If, God forbid, you were forced to give up all your recordings but one, which one would you keep? Based on how often I play it and sit smiling, tapping my foot, totally absorbed in the music, I think my choice might be "Soular Energy" - Ray Brown, Gene Harris, and Gerryck King.
The session in August 1984 produced eight tunes most of which everyone knows and only one of which, to my mind, is a loser. Come on, how many albums do you have where you really liked all the music. "Teach Me Tonight" is a loser and I don't care who the musicians are. I can never not hear the stupid lyric in my head, and it drowns out any amount of musical creativity.
At the other extreme, is my favorite of the tunes, "Cry Me a River" - a truly great song by Arthur Hamilton which among its other virtues includes the best rhyme in all of jazz - "You said that love was too plebian, you said that you were through with me and......"
Gene Harris is one of my favorite jazz pianists, but more importantly, he seems to have been Ray Brown's too and the two of them play together as though they shared a single mind - one that's a little funky and always swings. They can, and this album is a prime example, take music we all know - "Exactly Like You", "Take the A Train", even "Sweet Georgia Brown" for Pete's sake - and give us something new and fine from their renditions.
My copy of this music is the Pure Audiophile limited edition from 2002, remastered from the original analog master tapes - two very high quality 180 gram LP's. They're first rate sonically, but frankly I don't think that adds significantly to the appeal it has for me. I wasn't smart enough to get the original Concord issue, but I suspect I'd have been as fond of it.
The liner notes indicate that Ray had only one song worked out when they went into the studio, his own composition (written the day before) "Mistreated But Undefeated Blues" and the only song where the group is expanded to include a tenor and a guitar. He and Gene picked the rest of the songs in the studio and went with them. One of those included was the Basie tune "Easy Does It". Gene didn't know the song, so Ray sang it for him and that was enough. Ray's explanation for that approach was, "If you plan anything, then it becomes just another commercial gig." What they made was anything but. It's about as spontaneous and swingin a studio session as you'll ever hear.
So that's the one I'd keep - at least if I had to decide today. If you don't already have it, go buy it if you can find it. But before you do, which of your records would you keep if you could only keep one?
(As I'm proofing this, I'm listening to Monk"s "Brilliant Corners" - that premise of giving up all but one sure was a horrible idea even if it did provide a device to use to hold forth about a great recording.)
If, God forbid, you were forced to give up all your recordings but one, which one would you keep? Based on how often I play it and sit smiling, tapping my foot, totally absorbed in the music, I think my choice might be "Soular Energy" - Ray Brown, Gene Harris, and Gerryck King.
The session in August 1984 produced eight tunes most of which everyone knows and only one of which, to my mind, is a loser. Come on, how many albums do you have where you really liked all the music. "Teach Me Tonight" is a loser and I don't care who the musicians are. I can never not hear the stupid lyric in my head, and it drowns out any amount of musical creativity.
At the other extreme, is my favorite of the tunes, "Cry Me a River" - a truly great song by Arthur Hamilton which among its other virtues includes the best rhyme in all of jazz - "You said that love was too plebian, you said that you were through with me and......"
Gene Harris is one of my favorite jazz pianists, but more importantly, he seems to have been Ray Brown's too and the two of them play together as though they shared a single mind - one that's a little funky and always swings. They can, and this album is a prime example, take music we all know - "Exactly Like You", "Take the A Train", even "Sweet Georgia Brown" for Pete's sake - and give us something new and fine from their renditions.
My copy of this music is the Pure Audiophile limited edition from 2002, remastered from the original analog master tapes - two very high quality 180 gram LP's. They're first rate sonically, but frankly I don't think that adds significantly to the appeal it has for me. I wasn't smart enough to get the original Concord issue, but I suspect I'd have been as fond of it.
The liner notes indicate that Ray had only one song worked out when they went into the studio, his own composition (written the day before) "Mistreated But Undefeated Blues" and the only song where the group is expanded to include a tenor and a guitar. He and Gene picked the rest of the songs in the studio and went with them. One of those included was the Basie tune "Easy Does It". Gene didn't know the song, so Ray sang it for him and that was enough. Ray's explanation for that approach was, "If you plan anything, then it becomes just another commercial gig." What they made was anything but. It's about as spontaneous and swingin a studio session as you'll ever hear.
So that's the one I'd keep - at least if I had to decide today. If you don't already have it, go buy it if you can find it. But before you do, which of your records would you keep if you could only keep one?
(As I'm proofing this, I'm listening to Monk"s "Brilliant Corners" - that premise of giving up all but one sure was a horrible idea even if it did provide a device to use to hold forth about a great recording.)