[Dixielandjazz] Ray Charles reviewed

[Robert Ringwald]

Ray Charles: Live 1961 (DVD, £8.99)
by Sharon O'Connell
Time Out (London), November 3, 2011
If all you know of Charles is via Jamie Foxx's (fine) film portrayal, this DVD is
a great introduction to the man, here at his peak with the Raelettes and an eight-piece
band. It consists of restored 16mm footage shot over four nights at the Antibes Jazz
Festival and originally screened on French TV. Twenty-five tracks have been culled
from those programmes to replicate one complete set, and any aural drop-outs were
fixed with the help of the original radio recordings. If that sounds like a labour
of love, it's paid off handsomely. The look is clear and crisp, with plenty of cutaways
to the audience -- lounging on the grass, sat enraptured on fold-up chairs or leaning
against barriers, tapping loafered toes -- creating a vivid sense of time and place.
And the music? As you'd expect of the artist Frank Sinatra once dubbed 'the only
genius in our business', it's suitably amazing, with 'I Believe to My Soul' the absolute
knockout. Extras: none.


--Bob Ringwald
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