Diana Ross
(1976 Expanded Edition/Motown CD Set)/The
Jeff Healey Band Live In Belgium
1993 (Eagle DVD/CD Set)/Live From
Tokyo (2010/Underground Music/MVD Visual DVD)/Madonna: Truth Or Dare (1991/Miramax/Lionsgate Blu-ray)/Pal Joey (1957/Sony/Twilight Time Blu-ray)
Picture: X/C+/C/B-/B Sound: B/B/C+/C+/B- Extras: B/C-/C-/C-/B- Main Programs: B/B-/B-/B-/B-
PLEASE
NOTE: The Pal Joey
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. Also note that the Diana Ross 1976 CD set may only stay in
print for so long, so you might want to get one now.
Here is
our latest look at the diverse world of music releases, including some classic
releases and some newer material.
Before
Disco hit and with major competition, Diana Ross was having some of the biggest
success any female solo artist ever had when in 1976, she released an album
called Diana Ross. Following other special editions,
Universal/Motown has released an Expanded Edition CD Set of the album following
the success of many others including the 1980 Diana album and endless hits
sets, as the following links will show:
Diana: Deluxe Edition
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/312/Diana+Ross+-+Diana+(Deluxe+CD+Set)
The #1s
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/741/Diana+Ross+&+The+Supremes+-+The
This
album is diverse to begin with, features several of her #1 hits and this new
set is awash in unreleased material, rarities and alternate cuts and takes that
make it more amazing than even non-fans would expect. Here are the tracks:
CD 1
1)
Theme
From Mahogany (Do You Know Where You’re Going To)
2)
I
Thought It Took A Little Time (But Today I Fell In Love)
3)
Love
Hangover
4)
Kiss
Me Now
5)
You're
Good My Child
6)
One
Love In My Lifetime
7)
Ain't
Nothin' But A Maybe
8)
After
You
9)
Smile
10) Sorry Doesn't Always Make It Right (single
version)
11) Together (single version)
12) I Thought It Took A Little Time… (single
version)
13) Love Hangover (single version)
14) One Love In My Lifetime (single version)
15) To Love Again (alternate version)
16) We're Always Saying Goodbye (alternate
version)
17) This Christmas (alternate version)
18) Coming Home (a soda pop ad)
CD 2
1)
Theme
from Mahogany (alternate version #1)
2)
I
Thought It Took A Little Time
3)
Love
Hangover (alternate version)
4)
Kiss
Me Now (alternate version)
5)
You're
Good My Child (alternate version)
6)
One
Love In My Lifetime (alternate version)
7)
Ain't
Nothin' But A Maybe (alternate version)
8)
After
You (alternate version)
9)
Sorry
Doesn't Always Make It Right (alternate version)
10) Together (alternate version)
11) Theme from Mahogany (alternate version #2)
12) Harmony (a remake of an Elton John classic)
13) Le Lo Li
14) Go Where Your Mind Is
15) Diana Ross Interview (originally made for TWA
Airlines, 16 minutes)
The Mahogany theme was a huge hit on the
soft side, while Love Hangover was a
big soul and early disco hit that promised at the time that she may become the
big disco diva, expanding her reign of success, but Donna Summer showed up and
changed that. It is easy to forget what
a great singer she was and post-Lady
Sings The Blues became more formidable as she delivers so many amazing
vocal performances. You can also here
her experimenting and trying alternate phrasing in the familiar hits here. I
Thought It Took A Little Time and To
Love Again are hugely underrated songs that should have been big its, but
the set offers even more.
Extras
include all the new tracks ands a 32-page illustrated booklet with a fine essay
and technical information. The interview
(not hear for decades) is one of the best I have ever heard her give and even
the cola ad demonstrates how huge she had become and now is the Guinness Book
Of World Record’s most successful female vocalist of all time. This album is one of the reasons. All in all, a solid set that exceeds
expectations.
The Jeff Healey Band Live In Belgium 1993 (Eagle DVD/CD Set) is a follow-up
set to another fine DVD/CD set of the band Eagle issued a while ago, which you
can read more about at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/4240/The+Jeff+Healey+Band+%E2%80%93
That was
six years later, but this earlier show is just as good with the expected
overlap in tracks (Angel Eyes, While My Guitar Gently Weeps) and other
tracks they do so well. I think this
show up to the other one from the last set and if you are unfamiliar with the
band, either choice is fine, especially with the bonus CD included. I am surprised they have not had more
commercial success, but this is a yet another quality release of their work
from Eagle (the show runs 13-songs long) and I recommend this one too. A booklet with an essay, technical
information and illustrations included is the only extra as we will not count
the CD.
In case
you think we are being too retro, the newest material is represented by Lewis
Rapkin’s recent documentary Live From
Tokyo (2010) which is a bout the little-known or covered alternate music
scene in Japan involving Rock-influenced bands en masse trying to do new things
with the music, including using visual media and electronics to make the music
their own. Though the sounds are
interesting, nothing stood out, yet I liked the energy and the many bands
trying something different.
