that my only other major criticism of this album is going to be that they try way too hard to differentiate between Winding's and Johnson's trombones. They do play straight on a couple of the tunes (which are the best on the record, see my comments about Blue Monk in one of the later paragraphs.), but in general they seem to spend a lot of time and effort to make sure that you can distinguish the two. Most of this time and energy is spent in trying to musically justify the use of mutes and slightly odd timbres that each of two use throughout the album.

This bothers for me two reasons. First, it is insulting to your fans. It is playing down to them. Which makes their effort no better than any of the Brittney Ray Swift crap that passes for music. I think one of the first rules of music is to play your music with honesty and dignity and let the fans rise to the occasion. Sometimes they won't like it or understand it, but you have at least maintained your credibility as a musician.

Second, and obviously related to the other reason, is that playing like that significantly compromises the artistic value of the music. It is nothing more than adjusting the music to make it easier to listen to so that you avoid exposing a creative emptiness on the musician's part. This genre of music is based on taking a chance, sometimes you fail. But not taking a chance means you are just making a pop album. The Great Kai and J.J. ends up in that record bin more often than it should.

Its important to note that much of my criticism is probably equally directed at the musicians and at Creed Taylor, the producer of the album. Taylor is often blamed for much of the direction that popular music has taken, and this album is a good example of his work.

Which brings me to my first statement from above: that this is a collection of brilliant individual musical performances in spite of Taylor's producing and its other cheesinesses. 

Both Winding and Johnson are brilliant musicians. Blue Monk, the third tune, is the best on the album, it is an example of what the entire album could have been. Neither wastes energy trying to play anything other than what they are. The solos are what bop trombone should be, they use the advantages of the instrument to express their ideas without exposing the limitations of the trombone. (I should also point out that the arrangement is excellent, good arranging is a lot like having a good director for a movie, you don't even realize that the movie had a director because he gives the actors' performance primacy. Arrangers should do the same thing for musicians.)

Bill Evans' piano on the album is the performance that pushes it from an above average record to one that even casually serious jazz fans should own. It is seriously worth listening to this album several times just paying attention to Evans. He knows exactly how to accompany the group, twinkling when needed, leaving gaps, accentuating the lead. Absolutely exceptional brilliance. He makes this album, he steals the show from the two leaders.

I feel somewhat contradictory about this album. I can criticize it for its cheesy novelty. I don't like its pandering to the listener. The song selection leaves something to be desired. At the same time I enjoy it. Even after listening to it fairly intensively for the last week, it still intrigues me. Leaving behind the lesson that maybe technical considerations should be set aside, don't get too caught up in the intellectual, left-brain analysis of the music. In fact, it is probably in your best interest to try and shut off that part of your mind and just let music settle into you. Music is art, and while you might not appreciate it in the academic sense, you might not be impressed by the technical musical accomplishment, that does not mean that it can not be enjoyed for its entertainment value.