How lucky was I on Monday 9/25 to be handed the advanced copy of this CD. It looked to be great so I put it on my player and WOW. These are never before heard archival cuts of Ray singing with the Count Basie Orchestra (CBO). The producers of this CD discovered these old tapes of Ray and the CBO performing live in 1973. Although the vocals were still rich sounding the CBO backup wasn’t. So they brought in the new CBO to painstakingly set new tracks to the old but classic Ray vocals.

This is the first and only recording of Ray with the CBO. All really great cuts, but my favorites are cut s 4 and 8. Later I found out cut 4 was arranged by Quincy Jones “Nuff” said.

This CD is due out 10/3/06 at all great music outlets and of course your favorite Starbucks, yes Starbucks the coffee guys - GET IT on Tuesday.

1 – Oh What A Beautiful Morning – Easy swing tune with nice
2 – Let The Good Times Roll – Great horns in this swinger and a B3 for a bonus
3 – How Long Has This Been Going On? – Huge trumpet intro terrific ballad
4 – Every Saturday Night - Ray counts down a “funk beat blues”, Good Mojo
5 – Busted – A remake of Ray’s classic 50’s hit Solid
6 – Cryin’ Time – This is a classic Ray cut and better with Basie behind it
7 – I Can’t Stop Lovin’ You – Swingin’ blues on a Ray standard
8 – Come Live With Me – Slow dancin’ to this blues or just get lost in it with Ray
9 – Feel So Bad – Ray can sing and groove the blues with this classic blues cut
10 – The Long and Winding Road – A wonderful rendition of this Beatle’s hit. Wow
11 – Look What They’ve Done to My Song Ma – You won’t believe the cool on this one
12 - Georgia On My Mind – One more time and worth every note. Outstanding as usual