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Category:    Home > Reviews > Esteban - Enter The Heart (DVD-Audio)

Esteban – Enter The Heart   (DVD-Audio)

 

Music: B     MLP 5.1: B+     DTS 5.1: B     Dolby (2.0 only): B-     Extras: C-

 

 

When I was a kid, Flamenco guitar was something in Pop Culture that few heard about, and only actress/comedian Charro was a player who did that anyone knew about.  A generation later, it is a staple of film soundtracks, TV ads, and the big wave of Latino music that has hit since the 1990s.  Enter the guitarist Esteban, with Enter The Heart, a 10-track collection of this music in its purest form, now in a High Definition sound DVD-Audio no less.

 

The set, issued in 2001, seems to have been carefully recorded.  This is how good a practically classical form like this can sound like, and that is really good.  The liner notes tell us Esteban has studied with a master, and though we hear many myth stories that sound like empty hype, it is believable after you hear how good the content is.  Esteban himself is the album’s producer, which helps explain why it works so well.

 

The MLP 5.1 sound is pretty good, bringing to mind another DVD-Audio from DTS, Studio Voodoo (reviewed elsewhere on this site) and the distinctive punchiness of its mix.  This may not be as strong, but it does make for a fine listen-though courtesy of Robert Brock, Glen O’Hara and Mathew O’Hara.  Even if this type of music is not what you are into, the clarity and imaging offered is impressive.  The DTS 5.1 mix is also good, but not with the clarity of the MLP.  The 2.0 Dolby Stereo-only tracks do not do the musicians justice, and are just here for cross-compatibility with all PCs and DVD players.

 

The extras are few, but include some video concert footage, which is both intimate and in DTS.  The full screen, color, analog videotape does not fare as well, which has been a problem on too many DVD-Audio titles and all the labels so far are guilty of this.  We have actually seen simple music video clips that looked far worse, but why video transfers for what little material is on these discs have to look so bad is one of the reasons the format has had trouble catching on.  For the extra money and an industry desperate to combat pirating, this is a detail that is not as trivial as they think.

 

The liner notes also tell us his first teacher was Vincente Gomez, who worked on the soundtracks of films like Blood & Sand (1941 sound remake) and The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952).  That was the first era of the Latin Lover image as well.  From that image, and this music, Esteban more than faithfully continues many traditions that this album lives up to.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo


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