Ray Charles distrusted people, naturally. But it was, well, eye-opening to realize how his blindness lead to his distrust.
We recently had a chance to re-review the movie-biography of Ray Charles, simply called “Ray.” It holds up well. It shows that his generally unknown level of distrust manifested itself mostly in financial matters. Early on Ray Charles demanded that he be paid for his musical performances in $1 bills so he could count them himself and be sure of the total. But even then, his self-selected “manager” — an older black woman with a sexual and financial interest in the talented young pianist — was taking advantage of his blindness. Soon the savvy Charles had extended his distrust to all of his managers. Then he decided to become his own manager.
The movie captures Charles’ distrust very well, adding several other vivid elements to the capsule biography. The sets and casting are well done, particularly during the early days in the 40s and 50s — based, at least, on my own experience as a beer-dive and audition/studio backup pianist for several years in the late 60s in southern cities like Pascagoula, Mobile, Dauphin Island, Biloxi, Gulfport and the French Quarter in New Orleans. (I was stationed at Keesler AFB in Biloxi from 1968 to 1973 and often moonlighted as a musician.)
There are also some very funny scenes.
In one scene towards the end of the film, the camera pans away from a large, Montovani-style violin orchestra. At first, you wonder if the projection room has suddenly switched reels; it was jarring. Then as some whitebread singers kick in, you realize that the schmaltzy strings are playing the introductory bars of “Georgia On My Mind.” The camera slowly pans over to Ray Charles sitting at a white gilt-edged Liberace-style grand piano with candelabra in front of a huge string section of violinists dressed in tuxedos, and Jamie Foxx, lip-syncing Ray Charles, breaks into Charles’ signature tune. The Liberace-style kitsch is such a jolting mood change, both for the movie to that point as well as for Ray’s earlier music career, that the scene makes you laugh. What is this? Has some corporate suit forced the down-home rhythm and blues musician into this grotesque anodyne arrangement just to make money from the larger white audience?
Then as the camera continues to pan farther back, one of Ray’s many girlfriends appears in the recording room scene, walks up to one of Ray’s long-time associates and quietly asks, “What’s with this?” Ray’s associate shrugs and replies: “It was Ray’s idea.”
This simple scene effectively shows that Ray Charles had made himself into a unique combination of old-school Republican businessman/salesman/promoter and musical genius. The scene was perfectly constructed to make that point.
Another important feature of ‘Ray’ was that, like most men, Ray Charles was defined largely by the women in his life — his mother, his wife, his many girlfriends and mistresses, his backup singers the Raylettes, etc. All of the women cast for these roles gave excellent, very believable performances. In fact, while Jamie Foxx was good in the title role, the supporting actresses seemed even better in their attitude, energy, look, talent, and intensity of attraction to Ray Charles.
The film even manages to work in some extemporaneous un-PC blind jokes and anecdotes.
I don’t remember the blind jokes in the film off-hand. But I do remember a great old anecdote about the greatest pianist who ever lived, Art Tatum, who, like Ray Charles, was blind.
When Art Tatum was a teenager growing up in Toledo, Ohio, he and his brother were pulled over by a white Toledo cop for speeding. As a prank, Art and his brother switched places just after pulling over. When the cop walked up to the car, he asked the blind Tatum, “Do you know how fast you were going?” The 16-year old Tatum replied deadpan: “I can’t even see the speedometer, officer.” The officer wasn’t amused, and asked for some ID. Ray supplied the ID and the officer recognized his name — Tatum already had a local reputation in Toledo for his backup appearances on a popular weekly radio music show and his many club performances as a performer and accompanist. “You’re Art Tatum?,” asked the cop. “Yes,” replied a no-longer joking Tatum. The cop then let the Tatum brothers go with a warning — after accepting Tatum’s invitation to an upcoming performance.
The movie even had a brief scene where a young Ray Charles enters a Harlem jazz club where Art Tatum was on the stage. Ray recognizes him, correctly, with awe — Tatum was the apotheosis of the 40s jazz piano world. But the guy who was portraying Tatum was not very good. He wasn’t playing anything, just noodling in random 64th notes up and down the keyboard. The scene was too short too, making it impossible to comprehend Charles’ reverential reaction to being in the same room with The Great One.
In fact, the movie missed its opportunity to show that Charles could play jazz piano with the best of them. There wasn’t even a hint of Charles’s top notch instrumental jazz piano skill, inspired by Tatum and others. Of course, Charles’s few jazz recordings never made the money that the more popular genres did.
Also noteworthy was the way director Taylor Hackford recreated what were originally improvised scenes and made them seem as if they were being made up on the spot. Anyone who remembers the “improvisational” street dancing scene in the underappreciated 80s movie “Tap” will know what I’m talking about.
Tough as the film is on Charles’s drug abuse and womanizing, to his additional, posthumous credit, Ray Charles approved the screenplay and casting in advance before he died. He wanted the film to be honest, like himself.
Another flaw was the flashback dream scene toward the end where Foxx plays a sighted but younger Charles. It just doesn’t work. Without his eye-prosthetic or shades, you see that it’s Jamie Foxx playing Ray Charles and are reminded that you’re watching a movie. Bummer.
But overall “Ray” is an outstanding film biography of the best performer of his generation.
“The way I see it, we’re actors, but musical ones,” Charles once said. “We’re doing it with notes, and lyrics with notes, telling a story. I can take an audience and get ‘em into a frenzy so they’ll almost riot, and yet I can sit there so you can almost hear a pin drop.”
The movie can too.
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