Track Listing

1. From the Heart
2. I've Got News for You
3. Moanin'
4. Let's Go
5. One Mint Julep
6. I'm Gonna Move to the Outskirts of Town
7. Stompin' Room Only
8. Mister C.
9. Strike up the Band
10. Birth of the Blues
11. Golden Boy
12. Booty-Butt
13. This Here
14. I Remember Clifford
15. Sidewinder
16. Bluesette
17. Pas-Se-O-Ne Blues
18. Zig Zag
19. Angel City
20. Se�or Blues

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #28472 in Music
• Released on: 1997-06-10
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered

Album Description
Charles' only all-instrumental LPs on one CD! 1961's Genius + Soul = Jazz is a big band jazz workout featuring the Count Basie Band and arrangements from Quincy Jones. It includes the Top 10 hit "One Mint Julep." The proto-acid jazz of 1970's My Kind Of Jazz contains the funky hit single "Booty-Butt." Digitally remastered for best-ever sound!

Living Blues
Quincy Jones supplied the Latin-tempo arrangement for [Charles].... Two brilliant big band blues ... are the epitome of hip. For this CD reissue ... [they have] added another entire LP ... but it's not as good as its discmate.

Customer Reviews

One good one, one not so good
Genius + Soul is fantastic! Ray Charles on the B-3-what more do you need to know? If you do need to know more, it features players like Clark Terry, Thad Jones, Fathead Newman, Frank Foster and Roy Haynes-- in fact, on some of the tracks the band is the then-current version of the Basie band, minus the Count of course --with arrangements by Quincy Jones and someone named Ralph Burns, who is just as good. It rocks. It's too bad Ray doesn't sing more-just on I've Got News for You, I'm Gonna Move to the Outskirts of Town and sort of on One Mint Julip--but still, this is as soulful as jazz gets.

On the other hand, My Kind of Jazz is clearly filler, which Rhino, to its credit, pretty much admits. There are extensive new notes on Genius + Soul written for the 16 page booklet included with this reissue, including comments on every track, but on My Kind of Jazz there are all of two paragraphs (the first paragraph starts "With the added space available in the CD format"-in other words, we had some extra space to fill). It's pretty good if you're a fan of big band music, kinda got a little funk goin' on, although not nearly as much soul or blues feel as Genius + Soul, and other then Blue Mitchell I've never heard of the players (the drummer is listed as "unknown"). But you'd never know this was a Ray Charles album. His piano is low in the mix, and his few solos are undermiked and unusually tentative-sounding. And in general it's a little on the generic side, unlike Genius + Soul, which is Ray all the way, vocals or no.

I still gave it the whole CD four stars because Genius + Soul is just so damn good.

Swinging, funky, and so very cool
This (Genuis+Soul=Jazz) is just a great big-band, swingin' blues album. it's well-produced, the Quincy Jones and Ralph Burns arrangements are perfect, and Ray plays the organ in an individual, bop-tinged style with just a hint of Jimmy Smith (see also Genuis of Ray Charles for more great keys work). Addictive.

Another masterpiece from the legendary Ray Charles
What can I say? Ray Charles is kickin' it with my man Quincy Jones on this one. It's full of jazz, blues, funky R&B and a lot of flavor from the big bands. This is more of a jazz/big band album since Quincy Jones 1969-70 classic WALKING IN SPACE.
A must-have.