The Genius

Two paragraphs about Ray Charles, who passed away yesterday at the age of 73 (from foxnews.com):

After he was sent away, heartbroken, to the
state-supported St. Augustine School for the Deaf
and the Blind, Charles learned to read and write
music in Braille, score for big bands and play
instruments - lots of them, including trumpet,
clarinet, organ, alto sax and the piano.

His early influences were myriad: Chopin and
Sibelius, the Grand Ole Opry, the powerhouse big
bands of Duke Ellington and Count Basie, jazz
greats Art Tatum and Artie Shaw.


And:

"Learning to read music in Braille and play by ear helped me develop a damn good memory. I can sit at my desk and write a whole arrangement in my head and never touch the piano. I bring in a sighted person and I dictate the notes, what kind of notes, where they're supposed to be, for what instrument, whether there's an F, whether it's a quarter note, whether it's an eighth note, a dotted quarter or whatever. I dictate the notes right here at my desk, and I never move because I play the piano, so I know what the chords are going to be.

I know what the structure is, I know how I want it to sound, and I can hear it in my head. But I have to remember what I had the reed section doing, what I had the trumpet section doing, and so on. If you're going to write an arrangement you've got to remember all those things.... "