Ray's Tune

"Pay it no mind." From the very beginning, the odds were against Ray Rivera ever surviving the streets, let alone building a successful recording career that has spanned 50-plus years. Hit with staggering illness, astonishing neglect and crushing homelessness before ever leaving his teens, Ray managed to not only survive, but prosper through his steadfast devotion to music and single-minded adherence to those four simple words: Pay it no mind.

This is jazzman Ray Rivera's story of triumph in the face of poverty, racism and the forces of greed. Go back with him to where it all started on the streets of Spanish Harlem where the gutters were lined with yesterday's trash and tomorrow's dreams. Join him in some of the hottest nightclubs in New York City like the world-famous Tropicana where equatorial heat mixed with cool jazz nightly. Meet some of the craziest cats in the last half-century of jazz music like Charlie Parker and Babs Gonzales, and learn how one man with the love of song successfully sidestepped their often self-destructive trajectory.

In Ray's Tune Ray Rivera candidly tells a local journalist how he did it all back then, and how he's still doing it today.