Mike Arroyo: Performing Live (DVD-Video) + My
Jazzy Mood (CD)
Picture:
C Sound: B- (both formats) Extras: D Concert/Music: B- (both)
Mike
Arroyo is a rhythm guitarist in the Latino Jazz mode that has some talent and
is trying to make a bigger name for himself, to the point that he has issued
two titles in two formats at the same time.
He has a new DVD-Video simply dubbed Performing Live and a CD called My Jazzy Mood that the DVD is also trying to cross-promote.
The DVD
has twelve songs, the CD eight, with songs like Perfect Mood and Florecitas
turning up on both. A few songs are
religious (“The Christian Jazz Night” is a subtitle), with Simon & Garfunkel’s Bridge
Over Troubled Waters covered on the DVD in an odd rendering. This is good, but not great, sufficient and
even intricate, but neither ever comes together in an interesting way. To make things worse, the extensive Spanish
in the CD liner notes have no English translation and the DVD has some moments
of Spanish talking and singing with no subtitle option whatsoever!
It was
like watching an illegal bootleg, bad import or out of the country
broadcast. With al the room available
left on the DVD and the fact that Spanish subtitles are the most likely to turn
up on U.S. DVDs more than any other non-English language, this is
inexcusable. Why, it is not the
Christian thing to do and even feels rude, like some cultural wall. What were the producers thinking?
The 1.33
X 1 image was shot on some kind of low definition analog video and has a washed
out look, Video Black issues and is neither the best directed nor edited
program we have seen recently, especially as compared to independent
productions like Missing Pages – Modus
Operandi (reviewed elsewhere on this site).
You still see all the musicians, but it is more clinical than
involving. The sound is 16-bit PCM 2.0
Stereo on both releases, but the difference between the 48kHz on the DVD and
44.1kHz on the CD is nominal at best and underwhelming in both cases. Where is the sound’s fullness? Where is the detail? There is some detail, but not what these
older sound formats are capable of. The
DVD has four stills, but that is hardly what we would call an extra.
- Nicholas Sheffo
