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Hallelujah I Love Her So

Come Rain or Come Shine

Unchain My Heart

Cryin’ Time

Losing Hand

Hit The Road Jack

I’m Moving On

Busted

Here We Go Again

Makin’ Whoopie

SwingI Love You So Much (It Hurts)

What’d I Say

Willie Nelson & Wynton Marsalis, featuring Norah Jones

Here We Go Again: Celebrating the Genius of Ray Charles

(Blue Note, 2011)

The first Willie Nelson and Wynton Marsalis album, 2008’s Two Men with the Blues, was recorded live at the Allen Room in Lincoln Center. With Norah Jones along for the ride, the duo recently returned to Lincoln Center’s Rose Theater for another mellow evening of celebratory music, which spawned the new release Here We Go Again: Celebrating the Genius of Ray Charles. As is obvious from the album title, this time the menu was drawn from the catalog of Ray Charles, another restless artist who made music that combined jazz, country, blues, and soul, a sound he practically invented with the groundbreaking crossover smash “What’d I Say.” The charts Marsalis wrote for the tunes, some of them Charles originals and some of them numbers long associated with him, cover the full spectrum of American music.

Things open up with the early Charles hit “Hallelujah, I Love Her So.” Dan Nimmer’s sprightly piano moves from the church to the alleys of New Orleans, with Ali Jackson’s subtle drumming giving the opening verses a jaunty, second line strut. Nelson’s vocal leads into a swinging bridge that gives Marsalis, sax man Walter Blanding, and Nelson’s harmonica player Mickey Raphael a chance to shine. Jackson’s percussion adds a Latin tinge to “Unchain My Heart.” He takes a tasty solo halfway through the tune, playing the tom toms like timbales. Raphael’s harmonica is pure country but works amazingly well against the bolero beat.

The Hank Snow chestnut “I’m Movin’ On” is usually played against a chugging rhythm that suggests a train rolling down the tracks, but Jackson’s drums and the swinging bass of Henriquez give the tune a boogaloo backbeat. The ensemble takes “Busted” back to the church, with Nimmer’s tinkling piano supporting a weary vocal exchange between Nelson and Marsalis.

Norah Jones shows off her impressive interpretative chops on three smoky ballads and a swinging standard. She purrs her way through “Come Rain or Come Shine”, supported by the sparse bass of Carlos Henriquez and Nimmer’s subtle piano. “Cryin’ Time”, the Buck Owens hit Charles made into a standard, is delivered as a simmering duet between Jones and Nelson. Their restrained vocals are both bluesy and playful with the band masterfully injecting brief jazzy solos into the body of the tune. Jones and Nelson turn up the heat on “Here We Go Again”, on which Nimmer plays late night country-style piano to support solos from Marsalis, Nelson’s acoustic guitar, and Raphael’s harp. Nimmer’s piano supports Jones on the opening verses of “Makin’ Whoopie”, an ironic song that describes the rise and fall of a relationship, from happy marriage to divorce in a handful of succinct verses. Marsalis and Blanding trade solos before Henriquez comes in for an extended stand-up bass excursion.

Jones, Nelson, Marsalis, and the entire ensemble take it home with “What’d I Say”, probably the best-known tune Charles ever wrote. They stay close to the original arrangement with Nimmer’s piano, adding his inventive variations on Charles’ original lines with plenty of right-hand trills and left-handed rhythm accents. The vocals are a bit laidback compared to the original, but the band’s blazing energy make up the slack, a fitting closure to an altogether compelling musical homage.

Watch: The making of Here We Go Again: Celebrating the Genius of Ray Charles.