| DVD Roundup July 2003
 All That DVD Jazz
A few days ago I was at a party talking to my friend Donald
Clarke about avant-garde music. He is the author of several books, oddly enough, on
popular music (The Penguin Encyclopedia of Popular Music, The Rise and Fall of Popular
Music, All or Nothing at All: A Life of Frank Sinatra). I say "oddly enough"
because nothing makes Donald happier than listening to music that would drive most people
from the room. We were musing, and delighting in all the odd music that has been heard in
Austin lately: Tina Marsh, The Creative Opportunity Orchestra, Peter Brötzmann, and Evan
Parker. As we got deeper into the subject, I remembered the time I had seen Sam Rivers and
Dave Holland at The Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach. Normally, Sam Rivers’ recorded music
gives me the heebie-jeebies, but in the multi-sensory onslaught of the experience of being
there, his music suddenly made perfect sense. Donald agreed, explaining how he suddenly
"got" the Elliot Carter String Quartets once he saw a quartet struggling through
the knotty and complex music.
All this started me thinking about jazz. While jazz has
existed in recorded form for nearly a century, aficionados and artists alike will tell you
that it is necessary to see, hear, smell, and feel it in its natural habitat -- a club.
The live experience forces you to focus on the music, see the players struggle, watch
their band mates approve, and see the well-oiled machine in action. You get swept away by
the applause, the sweat dripping off the players, the musical in-jokes, the tinkling
glasses and their concomitant alcohol buzz. No matter how stellar your stereo, you can never
recreate that experience at home, but with the advent of the DVD, you can get one step
closer. Given gifted camera operators, a director who knows how to be unobtrusive without
missing a magic moment, an editor who has the talent to paste together the scenes into a
cogent recreation of the actual event, and sound recordists who can catch the sound
convincingly, a jazz DVD can be a mighty powerful experience.
I pulled together 20 jazz DVDs to try to cherry-pick a few
worthy candidates for your enjoyment. I wish I could tell you the state of the art was at
a high level, but I cannot. Part of the problem is cultural. Jazz was most popular at a
time when video recording was awful and most companies didn’t want to spend money on
film. Today, most record labels are happier cannibalizing their back catalog than
recording new, interesting artists. Consequently, much of what we find in the jazz-DVD
area is older performances.
One historic series that gets everything right is the Jazz
Casual series on Rhino Home Video. These programs were all taken from a PBS (then NET)
series produced by writer Ralph J. Gleason. Gleason’s concept was to put the
musicians in a comfortable place, let them do whatever they wanted, and talk to them a
little between songs. Two of the DVDs belong in any jazz collection. First, Dave
Brubeck (1961) features the premier version of his quartet, with Paul Desmond on alto,
Eugene Wright on bass, and the magnificent Joe Morello on drums. Not only do we get the
chance to see this band cook through some very cool tunes; we hear Brubeck’s
technical explanation of multi-tonal and multi-rhythmic improvisation and how the song
"Take Five" relates. Not all is perfect. At the beginning of "Jazzy
Waltz," the soundman leaves Gleason’s mike on and Brubeck’s piano mike off.
That’s live TV.
The other vital Jazz Casual disc is called Instrumentals
Volume 1, featuring three shows on one DVD. Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, and John
Coltrane are all here, each playing with a particularly strong band. Basie, from 1968, is
avuncular and funny as his band drips professional competency. Guitar fans will love the
opportunity to see close-up how Freddie Green played two chords per bar at 200rpm, never
missing a note. The Gillespie show, from 1961, features Argentine piano-player Lalo
Schifrin (composer of the Mission: Impossible theme). Texan Leo Wright shows his
superb flute and alto playing. Gillespie, face blown-up frog-like, plays "Blues After
Dark" with just the right combo of fire and ice. The Coltrane show comes from 1964
and features the historic Tyner-Garrison-Jones quartet. Coltrane was in a period of trying
to quiet the critics and audiences by playing more accessible music. After watching Basie
and Gillespie, there’s no doubt that Coltrane, even in "accessible" mode,
was very modern. We get three songs, "Afro Blue," "Alabama" (both
would show up two years later on "Live at Birdland") and "Impressions"
(from the album of the same name). The mood is very serious, with playing of the highest
level. Tyner’s solo on "Afro Blue" approaches the modal genius of his work
on "My Favorite Things." Coltrane’s soulful tenor playing on his
civil-rights dirge "Alabama" can make you cry. The Coltrane set is also
available individually, but I’d spring for Instrumentals Volume 1. I hope we
soon see Instrumentals Volumes 2-100.
