Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Brother Ray's Funky Booty

The Ray Charles Orchestra - Booty Butt

Ray Charles' instrumentals are generally overlooked in the assessment of his magnificent career, but they are worth checking out. His jazz-oriented recordings for Atlantic, ABC-Impulse and Tangerine are very good and today's selection, which was released on Tangerine in 1969 (or was it 1970?), is one of my favorites. "Booty Butt" is a slinky number with just a touch of funk to keep things moving. The song never breaks too much of a sweat, although the sultry sax solos pick up intensity while Ray and the band play and vocalise a churchy background riff. Eventually Ray breaks out into a pretty nonsensical lyric, but when it's all said and done the guitar lick that starts the song takes it to the close. It's jazz you can feel.

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