GAYE, MARVIN - THE SOULFUL MOODS OF... 

The very first album by one the greatest and most influential singers in the fields of Soul and R&B came out in 1961 on the Motown label and sees Marvin singing, playing drums, and piano on an album of mainly rearranged jazz and pop standards, inspired by his passion for Nat King Cole and Ray Charles. Though this is not Gaye with a fully developed style, and it is hardly the innovative legend of Let's Get It On or What's Going On this is still top notch jazzy-soul that reveals traces of what would soon become a legend. The studio musicians come up with nice arrangements of the material, sometimes even with hints of the punch they would bring to his later, chart-topping material. Though a little before Marvin got his 'groove on', this is still the first of four albums of jazz covers he recorded and an important look at the early days of the Motown-sound. ??