This follow-up to Willie Nelson and Wynton Marsalis's 2008 Blue Note album, Two Men With the Blues, sees the duo celebrating the legacy of the great Ray Charles. Recorded over two nights in February 2009 at New York City's Jazz at Lincoln Center, Marsalis arranges the song list in a loosely programmatic fashion, such that the 12-track collection describes the dramatic arc of a love affair: from enchantment to break-up to rapprochement. Given Charles's genre-defying credo – an artist equally at home in soul, R&B, country, jazz and pop – it's entirely fitting that the songs are delivered in such a wide array of styles. The album's lead-off song, ‘Hallelujah I Love Her So’, switches seamlessly from a gospel 2-beat feel to boogaloo to 4/4 swing for solos by Marsalis and tenor saxist Walter Blanding, before returning to the opening 2-beat groove. The addition of Norah Jones seems entirely right too, her sweetness in ‘Come Rain or Come Shine’ and ‘Makin' Whoopie’ providing the perfect foil for Nelson's gravelly pipes on the chain-gang shuffle of ‘Losing Hand’. An album full of spirit and charm performed with deep affection, the arrangements by Marsalis and his quintet – I especially loved drummer Ali Jackson's solo in ‘Unchain My Heart’ – coupled with the delightful contributions of Nelson's longtime harmonica player, Mickey Raphael, make for a soul-stirring collection.