The Jazz Classics Collection – Volumes 1, 3, 8
& 10
Picture:
C- Sound: C Extras: C- Music: B
Arabesque
Distribution and The CD Card Company are the latest to distribute compilations
of short Jazz films. Looking at four of those volumes, there is nothing we have
not seen before.
The first
is devoted to Duke Ellington, third Let’s
Hear It For The Girls a tribute to Jazz females often not heard much
about these days, eighth with Big Bands simply dubbed Jazz & Big Band Classics and tenth dubbed with the
self-explanatory Swing! Swing! Swing! Sure, most of these are classics, but these
sets are simply not the best out there.
If
anything, no one has yet to clean up and upgrade all these gems and with
digital HD having just arrived, these especially degraded copies will be
torture for fans. This is the last
standard definition hurrah for such bad copies.
Look up “jazz” in our search engine to compare the latest such releases
to choose the best.
The 1.33
X 1 image varies on a poor level from track to track, while the same footage
can look even worse on one disc versus another.
Footage throughout looks scratched, pasty, muddy and DVNR (Digital Video
Noise Reduction) adds to the ghosting and other issues. The PCM 16bit/44.1kHz 2.0 Mono is not really
much better than the weak Dolby Digital and PCM we have encountered on a series
of other such compilations form other labels.
Each volume has four tracks to essentially promote the other volumes,
but that’s it.
- Nicholas Sheffo
