Ray Charles – The Great Ray Charles

The Great Ray Charles focuses on Ray Charles as an instrumentalist and arranger at a moment when his musical vocabulary was expanding rapidly. Piano leads the conversation, but the record draws much of its character from the dialogue between Charles and the horns. Jazz composition, blues phrasing and danceable rhythm meet without being forced into separate categories.

“Doodlin’” gives the ensemble a Horace Silver theme whose relaxed surface leaves ample room for Charles to alter the pressure through touch and timing. The piano can state a clipped idea, leave a gap and return with a blues answer that changes the mood of the whole band. “Sweet Sixteen Bars” works from an original blues frame, yet its carefully shaped horn writing keeps the piece from becoming a routine succession of choruses. “Black Coffee” turns a familiar standard into a nocturnal instrumental scene, with the melody carried through texture rather than lyrics. On “The Ray,” the arrangement has more forward motion, allowing the pianist’s rhythmic authority to organise the ensemble from within. The ballad “There’s No You” provides another kind of test: Charles respects the long melodic line while finding small harmonic inflections that unmistakably belong to him. Throughout the album, his playing reveals that emotional directness and sophisticated construction can occupy the same bar.

This edition spreads The Great Ray Charles over two LPs at 45 RPM. Its four-side configuration gives this instrumental chapter a clearly defined physical presentation and keeps the dialogue among piano, horns and rhythm section at the heart of the collection. For anyone tracing how Charles joined jazz intelligence to a deeply grounded blues sensibility, it is essential listening territory. Michael 45 keeps the records in Germany and dispatches them from Hilden, so customers need not arrange a personal US import or wait for customs clearance.

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