Jazz recommendations (Part 2)

3) Nina Simone - Pirate Jenny (4:46)
This passionate song has a bit of an odd lyrical track - Nina's singing the part of a pirate girl who's working as a servant, but musically it's stunning. There's only piano and percussion accompanying her, and even the percussion barely uses any cymbals. Instead, all we hear all the way through are muted toms or pauses from the percussionist, but the rhythms and dynamics are so cleverly done and passionately played that you can just sit back and listen to the percussion if you wanted.
However, good luck doing that, because the constant shock of the discordant piano throughout is really quite hard to ignore. It's one of the hardest tricks in music to compose an entire piece out of discords, and I haven't heard it done this well except by Claude Debussy - thanks to this, the overall air of the song is intense and dramatic.
Not traditional Nina Simone, for that try something like Ain't Got No/Got No Life or I Put A Spell On You - but really highly recommended all the same.

4) Ray Charles - One Mint Julep (3:05)
A mint julep, by the way, is a cocktail from the southern USA. This song was originally recorded by The Clovers, but Ray's interpretation of it is a real masterpiece.
The introduction is stunning, with four or five brass/reed parts overlaying one another in a veritable orgasm of counterpoint. Ray soon joins in, and throughout the song plays an organ instead of his usual piano, but does a great job of doing so. The trademark pauses with indecipherable vocal fills are all present and correct.
Lots of very bluesy and laid back organ playing, reminiscent of something like Green Onions, but with passion added from the many layers of brass combines to make a very memorable and fun song - again, a bit different from traditional Ray Charles, but still one to get.

Part 1 can be found here.