There is another set of older recordings that is
indispensable for the jazz-guitar fan. Despite having zero supporting documentation (who
are the sidemen?), Vestapol’s Legends of Jazz Guitar Volumes 1,2 and 3 give us
Wes Montgomery, Barney Kessel, Joe Pass, Herb Ellis, Jim Hall, Tal Farlow, Pat Martino,
Charlie Byrd, Kenny Burrell, and Grant Green performing magic on their guitars. The
Vestapol label is owned by Stefan Grossman, who is a wonderful player and teacher himself.
Most of his releases are of interest strictly to students, but these three DVDs will
fascinate any jazz-guitar buff. Recordings, both visuals and sound, vary from good to
fair. Recording dates range from 1965 (Montgomery) up to 1986 (Ellis). If you know the
names and like jazz guitar, each DVD packs an hour of great music.
By the 1980s, laserdiscs were the medium of choice for jazz
concerts, and during this period, scores of jazz discs were released. Image Entertainment,
owner of the largest catalog of concert DVDs on earth, has released two of my favorites
from that era on DVD. Anyone interested in the fine art of jazz singing simply must have Carmen
McRae Live. Saying any one performer is the best in their genre is foolish. Gun to
head, though, I might relent and nominate Carmen McRae as the best woman jazz singer. My
personal Carmen collection runs over 70 discs. This is one of my favorites (she also has a
Jazz Casual title out, as part of Vocals Volume 1 that I haven’t yet seen).
Carmen was 66 when she recorded this show, and 50+ years of smoking had deepened her voice
and reduced her lungpower. But her trademark behind-the-beat timing, intelligent lyric
reading, and superb choice of songs were intact. Others would claim Billie, Ella, or Sassy
were greater singers. Probably Carmen herself would agree. Not me. Listen to her
heartbreaking ballad version of "I Get Along Without You Very Well" or her
feisty and sexy reading of the lines in "Getting Some Fun Out of Life."
Another of Image’s reincarnated laserdiscs is Solo
Tribute by Keith Jarrett, a recording of his 100th performance in Japan. By the time
this recording was made (1987), Jarrett was past his need to do all his shows as complete
improvisations and had started playing standards. Watching Jarrett is an acquired taste.
His style is loaded with physical histrionics as he moans and bows to his muse,
occasionally rising from his bench for emphasis. But occasionally, like on this version of
"I Loves You, Porgy," his music catches something heavenly. For years, Jarrett
has wisely restricted his play to auditoriums and concert halls. This isn’t club
jazz. His music demands concentration and is filled with earnestness, occasionally
spilling over into solemnity. If his music is your cup of tea, then this beautifully
photographed and recorded concert is a wonderful DVD.
Miles Davis has three 80s-era DVDs, derived from shows in
Paris, Munich, and Montreal. During this period, his music was evolving. Some people
mistook his movement into synths, rapping, and funk as selling-out, but Miles always
wanted to be hip to black youth. He didn’t care about the average jazz buyer -- the
white, middle-aged, middle-class jazz "intellectual." He wanted to see black
kids, boomboxes riding on their shoulders, speakers pasted against their ear, grooving to
his tunes. If you don’t fit that category (I don’t) then you have to approach
his music on its own terms. If you have heard the albums of the era (Decoy, Aura,
You’re Under Arrest) and didn’t like them, I would encourage you to try
Pioneer’s beautifully mastered Miles Davis: Live in Montreal. Go back to what
I talked about in the opening paragraph: the importance of experiencing challenging music
live. I had lost interest in Miles after Bitches Brew, but after seeing him in
Boston in 1988 and, later, in Houston, I understood where he was going. To see for
yourself, flip to "Time After Time" on the Live in Montreal DVD.
