The Ray Brown Trio(feat. Gene Harris) - Soular Energy (Jazz, US, 1984)

Whats Hot On The Roddus Stereo!

1. Exactly Like You (McHugh/Fields)
2. Cry Me a River (A.Hamilton)
3. Teach Me Tonight (Cahn/DePaul)
4. Take the "A" Train (B.Strayhorn)
5. Mistreated But Undefeated Blues (R.Brown)
6. That's All (Brandt/Haymes)
7. Easy Does It (Basie/Russel)
8. Sweet Georgia Brown (Bernie/Pinkard/Casey)

Ray Brown / b
Gene Harris / p
Gerryck King / ds
Red Holloway / ts (5)
Emily Remler / g (5)

recorded August, 1984 at Coast Recorders, San Francisco, CA

This little beauty came as a plesent surprise as I got familiar with it over the last few months. I had never heard of Ray Brown and although I do like jazz, its not a form of music I listen to as much as Blues and Rock . I do love jazz in the live context best of all but that is rare round these parts. I picked this up on one of my now infrequent buying binges at a local second hand record store. What attracted me to it was, first the cover(I have brought many albums of unknown quality, over the years, by the look of the cover and my instincts more often than not reward me well) second was that it was a fairly modern recording( I had contempory Jazz in mind as I was browsing) and lastly it was on Concord Jazz( Which I knew to be a lable of Quality).

As usuially happens when I buy something with a whole lot of other stuff, this CD got shelved without a listen for a couple of months untill I rediscovered it and decided it was time for a listen. Initially it was just played as some background music, for which it is ideal as the playing and selection of tracks is smooth and soulful, most of the tracks are well known standards in the jazz world,and the selection is a mix of slow and mid tempo tracks but after a while I started to get drawn in more intimatly to the music and especially the wounderful piano of Gene Harris. This Cd has a laid back feel to it and their interprations of the numbers keeps me interested right the way through. The playing is pretty straight, no out there avant guarde solos and plenty of enjoyable melodies.

This is a highly recommended CD and I give it 4/5.

If you want to listen before you buy check it out here, but it is in FLAC format so it will take a bit to download, but you will get it in top quality