Barnes & Noble
Ray Charles meets Count Basie? Well, not quite. In this technological masterwork, tapes of Charles’ vocals from 1970s-era live performances have been digitally married to contemporary studio performances by the Basie band. That’s the current Basie band, with no sign of the long-departed leader and hardly any of the established band members who brought this venerable swing unit to fame. Caveats about billing and authenticity aside, this project works beautifully on its own 21st-century terms. Charles is in spectacular voice, giving soulful and nuanced readings to some of his signature songs, while the Basie band proves that swinging is still in its genetic makeup. The technological union sounds flawless, as do the new arrangements; the band always supporting Charles, never drawing attention away from his incomparable singing. Glorious versions of “The Long and Winding Road,” “Busted,” “Georgia,” and others demonstrate how vital Charles remained some four decades into his amazing career. Studio wizardry has rarely paid off so well. Steve Futterman
All Music Guide
Ray Sings, Basie Swings, huh? Hmm, well, yes and no. You see, the story goes something like this. In 2005, Concord Records exec John Burk, who produced Ray Charles' superb late-career, Grammy-winning Genius Loves Company, found a reel of tape simply labeled "Ray/Basie." Upon further analysis, it was determined that the 1973 recording featured Ray Charles backed by his own band -- Count Basie and his band had actually recorded earlier that day. Charles' vocal was exceptionally prominent in the mix and at first it was thought that this potentially momentous discovery would prove unable to bear fruit. But then Burk brainstormed and decided to bring the current Count Basie Orchestra -- whose leader died in 1984 -- into the studio to lay tracks behind Charles' vocals. So there's no Basie on Ray Sings, Basie Swings, but that's merely a technicality, because there is some great music. Charles was in fine form vocally on this mix of remakes of his early ABC-Paramount-era hits and then-recent material. The consecutive reworkings of "Busted," "Cryin' Time," and "I Can't Stop Loving You," three of his defining Top Ten hits of the early '60s, are given brassy, bluesy treatments here, and standards ranging from Oscar Hammerstein II's "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning" to the Beatles' "The Long and Winding Road" are transformed in Charles' hands. The set-closing "Georgia on My Mind," as close to a signature song as Charles had, is given a tender, minimalist reading, but the track preceding it, "Look What They've Done to My Song, Ma," picked up from the folk-pop singer Melanie, is quite possibly the album's highlight. It's appeared on other Ray Charles compilations before, but the gospelized, testifyin' version featured here has got to be the liveliest take on that song anyone's ever devised. So, yeah, there's no Count Basie to be found here, but his namesake orchestra does him proud. For one of those postmortem studio patch jobs that owes as much to technology as talent, it's a fine addition to the Ray Charles oeuvre, as long as one can get past the semi-false advertising of its title. Jeff Tamarkin
San Francisco Chronicle
The results are uniformly strong and superior in some ways to Charles' recordings with his own orchestra. Lee Hildebrand
Newark Star-Ledger
The rhythm and reeds swing slowly around Charles like a new frame for a long-lost Van Gogh; however beautiful that frame and amazing the rescue, it's the stunning emotional richness of the singing that feels like the miracle. Bradley Bambarger
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