Ray Sings, "Basie" Swings, We're All Winners

As we were finishing our morning swim commute yesterday, KBCS played a fantastically incongruous tune: Oh What a Beautiful Morning. And it was Oh What an Awesome Rendition by Ray Charles and the Count Basie Orchestra.

It's pretty sweet--Charles starts slow on the "Oh the cattle are standing like statues part" and the songs kicks in on the title line. Good times. Our commute finished just when the song did. We were smiling all day.

But wait, we thought. When did Ray Charles record with Count Basie? As it turns out, never. This is Ray circa 1973 with the 1973 music stripped and new arrangements inserted by the current Count Basie Orchestra.

Predictably, music purists are annoyed, including Amazon's Lloyd Sachs, but to us this is like putting a new frame around the Mona Lisa. Maybe the arrangements aren't the greatest (they sound pretty good to us, but we're no expert), but, hey, it's still the Mona Lisa.