This is
also a character study of the music, the people and Japan, which makes it worth a look
even if the viewer is not happy with the music.
Still, at least they have a seen where people enjoy music and are trying
versus the apathy that has befallen too much of the U.S. music scene. The footage of Japan is a plus. A trailer and paper slip in the DVD case are
the only extras.
Alex
Keshishian’s Madonna: Truth Or Dare
(1991) is another documentary, but was designed as a button-presser typical of
the strategy of its star. Are all the
scenes authentic, or is it all staged?
Is some of it staged?
Unfortunately, it set a bad precedent for the evil we now know as
“reality TV”, but it still has some interesting off camera moments (spoofed in
comedian Julie Brown’s amusing Medusa:
Dare To Be Truthful) and the concert sequences are a great portrait of the
singer/dancer at her early peak.
It has
aged oddly as a result (and not because the concert is in color and backstage
(et al) is in black and white), but reminds us that she was not just all hype
and no the face of what has happened in recent years, more clever than she was
getting credit for being at the time. A
trailer is the only extra.
Finally
we have a backstage music of sorts in the comic George Sidney film Pal Joey (1957) that Frank Sinatra made
with Columbia Pictures back in 1957. Now
available as a Limited Edition Blu-ray from Twilight Time, this amusing romp
has Sinatra as the singing and hustling title character torn between an older
female connection form his past (Rita Hayworth, playing down her beauty for the
role) and stunning new singer/dancer (Kim Novak in amazing form) with an almost
in joke being that the backstage is of nightclubs and not on a prestige stage
setting.
Sinatra
is at his smart alec best, the script is amusing, some of the songs classic
(like The Lady Is A Tramp and My Funny Valentine among others by the
great Rogers & Hart) and the sets are Old Hollywood in their late glory,
though the outdoor footage of San Francisco is a plus, but you can tell what is
shot on a lot. This also goes on longer
than it should, but is not bad and holds up more than well enough for a film
its age. Bobby Sherwood, Barbara
Nichols, Hank Henry and a long cast of credited actors make this all work. Any serious music fan should see it at least
once.
Extras
include a trailer, new featurette with Kim Novak, Isolated Music Score and
illustrated booklet with an essay and tech information on the film.
The PCM
16/44.1 Stereo on the Ross and Healey CDs are as good as they can be
for the format with the Ross tracks
sounding exactly like their quality counterparts issued on the earlier CDs
reviewed and some of the newer tracks having even more of a sonic edge. I wish a DVD of some kind with higher audio
fidelity was also included. The Healey CD is as good as the previous
Healey CD despite being a recording six years older. The CD format is not dead yet, especially
when they do the transfers correctly as is the case here. The 1.33 X 1 image on the Healey DVD is from an analog video
source and looks about as good as it is going to with good color, even more so
than the anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Tokyo which is a little softer than expected.
The 1080p
1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfers on our two Blu-rays both have
good color, but Madonna has
definition and noise issues in its black and white footage it should not have
despite being shot on 16mm film.
Director of Photography Robert Leacock (Zappa’s Baby Snakes) does a fine enough job giving this a memorable
look. At least the color footage looks
good for the most part.
Joey was
originally issued in dye-transfer, three-strip Technicolor 35mm prints and the
source used here has much of that great color throughout, consistent and
impressive including many demo shots for any HD system. Director of Photography Harold Lipstein (Any Wednesday, Rampage, Damn Yankees!)
is an underrated cameraman and delivers a fine-looking film here in a solid
transfer that can show its age, but is a nice surprise. This compares well for the impressive Blu-ray
Warner issued of Sidney’s
later Elvis Presley musical Viva Las
Vegas (1963), reviewed elsewhere on this site.
The lossy
Dolby Digital 5.1 on the Healey
concert DVD is better than the Dolby 2.0 mix, but both lack some of the
richness of the bonus CD. Lossy Dolby
Digital 2.0 Stereo on Tokyo is good,
but can be inconsistent in keeping with a documentary and we get location audio
issues as well as lesser sound.
Both
Blu-rays also have DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mixes, though neither
film was originally a 5.1 sound film.
Madonna was actually originally issued in theaters in Dolby’s advance
Spectral Recording (SR) format and that is 4.1 at best, but here, someone has
botched the sound badly, placing the mix too much in the front speakers and
especially the center channel. SR Dolby
films seem to get botched the most in these supposed upgrades and even the
concert music has issues unfortunately.
Joey was originally issued as a
theatrical optical monophonic film, but the music was recorded in high quality
(for its time) stereo and the upgrade is impressive here as a result, offering
the best audio on any video program here ironically as it is the oldest
release. DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0
Stereo lossless versions of the soundtrack and isolated music score are also
offered and sound good. On the isolated
score, sometimes you can hear the singer in the background and other times, not
at all, but that once again makes it another collectible limited edition from
Twilight Time worth going out of your way for.
Fans will love it.
As noted
above, Pal Joey can be ordered while
supplies last at:
www.screenarchives.com
- Nicholas Sheffo
