Just Roll With It

The Genius of Ray Charles is a 1959 album by Ray Charles. In 2003, the album was ranked number 263 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. Some players from Ray Charles' big band are joined by many ringers from the Count Basie and Duke Ellington bands for the first half of this program, featuring Charles belting out six songs arranged by Quincy Jones. "Let the Good Times Roll" and "Deed I Do" are highlights, and there are solos by tenorman David "Fathead" Newman, trumpeter Marcus Belgrave, and (on "Two Years of Torture") tenor Paul Gonsalves. The remaining six numbers are ballads, with Charles backed by a string orchestra arranged by Ralph Burns. Charles' voice is heard throughout in peak form, giving soul to even the veteran standards.

Finally, a non-bootleg issue of one of Miles Davis' greatest electric performances ever. In fact this is the very first of the Miles Davis Quintet's electric gigs - it was also one of the last four performances of this great band. Not just recorded, but performed. The band, consisting of Davis, Wayne Shorter on soprano and tenor, Chick Corea on Fender Rhodes, Dave Holland on both acoustic and electric bass, and Jack DeJohnette on drums. With percussionist Airto Moreira providing color and texture, the band became a sextet. This night is auspicious because audiences - most of which were there to see the Steve Miller Band or Neil Young and Crazy Horse (Davis' group opened for both) - were familiar with the electric side of Davis because In a Silent Way had been issued late in 1969 and had introduced the world to John McLaughlin. Bitches Brew, which had been recorded the summer before, would be released a month after these concerts, and an unsuspecting rock audience had no idea what to expect…

In a way, the Ramones are an ideal band to anthologize. No matter how cohesive their records were (or not), their albums always played like collections of singles and since singles are easy to anthologize, it stands to reason that the best of the Ramones' songs will sound good in nearly any context; hell, the haphazard Ramones Mania proved that. However, Rhino's double-disc Hey! Ho! Let's Go: Ramones Anthology has much greater goals than being just another collection – it strives to be the final word on the Ramones.