THE RED HOT RAY BROWN TRIO

Artist: RAY BROWN TRIO

Album: THE RED HOT RAY BROWN TRIO

Label: Concord Jazz Records

Format: MP3@320 kbps

Sound Quality: FULL

Size: 100,81 MB
Time 44:19

Type: Album

Country: USA

Release Date: 1987

Genre: JAZZ

Bassist Ray Brown's 1985 trio (featuring pianist Gene Harris and drummer Mickey Roker) is heard in fine form throughout this swinging set. In addition to five standards and Brown's own blues "Captain Bill," there are a couple of unlikely but successful selections: Tyree Glenn's "How Could You Do a Thing Like This to Me" and "Love Me Tender." Although there is actually only one blues among the eight numbers, Gene Harris infuses all of the selections with the feeling of the blues and consistently steals the show. ~ Scott Yanow

Ray Brown Trio (Bass): Gene Harris (piano); Ray Brown (double bass); Mickey Roker (drums).

Track Listing:

1. Have You Met Miss Jones?

2. Meditation

3. Street of Dreams

4. Lady Be Good

5. That's All

6. Love Me Tender

7. How Could You Do a Thing Like This to Me?

8. Captain Bill

This Is A Great "Live" Trio Set

September 4, 2007

By Robert J. Ament "papacoolbreeze" (Ballwin, MO United States)

This review is from: Red Hot Ray Brown Trio (Audio CD)

"Recorded at the Blue Note in New York City in 1985. The recording engineering is excellent to the extent that everytime I hear this I feel that I'm indeed sitting in the club during the performance.

This is one of those in my LP collection that I was long overdue in converting to CD (I have kept my vinyl in excellent condition and ,yes, I prefer the cd format for documentation purposes!).

Leader Ray Brown I always referred to as the "all univers bassist" because of his huge and comfortable sound and his ability to interact and enhance the performance of his companion players. His supportive talents are evident throughout the whole album, but never more than "That's All" which also contains some beautiful time shifts. Listen to the room expression of appreciation during and after this one! Ray also has some terrific intros on "Lady Be Good" and his original, "Captain Bill", where he cleverly inserts a few notes of "Chloe". An example of his fine arco bass playing is on the title song from the 1956 Elvis Presley movie "Love Me Tender".

Gene Harris, whose career revival was largely attributable to Ray, was an Oscar Peterson influenced pianist who(my opinion) was a superlative practitioner of the blues, frquently displaying a funky overtone. He was also very under rated in his abilty to play an excuciatingly beautiful ballad. A perfect example of this occurs with Victor Young's "Street of Dreams" which starts out as a ballad and transitions briefly into hard blues before segueing back into the ballad. Note also on this selection the fine accompanying bass work by Ray Brown. The influence of Erroll Garner on Gene really comes through on Tyree Glenn's composition, "How Could You Do A Thing Like This To Me".

The trio is rounded out by Mickey Roker, a veteran drummer who has played over the years with a host of name players, his work with Ray and Milt Jackson being most familiar to me. His work can best be appreciated on "Meditation" and his brush work especially on both "Street of Dreams" and "That's All".

"Captain Bill", a tribute to Count Basie", is the closer to this happy set complete to the ending Basie signature by Gene Harris.

This is a cd you will be glad to have added to your collection!"