Ray Charles – Genius Loves Company (SACD)
PCM 2.0 Stereo: B
DSD 5.1: A- Extras: C Music: B+
It is with some irony that like Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles
has his first huge hit album in decades with a set of duets and then also
passes away. A big hit for the great
Jazz label Concord, Genius Loves Company (2004) nearly hit the top of
the national album charts and proved once again that the buying public is tired
of the no-talents the major labels keep peddling. The question many wonder is if the disc is worth getting. Especially when it is available in a great
hybrid SACD edition like this one, the answer is a definite yes.
Charles still had his voice and it was actually more
nuanced than ever, all the more reason it is so shocking he is gone, because no
sign of ill health can be detected on the following tracks:
1)
Here We Go Again with Norah Jones
2)
Sweet Potato Pie with James Taylor
3)
You Don’t Know Me with Diana Krall
4)
Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word with
Elton John
5)
Fever with Natalie Cole
6)
Do I Ever Cross Your Mind with
Bonnie Raitt
7)
It Was A Very Good Year with
Willie Nelson
8)
Hey Girl with Michael McDonald
9)
Sinner’s Prayer with B.B. King (plus
Billy Preston)
10)
Heaven Help
Us with Gladys Knight
11)
Over The
Rainbow with Johnny Mathis
12)
Crazy Love with Van
Morrison live
Needless to say the guests give the best performances they
can, all big fans of the legend that all owe him some degree of thanks for
building the very industry they have thrived in. If the diversity of talents was not enough, Charles ability to
transcend genres is as unbelievable as always, morphing into the acoustic world
of James Taylor, going Gospel with Gladys Knight, meeting in an unusual Blues
world with Elton John, getting deeply Blue with fellow pioneer B.B. King,
joining Michael McDonald in his recent cycle of revisiting Pop & Soul
classics of the 1960s and 1970s, easing into a Frank Sinatra classic with
Willie Nelson, and fitting into the Rock/Jazz world of Van Morrison as an
appropriate rounding out of the set. He
also scores well with the newer vocalists, but his passing makes all this all
the more poignant. The songs hold up
after several listens and are some of the more pleasant alternate sets of these
hits that you are likely to hear. It is
special, of the moment and the quality lives up to its commercial success.
The hybrid SACD offers a strong PCM 2.0 Stereo CD layer
and a more impressive Direct Stream Digital 5.1 mix that brings out these
recent recordings very well, the kind of newer artistic and commercial success
the format and 5.1 music in general needed.
Though a CD-only version is also produced, this will play on all CD
players, just not some DVD-Video players, which is why the CD-only version is
also produced. The producer is Concord
Records’ own John Burk, but Phil Ramone produced some of the songs (namely
tracks 4, 5, 6, and 12) and there is just something about everything he
produces that tends to lend itself to multi-channel playback. Despite some limitations, this is why the
multi-channel SACDs of his brilliant Billy Joel albums The Stranger and 52nd
Street are still two of the best (and my favorite) back catalog albums in
the format. Burk and Concord are
supporting the audiophile format in a way it needs and deserves. Ramone just continues his extraordinary
record of ace production and this all makes for a fine demonstration of how
good 5.1 music can really be, so audiophile fans who may only be interested if
this is a sonically superior presentation should get a copy immediately.
In an amusing twist, with so many videophiles in the press
complaining about SACDs not having any video, this disc offers footage via the
Enhanced CD format that is simply CD-ROM on an audio CD. It translates just fine here, including footage
of Charles form a 1985 shoot by photographer Norman Seeff that makes for a nice
bonus. Though a DVD-Audio can fit more
footage, this debunks the myth that SACD cannot offer any. The Taylor Hackford film Ray (2004)
with Jamie Foxx’s uncanny performance will inspire more people to seek out
Charles’ many extraordinary recordings, and Genius Loves Company is a
late, great collection (much like Marvin Gaye’s Midnight Love late in
his career) that should be celebrated for years to come.
- Nicholas Sheffo
