Customer Reviews

Very Best of Ramsey Lewis

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

 

 

If you like your jazz piano cleanly recorded (very pristine clarity) with smooth sounding backing strings and vocal chorus plus horns kept to a minimum except for the odd sax solo (Grover Washington style) then welcome to 1990s hi fidelity jazz, Ramsey Lewis style. You will in such a case no doubt love this compilation of a selection of the best of Ramsey Lewis recordings when he was with the GRP record label across that decade.

However if you long for the Ramsey of the late 60s & 70s as I do, with funky grooving music and inventive arrangements plus creative interpretations of other's songs (especially from the Beatles songbook) then I fear this will all come as a great disappointment. This is typified best by the 1993 rendering here of "Julia" from the Beatles White album, which had appeared before on what is for me probably Ramsey's greatest recording moment, the 1969 LP "Mother Nature's Son". However here it is just so clean and soulless it loses the simplicity and beauty of the original and Ramsey's stunning prior interpretation. This recording may show technical excellence all around but for me it sadly feels too much like jazz muzak which I do not personally enjoy.

This CD is one of the very best of Ramsey Lewis. Easy listening and great for relaxating and calming the stressed-out mind. Additionally, I find this CD to be a valuable part of my CD collecton.

This DVD was purchased to be a Christmas present for my husband. However the title of the DVD was in the subject line of the email confirmation. My husband saw this and the surprise was gone.

this is my 4th ramsey lewis album and i am quite pleased with it... i noticed that each of his album has a "theme" such that songs in one album have similar characteristics....i rate this a 4 star because ramsey's best album for me is "time flies" which i'm willing to give even 6 star!

I purchased this for our daughter to introduce her to Lewis & it has a good & varied collection of his music. I also bought a copy for myself.