Chet Baker: Candy (1985 Live/MVD DVD)/Deep
Purple w/Orchestra: Live At Montreux 2011 (Eagle Blu-ray)/Jerry Lewis as The Jazz Singer
(1959/Inception DVD)/Limelight
(2011/Magnolia DVD)/Thunder Soul (2010/Lionsgate
DVD)
Picture: C/B-/C+/C+/C+ Sound: C+/B/C+/C+/C+ Extras: C/C+/C/C/B Main Programs: B-/B-/B-/B/B
This
latest set of music releases make for more interesting viewing than the usual
releases, so they seemed like a good fit to group together.
The great
Chet Baker: Candy is the artist performing
one of his most famous albums, except this is a long-missing live 1985 performance
joined by Jean-Louis Rassinfosse, Michel Graillier and Red Mitchell. Lasting about an hour (including some talk),
it is a fine later performance by the legend and fans will enjoy catching up to
this one after only possibly hearing about its existence (or just hearing the
audio) and is worth your time. An
illustrated booklet with essay and other information inside the DVD case is the
only extra.
Continuing
to issue as much material on home video as any music act I can name, Deep Purple w/Orchestra: Live At Montreux
2011 follows their recent Phoenix
Rising Blu-ray as one of only three we have covered, which you can read
more about at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11043/Bad+Company+%E2%80%93+Live+A
This is a
better program than that one, though I would give an edge to the Live At Montreux 2006 Blu-ray (also reviewed
elsewhere on this site) and add that throwing in an orchestra seemed like an
idea to mix things up, but it holds back the overall concert in unexpected
ways. They can pretty much still play
their classics old and new, but this variation just did not cut it for me. The 18 tracks here are fine for what they
are, but I would recommend the 2006
Blu-ray still as the best Purple on Blu to date. Still, the bonus interview here fans might
like and Eagle has included a paper pullout with illustrations and some text.
Another
music program on tape thought lost but now found is Jerry Lewis as The Jazz Singer (1959) in which the comic legend
takes on Al Jolson’s classic, controversial 1927 blockbuster film role
(reviewed elsewhere on this site, it is the film that broke sound in movies and
also had Jolson in blackface!) and this only runs an hour, yet is as effective
as that and the 1980 Neil Diamond features as far as I am concerned. Odder and more interesting is Lewis wears a
clown face that only partly covers his face and barely qualifies as blackface,
but maybe could be considered that somewhat.
However, it is too possibly creepy and odd to simply label, especially
in context to the religious politics happening here as he wants to be a secular
entertainer and his cantor father considers it a betrayal of their faith. This was made in 1959 and happens to be one
of the earliest color videotape programs and certainly one of the earliest
still in existence. You get that version
restored, plus a black and white kinescope version, but more on that in a
minute. This is very impressive and
worth going out of your way for. Extras
include a featurette on restoring the color version and a stills gallery.
This
brings us to two very well-made documentaries that deal with music in important
ways. Billy Corben’s Limelight (2011) tells the story of the
rise and fall of Peter Gatien, a Canadian man who actually lost an eye as a
teen and took his settlement money to invest in a series of clubs that had far
more success than failure. Eventually by
the later 1980s, he started to conquer New
York and with four grand locales, he owned New York
Nightlife, took over the scene and quietly became the successor to the
excitement and wildness that Studio 54, CBGBs (still existent at that time) and
other legendary locales were once known for.
This included introducing House Music and Electronica that had not been
heard in the U.S.
before and what followed was drugs, new drugs, scandals, the rise of Club Kids
and massive financial success. Then it
gets challenged by a change of events…
The title
refers to Gatien’s biggest club, but also his fame and this is as much a
character study of him and the nightlife as it is of New York City eventually transitioning from
sleazy to reborn. However, there is much
more to this and gives us a rare look at a period that has been more censored
by the mainstream than you might think.
This too is worth going out of your way for. Extras include a trailer and deleted scenes
worth seeing after the feature.
Last but
definitely not least is Mark Landsman’s Thunder
Soul (2010) about the tremendous success of a High School band that became
so proficient so quickly in band music, Jazz and Funk that their recordings
sound fresh decades after their 1970s debut and it also led to album releasing
and international touring at a time when racial strife was red hot after The
Civil Rights Movement had its early triumphs.
Coming from Texas (Kashmere High School to be exact) made it more
problematic, but their Professor Conrad Johnson believed his class and young
people in general could play like the most skilled professionals if they were
taught well and he gave up a potentially huge professional music career to
marry and stay in his neighborhood to prove it.
He sure did!
Fast
forward to now and “Prof” as he is known is still around in his 90s and unknown
to him at first, two of the local members of the original band decide to
contact all the members to do a reunion show as a surprise tribute to him. The result is an unforgettable journey into
music, American life, history and the power of the arts that reminds us of how
good things used to be in America
and what has been lost in a certain kind of shuffling about since the
1980s. It also speaks for so many countless
such bands in and out of school from that era doing all kinds of music (no
matter if they were good and/or recorded any material) that are a lost part of
our culture.
For
anyone serious about music, this is such a must-see program that I know I will
be talking about it for a long time and as often happens with something great
that did not get to be the hit it deserved to be, I know people will start
walking up to me and asking me about it any time now. Extras include a trailer, 17 minutes of a
vintage film about the band with interview footage (especially of Professor
Johnson) that is great and a fine feature length audio commentary by Landsman
and Editor Claire Didier round out a great disc.
As
expected, the 1080i 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Purple is the best-looking of the five
releases her being the only Blu-ray, but it had more than a few moments where
there was noise, detail issues and Video Black lacking shadow detail. Candy
is the weakest here at 1.33 X 1 from an analog NTSC (this could not be PAL,
right?) video source that is lucky it survived, so expect flaws throughout.
The Jazz Singer is 1.33 X 1 in both versions
offered. One option is a black and white
kinescope (filmed off of a picture tube) that has the usual image distortions
and shows its age, but we also get an authentic full color version from a 2-inch
videotape. The system was designed by RCA
and apparently was called Hetradine before it was abandoned. The
tape was well-preserved by Lewis and his family, then recently restored and a
new transfer made to get the color edition we have here. As compared to the monochrome kinescope, it
is fresher, livelier and actually has more detail, while the kinescope looks
older, more distant and rougher. The
comparison reminds us of how many thousands of hours of vital television are
gone or were not captured as well as we could have hoped for. The remaining documentary DVDs are here in anamorphically
enhanced 1.78 X 1 presentations that mix stills, old film footage, old video
footage and newly recorded interviews in skillfully edited ways. Only Blu-ray versions could make this look
better.
The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on the Purple Blu-ray is easily again the best performer and is just fine
for this show with a consistent soundfield, even if it never overly impressed
me. Maybe it is just that I have heard
too much Purple. The Jazz Singer is in lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono, but this had to
be reconstructed from a few sources as the videotape had audio dropouts with
permanent audio loss. Fortunately, the
kinescope film print had audio and Lewis had half of the show’s original audio
on magnetic audio tape, so this is a reconstruction that works. Candy
has lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo that sounds fairly good for its age, but
could sound better. Limelight has lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 that is good for a
documentary, but the soundfield changes as mono, simple stereo and various
sources in various conditions turn up throughout. Soul
has the same issue, but offers lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 EX to make the music
sound top rate.
- Nicholas Sheffo
