“For Her”
Song by Ray Charles
With his jazz ensemble, Ray Charles recorded Alf Clausen’s “For Her” on his 1975 album My Kind Of Jazz Part 3. Over six minutes, “For Her” is both smooth and spectral, with an untroubled, cheerful vibe throughout.
Clausen, later the house composer for The Simpsons, was in the 1970s a writer of television scores as well as regular jazz music. Ray Charles had first recorded an Alf Clausen tune in 1970, and “For Her” was the first of two of the composer’s pieces on My Kind Of Jazz Part 3, the other being “Samba De Elencia”.
“For Her” is hung on a tentative-sounding, spidery frame. The entire performance by Ray and his band is an exploration of the shadows and fissures built into the empty, airy space between the notes. Lazy horns pin spiky melodies on the beat, like scarves draped haphazardly over furniture. A light hi-hat keeps very discreet time underneath it all.
The piece never shies away from its true self: that is, a finger-snapping, idiosyncratic, but always genial slice of popular jazz. It’s good-natured, but cool, like a character-developing montage on a mid-1970s cop show. The mustachioed officer walks down the street, has lunch, gets giggled at by girls, slaps handcuffs on a bad guy, adjusts his shoulder holster… all to the tune of “For Her”.
As with much of his 1970s jazz albums, Ray Charles himself is merely a catalyst on “For Her” and doesn’t insert himself as a soloist or even an overriding part of the band at all. His role comes in the choice of material, the arrangement and selection of players, and the mixing and production.
Magnanimously for a Ray release, the LP features soloist credits for some of its songs, including “For Her”: John “Little Johnny C” Coles (misspelled “Cole”) adds a trumpet solo, while the trombone’s turn is handled by Glenn Childress.
Listen to “For Her”
Songs on My Kind Of Jazz Part 3