RMS & Gil Evans – Live At The Montreux Jazz Festival 1983
Picture: C
Sound: B- Extras: C- Concert: B-
The Montreux concerts just keep on coming from all kinds
of music DVD companies and most of them are Jazz titles. RMS & Gil Evans – Live At The
Montreux Jazz Festival 1983 is one of the older ones, released in this case
by Music Video Distributors and Angel Air Waves. Most of the songs are by the artists, including Ray Russell
(electric guitar), Mo Foster (bass guitars, including Fretless), Simon Phillips
and Gil Evans. Mark Isham, Henry
Lowther, Malcolm Griffiths and Ronnie Asprey are guest musicians.
Two Jimi Hendrix classics, Stone Free and Little
Wing, are also included. The nice
songs run 90 minutes in all, so expect extended jams. The musicianship is top rate, though so many of these Jazz
concerts are. This title will also
interest fans of film music as Isham began a film scoring career the year of
this show on films including The Hitcher, Billy Bathgate, A
River Runs Through It, Romeo Is Bleeding, Miracle, The
Cooler, the first Blade film, Paul Haggis’ Crash, William
Friedkin’s Rules Of Engagement and Robert Altman’s Short Cuts.
The 1.33 X 1 image is soft and from an older analog
taping, though the digital remastering offers additional micro digititis and
has other issues, including detail troubles.
The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix fares better with sound that has some good
surround and separation, yet is not ultra sonic. It is about as good as could be expected for its age, but I wonder
if a DTS version would have been better.
Extras include stills, band quotes, biographies and brief text about how
they brought this particular concert together.
- Nicholas Sheffo