Miles’ trumpet cries like a lost lover. In the second chorus, he invests a single,
strangled ten-second-long note with more feeling than most players manage in a lifetime.
Seconds later, the crowd starts to applaud and he hushes them. John Scofield enters with a
plaintive guitar solo and Miles starts trading pained riffs. It is a transcendental
moment. Lovers of 1950s Miles really need to listen. Change the backing to Bill Evans,
Jimmy Cobb, and Paul Chambers, and people would fall all over themselves searching for
superlatives. The truth is, no matter the context, no matter which his backing band, Miles
always sounded like Miles. And this is prime Miles.
Since the DVD was introduced in the US in March 1997,
we’ve seen an increase in the number of well-produced jazz DVDs. As during the
laserdisc era, Image Entertainment is the leader. Their best recent release is the Pat
Metheny Group’s We Live Here. Thirteen great songs performed by his long-term
core group of keyboardist Lyle Mays, bassist Steve Rodby, and drummer Paul Wertico. The
core band is supplemented by three percussionists, two of whom double on vocals. Metheny
is a magnet for controversy. The be-bop entrenched listeners claim he’s not playing
jazz. The question of whether or not it is "real jazz" is a boring one for
artists. The fact is -- Metheny and the rest of his band are all trained in jazz.
He’s writing his own music and following his own route, and thousands of people like
it. This DVD allows you to see the band’s interaction, even throwing in some
interviews for enlightenment. A nice bonus -- We Live Here is ultra clear and
recorded with great depth and delicacy.
The most popular of recent jazz DVDs is also a winner at
every level: Diana Krall Live in Paris. Another controversial figure (she’s
too pretty and too popular to be any good, they say), Ms. Krall deserves her success. When
she started, she apprenticed herself to Jimmy Rowles to learn the piano. Rowles was a
piano master with a limitless collection of terrific American songs locked in his memory.
She also worked with and learned from the great bass player Ray Brown. Now, Krall hires
wonderful talent, picks superb songs, plays the hell out of the piano, and sings with a
sexiness not heard since 1940s Peggy Lee. The fact that she is pleasantly attractive has
helped her career, but it is not the reason both her fans and peers love her. Live in
Paris demonstrates the reason for her success. The DVD veritably drips with class. The
opening montage of her riding through the streets of Paris sets the mood. Her humble
introduction of her stellar rhythm section (Jeff Hamilton, John Clayton, Anthony Wilson)
communicates that she knows she is still a young person in an art form that takes a
lifetime to master. By the time we get to her nearly sexual reading of "Under My
Skin," there is no doubt -- this woman has the goods. Those who already have the CD
still need the DVD. There is more music and the concert song order is preserved. I had the
pleasure of seeing her show just after Live in Paris was recorded. What you see on
the DVD is exactly what I saw live: brilliant interplay, great soloing (especially
Wilson’s guitar work), and a woman at the top of her game.
If you are lucky enough to live in a city with a jazz
scene, go hear some soon. No matter how well recorded a DVD you have, there is something
about being there. Smelling the smells, hearing the sounds and noises, sharing in a
communal experience, all these things enrich music. But we can no longer see Paul Desmond,
Miles Davis, Basie, or Wes Montgomery; and Diana Krall and Pat Metheny don’t pass
through town everyday. So try some of these DVDs and enjoy their ability to take you one
substantial step closer to the live experience.
...Wes Marshall
wesm@hometheatersound.com |
