Say It With Music – RAY CONNIFF****

Besame Mucho/Stranger In Paradise/Summertime/I’ve Got You Under My Skin/Too Young/Softly As In A Morning Sunrise/Just One Of Those Things/Deep Purple/Brazil/Night & Day/Temptation/Say It With Music

With Say It With Music Ray Conniff introduced a Latin beat to some old Gershwin and Irving Berlin standards to register his highest placing on the US album chart. (US:4)

“Say It With Music presents a slightly different Conniff, exploring the Latin flavour that would soon become so popular with American listeners, dancers and musicians. It also ventures into an area where many pop artists still fear to go, the dark world of minor keys. The opener, Besame Mucho, lays it on the line: an urgent, insistent rhythm pattern, crackling brass, dramatic crescendo to a lover's plea. Gershwin's Summertime fairly drips with old Charleston's heat but still produces that soothing, tomorrow's-gonna-be-OK feeling.”

“If you enjoy the melodies of George Gershwin and Irving Berlin done with a Latin beat then this is the Ray Conniff LP for you. The orchestra and voices blend together for an uptempo twelve tune set. Night & Day and Deep Purple are my favourites.”

“Say It With Music was something of a departure for Ray in that he introduced his Latin-flamenco guitar device with resounding success. These renditions prove Conniff's mettle as a skilful and innovative arranger. The sound is big band, the production values are impeccable, and the rhythms are infectious. One of Conniff's superior productions.”

“This album offers really great songs with some of the best dance band arrangements I've ever heard. Conniff melds a lively Latin tinged band with wordless voices singing harmony with trumpets and trombones. This isn't truly swing, and it's not the easy listening music that the Conniff sound later degenerated into, but it's a nifty fusion of the two, with emphasis on the swing. I can't recommend this highly enough.”

“This is the real original Ray, the one who invented a new way of 'using' an orchestra: wordless voices perfectly blended with instruments to create a unique wonderful sound. The arrangements are not at all repetitive, but what is repetitive is the wonderful sound they generate.”