Billy Vaughn & His Orchestra: Greenfields (Intermusic SA-CD/Super Audio Compact Disc
Hybrid/Top Music International)/Picnic
(1955/Columbia/Twilight Time Limited Edition Blu-ray)
Picture:
B Blu-ray Sound: B SA-CD Sound - DSD 2.0 Stereo: B+/PCM 2.0 Stereo:
B Blu-ray Extras: B- Music/Film: B
PLEASE
NOTE:
The Billy Vaughn Super Audio Compact Disc
is only available from our friends at Top Music International, has a Compact
Disc layer that will play on virtually all CD players and can be ordered at the
link below. The Picnic Blu-ray is limited to 3,000 copies and is available
exclusively at the Screen Archives website which can be reached at the link at
the end of this review.
And now
for a look at two limited edition releases that show us the best of Classic
Hollywood as well as its sense of music.
In his
time, Billy Vaughn was a very popular conductor and recording artist in the
much more popular at one time instrumental music category and also sang for the
vocal group The Hilltoppers. There are
tons of CDs of his instrumental years available, but Greenfields is the first release of any of his material in a high
definition audio format, a Super Audio CD here with a CD layer that will still
play on all CD players. Credited as
Billy Vaughn & His Orchestra, this is a really good compilation of some
real classics, many of which you are either a fan of or have heard and did not
know what the song was. The latter will
happen often to those who get the disc and listen to the following:
1)
Theme
From A Summer Place
2)
Tammy (Theme From)
3)
Tracy’s Theme
4)
The
Terry Theme from Limelight
5)
The
Sound of Music
6)
The
Three Penny Opera (Moritat)
7)
O
Sole Mio
8)
Never
On Sunday
9)
The
Green Leaves Of Summer (Theme from John Wayne’s The Alamo)
10) Look For Star
11) Mona Lisa
12) Greenfields
13) Beyond The Sunset
14) He’ll Have To Go
15) La Paloma
16) Woodchopper’s Ball
17) Peter Gunn (Theme From)
18) Oh!
19) Topsy!!
20) One O’clock Jump
Though
there are some slight style changes in some cases that might not work for you
if you know the songs, I liked most of the renditions here and was very
impressed with the sonic quality overall of this presentation. At this point starting in the later 1950s,
Vaughn was using his “twin sax” sound and based on all of his sales and charting,
it seems that he actually remains the most successful band conductor in
charting and record sales to date. Once
again mastered by Povee Chan, who has an amazing track record for these
productions, here are the specifics on the transfer:
32Bits/192kHz
High Resolution Mastering
SADiE DSD
Digital Precision
Mastering
Monitor: Almarro M1A
Monitor
Amplifier: Octave Jubliee Preamp
Power
System: Isoclean Power Conditioning System
Mastered
with Black Rhodium Cable
Made in Germany
by ADIS
Vaughn
had this singles on the Top 40 into 1962 and hit albums into the 1970s. These tracks run from 1956 to 1960 and there
is a certain joy and flow to every performance, so this is definitely a man who
loved music and I am very glad this SA-CD has arrived. Serious fans should consider getting it while
supplies last.
Now we
move onto a major film from the same period, Joshua Logan’s remarkable,
enduring adaptation of William Inge’s Picnic
(1955) with William Holden and Kim Novak as a potential couple who meet each
other when he arrives in her small town looking for work. She is set to be married to another man
(Cliff Robertson) but this is among the many things challenged by Hal
(Holden). He also gets under the skin of
a potential old maid (Rosalind Russell in a thankless, powerful role) and the
film was a commercial and critical success for Columbia Pictures and Harry
Cohn, further building the once smaller studio into a major.
Though
some aspects might seem a bit dated, the interaction between the characters
rings true, as does the sexual tensions and Novak was reaching her peak at this
time, a peak that lasted for many, many years.
Holden could have just been a bimbo here, but he is believable,
formidable and they have chemistry we do not see often enough today. Betty Field, a young Susan Strasberg and Arthur
O’Connell also star.
The 1080p
2.55 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer is yet another solid effort by
Twilight Time that is of Criterion caliber and I say that as Criterion had once
issued the film in the older 12” LaserDisc format, but anyone feeling something
had been lost on DVD version from Sony, you can put that aside. This is a solid transfer with great color and
definition reproduction, plus you can see how the color is so good that you get
a good idea often of how good dye-transfer, three-strip Technicolor 35mm prints
of this film had to have been. Legendary
Director of Photography James Wong Howe (Hud,
Seconds) uses the very widescreen
frame to its fullest extent, has his usually fine grasp of color and is one of
the early slightly wider CinemaScope releases.
Nice to see more of these early films in the original version of the
format hit Blu-ray.
The DTS-HD
MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix may be towards the front speakers, but this
was a film originally designed for 4-track magnetic sound with traveling
dialogue and sound effects, so that is to be expected and is as nice an upgrade
as anyone could have asked for. This
includes a warm, rich feel to the mix, George Duning’s solid score also offered
as an extra as an isolated music track and it is nice the original materials
held up in the vault and have been looked after as well as they have been. Kudos to those who worked on this film to
make it look and sound so good.
The only
other extra is a nicely illustrated booklet on the film including informative
text and an essay on the film by Julie Kirgo worth reading after seeing the
film.
Picnic can be ordered while supplies
last at:
www.screenarchives.com
To find
out more about ordering the Vaughn
SA-CD, start with this link, then go to the HOW TO ORDER tab on the left-hand
side column:
http://www.topmusic.com/ud-sacd8939.2.htm
The
direct order link is:
http://www.topmusic.com/to-order.htm
- Nicholas Sheffo
