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01 April 2010

Ray Charles Ft. In Quincy Jones - A Celebration In Seattle (1983)

On 12 and 13 March Quincy Jones celebrated his 50th birthday with two benefit concerts for Seattle's Garfield Highschool and Seattle Central Community College (cf. this), both with Ray Charles.
That year, probably also in March, Seattle TV station KOMO broadcast  Quincy Jones - A Celebration In Seattle, a concert taping directed by Charlie Randazzo. William Boyd was concert master.
Quincy brought together many of the musicians and singers he had played with in Seattle 30 to 33 years before. We see Quincy Jones and Phillip Ingram, Phillip Perry, Charles May, John Robinson, Carlos Rios, Ollie Brown, Greg Phillinganes, Michael Stewart, Ernie Watts, Larry Williams, Kim Hutchcroft, Jerry Hey, Michael Boddicker, Malcolm Robertson, Gary Grant, Bill Reichenbach, James Ingram, Nathan East, and Edie Lehmann.

Ray played One Mint Julep (with a Seattle! shout), and sang a very tearful version of I Can't Stop Loving You. As an extra surprise, Quincy brought Bumps Blackwell, Floyd Standifer, Buddy Catlett, Major Pickford and Ernestine Anderson on stage, presenting them, together with Ray, as a reunion of a typical show at the Washington Social Club "in 1947 or 1948" [this should be 1948 or 1949, BS], where they made some extra money through the 'Kitty Box', where guests would put in an extra quarter for any request that was fulfilled by the musicians. The reunited group, together with Quincy and Ray, performed Poor Butterfly.

The concert was released two times on VHS: by VC II (#VC133, 1985) and by Front Row Video, 15 November 1990, ASIN: 630191239X.
In the 1984 documentary I Love Quincy the concert was covered by footage taken from a contemporary news cast, with a few precious seconds shot backstage, where you can see Ray (playing organ standing up), the 'reunion' group described above rehearsing the Butterfly song.

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