Ray Charles’ first European performance at the 1961 Antibes Jazz Festival would prove to be one of the pivotal moments in his storied career. In fact, in July 1961 one would have been hard-pressed to think of any other musician, popular or otherwise, who had achieved so much on so many different levels — socio/political, business and musical — in the previous two years and this performance marked the beginning of Charles’ ascent to international superstardom.
The Antibes performance was very strong and presented a wide-angle take on the range of Charles’ musical interests and proclivities featuring jazz, blues, Tin Pan Alley pop, Latin rhythms and gospel-inflected R&B. There wasn’t another artist alive at the time that had this broad of a palette and is shown here in the classics Georgia On My Mind, Let The Good Times Roll and What’d I Say.