Customer Reviews

The Best Of Ray Charles

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Imagine you are sitting in a nightbar having a whiskey on the rocks and you are thinking about why the world is so bad to you. Then you hear a piano playing softly and you don't really care but it puts you even more into depression. But after a few moments of listening to the music you widen your eyes, bring your ears into the direction of the music and awake from your depressions : what a great piece of music, how the piano together with the sax give a beautiful melody in rock music rythm. What you hear is Ray Charles how you usually do not know him.

This all instrumental jazz collection from Ray's early years is not what most people would expect from the soul music great. Tasty piano and sax grooves - makes for excellent cocktail music. Highly recommended - among my top 5 favorites in my 200+ CD collection.

As I write this I'm listening to the album on vinyl, just picked it up not more than 20 mintues ago from a record store down the street. I happened upon on it, noticed the title "Best of," yet saw no tracks I recognized. I read the back of the sleeve. Words started exploding at me: "jazz," blues," "instrumental"...3 things that'll convince me. The in-depth essay written by Ralph J. Gleason (founding editor of Rolling Stone, co-founder of Monterey Jazz Festival). Got it home, put it on the turntable and wow! So relaxing and soulful. I can't do it enough justice in words. Just find a copy and listen. A great portrait of the genius that is Ray Charles.

I bought this on a lark when I was buying a bunch of older jazz and big band CDs (this being from very early on in Ray Charles' career). I fell in love with the music the first time I played it. None of it has any vocals - it's all instrumental. And it's wonderful music. If you are a fan of Ray Charles or of instrumental jazz and you don't have this CD, then buy it while you can.

This is absolutely my favorite of all my cds. Mellow but not too soft. Great background music for a party or for just chilling out in front of the fireplace. All my friends have been looking for it and couldn't find it anywhere else. I'm glad you carry it.

This is 'mos definitely my favorites and exactly the first one I ever listen to on tape. Hope to get it on CD pretty soon. My love for Ray Charles is that he always make a good song w/o ever missing a beat. He always bring a lot of good memories to his songs. My most favorites are Blues Waltz, Doodlin, Hard Times and Sweet Sixteen Bars as necessary. R.I.P. to my man Ray Charles who is at peace and may his music and spirit lives on.
Ray Charles, you're da man!!!

everything said in these reviews is absolutely true. my favorite song on this cd is "How Long Blues". it gets me everytime and I feel like my heart is breaking, but in a good way!

I have often listened and read about Charles' great jazz beginnings and how it was actually pitty he became such a huge rock-soul-country-pop star and gave up on jazz...

What a disappointment this collection of his early work is, I can hardly put to words!
Now, this is not such an unpleasant collection of music, but it falls somewhere between jazz and soul and it falls with a big thump, flat on its back.
The rhythms are dead from the jazz point of view (even Milt Jackson and Oscar Pettiford don't give it life), whereas this bombastic pretension of creating jazz in improvisations, arrangements and even material selection is quite annoying...

My god, I wish he at least sung a chorus or two, but in his mature voice (not with his early Nat King Cole impersonation style)... Popular music is where Charles excelled; the loss to jazz seems to be minimal, judging from this, allegedly representative collection.

I like jazz very much and I also like Ray Charles very much, but these two loves apparently don't mix together very well....