Jazz Masters Series – Art Blakely + Benny Carter
Picture: C+
Sound: C Extras: D Concerts: B- each
Two installments from the Jazz Masters Series,
taken from performances at The Smithsonian Institute, have been issued
featuring two of the genres’ best-known names: Art Blakely and Benny
Carter. Blakely is joined by the
Marsalis Brothers among others for the February 19th 1982 taping,
while Carter taped his segment with his band a bit earlier on November 11th
1981. Both are good concerts that only
last an hour each, though one wonders how much more music was really played.
Blakely’s set includes:
1) Little
Man
2) My Ship
3) Blakely
interview
4) New York
5) Webb
City
6) Closing
medley
Carter’s set includes:
1) Honeysuckle
Rose
2) Misty
3) Take The
A Train
4) Carter
interview
5) Cottontail
6) Autumn
Leaves
I liked the Carter set a bit more because the songs are
more familiar and there is a bit more music, but Blakely’s set is just as
solid. It is great The Smithsonian
wanted to capture these for posterity and Jazz fans will now feel not enough of
this material can exist. They are
right, though the performance of both here is another story. Both were shot on profession 1.33 x 1 analog
NTSC video and the stereo sound is very simple and smaller than one would have
liked here in Dolby Digital 2.0 when PCM might have served this better. The source is obviously a generation or two
down. As for Carter, his Norman Granz
1977 Benny Carter Quartet DVD from Eagle Vision may be preferable, as
the concert is a bit longer and has been upgraded as much as possible in 5.1
DTS. You can read the review of that
entire series elsewhere on this site.
As for this series, there is at least one more volume so far and we look
forward to seeing how they compare.
Jazz fans will want all of them.
- Nicholas Sheffo
