Basie Men and B3 and Brother Ray, a match for the ages. 

Why don’t you forget about all those differences between genres as jazz, blues, soul, gospel and rock & roll and see the big picture. The so-called differences are not so much of a musical nature, yes of course every genre has its distinctive features, but, dig, it all goes back to the same sources, for instance jazz has a foundation in the musical freedom of the spirituals and the gospel beat, for instance soul is a secular version of gospel, for instance rock & roll is the child of the black performers in the chitlin’ circuit and black electric blues, no, the so-called differences are more of a social nature, for instance Mahalia Jackson abhorred filthy lyrics but wouldn’t have been who she was without Bessie Smith, for instance many religious people denounced Sam Cooke’s crossover to secular music, for instance, to get closer to our time, Beyonce going country addresses contemporary social issues, gimmicky as it may appear.

For instance, no, especially Ray Charles (ah, country, he already diddit way back when) is all of these genres encapsulated in one man.

Aye, certainly a jazzy cat, Ray Charles, no mistaking. He started out as a blues player and singer who emulated the jazz inflections of the Nat King Cole trio. Later on, when he’d made the big time, he,  like Duke Ellington or Fletcher Henderson, heard every note the band played, switched every note to his liking if necessary, because in his particular case he’d come up the hard way, learning music by ear and braille. Brother Ray definitely had a jazz sensibility.

His pioneering ‘small big’ ensemble of the soul hits rocked Newport in 1958, like a smaller version of the Jean Goldkette or Count Basie bands or The Savoy Sultans. Heads turned, oh so this is deep down home swing, we better get back to the roots. This band featured Hank Crawford and David “Fathead” Newman and later on, Ray Charles created a big band full of first-rate jazz guys and excellent discoveries by Charles himself.

His second album of his groundbreaking stint on Atlantic was a jazz record, The Great Ray Charles. He partnered up with pal Milt Jackson on a couple of records on that label. (switching to alto saxophone in the process) He made Ray Charles And Betty Carter along the way, and later on in the 1970s, on his own Tangerine label, a couple of jazz records.

He made records like Genius + Soul = Jazz (there you have it), a killer big band jazz album if ever I heard one, and, hey, also a blues, vocal and organ album.

Not that that 1961 album is to everyone’s liking. Plenty people, over time, expressed a disinterest in the organ playing of Ray Charles, different strokes for different folks.

It’s absolutely a different organ ballgame on Ray Charles’s only album on Impulse, number 2 in the catalogue of a new label, The House That Trane (eventually) Built, follow-up to J.J. Johnson & Kai Winding’s The Great Kai & J.J., precursor to Kai Winding’s The Incredible Kai Winding Trombones, with all due respect, good records but historically irrelevant in the company of Brother Ray.

Much has been said about the music but do you realize that it took place at Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs? All those guys under the roof of Rudy’s legendary place, digging what they have been doing, Clark Terry cracking a joke to Thad Jones, Sonny Payne complaining about traffic conditions on the turnpike to Freddie Green. Everybody putting their coat on and murmuring, ‘man that Ray sure knows what he’s doing…’

You’ve noticed: almost all of those are Basie men. Although class acts like Roy Haynes and Urbie Green also put in their five cents. Arrangements are by Charles’s childhood friend Quincy Jones and Ralph Burns. The outsider is trumpeter Philip Guilbeau, alumnus from the Ray Charles band, but he blends in well, fearlessly, effortlessly, puts in fine solos, jubilant, ripe as sparkling berries, especially in the opener, Charles’s smokin’ From The Heart.

It’s Basie-ish, naturally, with Sonny Payne spurring everybody on, and the relentless chuck-chuck of Freddie Green’s unmissable guitar, on tunes as Strike Up The Band, and Stompin’ Room Only. As blues goes, I’ve Got News For You is a gas, marked by sardonic lyrics and luscious call-and-response between Charles’s Hammond organ and the orchestra, and sassy singing by Brother Ray, perhaps not the primal scream of his iconic Sinner’s Prayer, but getting the message across and not without a sorrowful climatic whoop.

Ray Charles is not Jimmy Smith on the organ, neither in sound nor execution, in fact his sound is totally opposite and though it’s understandable that some people have been put off, there’s no question that it, without a doubt, is 100% Ray Charles, which is what counts. (He actually preceded Jimmy Smith in recording a big band album by three years) His tone is dry like desert dust, sharp like a knife. He’s playing the organ like his piano, like his sax, like he sings. Timed angularly and brusquely, chock-full of nuanced blues figures, a piercing sound that moves like an arrow through the gusty wind.

And you can hear his mischievous left-hand comps colliding with his runs, which in turn sneak in and out of the orchestral sound carpet like mice in and out of the various holes in the kitchen wall. Just ponder for a moment at how he kickstarts his story of Bobby Timmons’s classic hard bop cut Moanin’, ouch. His own Mister C., reminding of his Atlantic r&b stuff, is also no joke.

Ray Charles objected to the term ‘genius’, is cited as reserving that term for someone like Art Tatum. At any rate, there’s no question about it, there was nobody like Brother Ray and he was all soul and all jazz.