A Brand New Day (With Stevie Wonder, Patti Austin, James Ingram; Ray Charles On Piano)

Unreleased.

On December 2, 2001 Ray participated (a bit) in the performance of this song, the grand finale of the 24th Kennedy Center Celebration, honoring Quincy Jones.

(Starts at 17:06):

My Buddy

Album3: Quincy Jones, Q - The Musical Biography, Rhino R2 74363-2, 1991.
DVD: Quincy Jones & Claude Nobs Present: Montreux Jazz Festival 1991 & 1992, Montreux, S.a. (track #20).

In the 1984 documentary I Love Quincy, the protagonist surprised the film makers by giving them a tape that he had just found back, advising them to let Ray Charles listen to it, and to film that. On the tape we hear Ray, sitting in a hotel room, briefing Quincy on arranging a few songs for his album The Genius Of Ray Charles, from 1959. One of the tunes is My Buddy (which didn't make it to any recording at that time). Ray, on camera, finally does an unplugged My Buddy, that Quincy wanted to use for the documentary's sound score.

Ray's arrangement suggestion for Quincy (as presented on Pure Genius):


Remarkably, there is also an audiotape of a working session (probably from the early 1970s), where Feller and Charles discussed and worked on the arrangement of the song...

The next thing we know, is that Ray played the song during the 1991 Montreux Festival, that was programmed and presented by Q. This version, so far, was only released as part of Q - The Musical Biography (30 seconds of that can be listened to here).

Montreux '91:


Finally, Ray performed the song - in an even frailer mode - at Q's Kennedy Center honoring in 2001:

Ray & Stevie Honoring Quincy At 24th Kennedy Center Celebration (2001)

On December 2, 2001 Quincy Jones was one of the recipients of the 24th Kennedy Center Honors (together with Julie Andrews, Van Cliburn, Jack Nicholson and Luciano Paverotti).
At the gala, the audience was treated to a duet by Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles, singing Let The Good Times Roll. Charles also sang My Buddy. The Genius also contributed a few piano notes to A Brand New Day (performed by Patti Austin, James Ingram and Stevie).
The show was broadcast on December 26, 2001 by CBS.
The LA Times wrote, "But on a night of seemingly endless standing ovations, the only tribute that really gets everyone from Laura Bush to Secretary of State Colin Powell moving in their seats is the last, for Jones. The segment, featuring Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles, not only affirms Jones' influence on pop music but also something about the arts: that there is more joy in the doing than the congratulating."
A DVD copy of the show is for sale here.

My Buddy:

Let The Good Times Roll:

A Brand New Day (starts at 17:06):