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Category:    Home > Reviews > Jazz > Blues > Pop > Inakustik/Music Video Distributors Jazz/Blues Blu-ray Concerts (Autour Du Blues/Jose Feliciano Band/Stanley Jordan Trio/Mike Stern Band/Yellowjackets: New Morning Paris/Ohne Filter DVD/Lifecycle SACD)

Inakustik/Music Video Distributors Jazz/Blues Blu-ray Concert Wave (Autour Du Blues/Jose Feliciano Band*/Stanley Jordan Trio*/Mike Stern Band/Yellowjackets: New Morning Paris [*w/DVD Version]) + Yellowjackets In Concert: Ohne Filter 1994 DVD + Yellowjackets Featuring Mike Stern – Lifecycle SA-CD (Heads Up Super Audio CD/SACD/2008)

 

Picture: B-/C+     Blu-ray Sound: B     DVD Sound B/B-     SA-CD Sound: B- (PCM)/B (2.0 DSD Stereo)/B+ (5.1 DSD)     Extras: C-     Concerts/Album: B-

 

 

The concerts released by Inakustik through Music Video Distributors is the longest and most numerous in all of home video, from the Ohne Filter TV series to the New Morning – The Paris Concert series.  Now, they are moving the HD-shot Paris series into the Blu-ray format with five new releases that have been mostly issued on DVD by now.  To give you an example of the DVD versions, you can read about Autour Du Blues with Robben Ford and Larry Carlton at this link:

 

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/6782/Autour+Du+Blues+meets+Larry+Carlto

 

 

The DVD versions of the Feliciano and Jordan concerts have the same sound and picture playback typical of the series, while the 1994 Yellowjackets Ohne Filter DVD may be 1.33 X 1 PAL analog video, it too is soft, but has a better reason for the format and age, yet it looks as good due to color and good definition.  It’s only sound options are Dolby Digital 5.1 and PCM 16/48 2.0 Stereo, with the PCM richer, but Dolby more articulate and a little better than usual in this particular release.

 

For more on Ohne Filter shows, try this link for our coverage of the series:

 

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/new/viewer.cgi?search=filter

 

 

For an example of the many performers from the Paris series, see this link on a DVD compilation of such:

 

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/6038/New+Morning+25th+Anniversary+DVD

 

And for another Paris concert with Mike Stern solo that is not the same as the new Blu-ray, but worth your time, try this link:

 

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/3413/Mike+Stern+Live+-+Paris+Concert+At

 

 

That brings us to the rest of the Blu-rays.  Autour does contain the same two bonus tracks as its DVD predecessor, while the Mike Stern Band has no extras at all, but is longer than the solo Stern DVD and features eight songs including Tumble Home, KT, Wishing Well, What Might Have Been, Chatter, That’s All It Is, Wing & A Prayer and Chromosome.  He is an amazing guitarist for the genres he covers and it is no surprise the Yellowjackets would want to do a whole album with him, but more on that in a minute.

 

The Jose Feliciano Band has the legendary singer performing twenty songs, including his theme song to the Warner Bros. TV comedy Chico & The Man and his cover of The Doors’ Light My Fire, which bookend a show that includes interesting covers of Billie Jean, If You Don’t Know Me By Now, Higher Ground, Que Sera, Oye Como Va, Purple Haze and Sunshine Of Your Love.  He can still sing and wow, can he play!  He also does a percussion solo, included as the releases sole extra.

 

The Stanley Jordan Trio concert has 12 tracks including a nice all-instrumental of Lennon/McCartney’s Yesterday, which does a nice job of starting the show nicely.  He too can play well and as joined by Charnett Moffett and David Haynes, makes for another fine showing in this series.  An interview with Jordan is the only extras.

 

A March 2008 concert by the Yellowjackets is the most recent of the Paris performances and it also has a dozen tracks, yet none of them come from their Lifecycle album with Mike Stern.  Guess that is out of respect for him, but there is only one song (Dewey (For Miles)) that they also repeat on their 7-track Ohne Filter DVD outing.  Though that is a shorter concert, I liked it a bit more.  The Paris Blu-ray has a soundcheck and sketches as extras, while Filter DVD has the standard Filter extras and text on the band.

 

Then we have a third Yellowjackets release, the Lifecycle album, but we have the multi-channel Super Audio CD edition and their studio performances are as solid as their on-stage live work.  This has ten tracks and the DSD (Direct Stream Digital) single megabit digital sound source for the 5.1 mix is the best sound on any of these releases, even outdoing the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) lossless 5.1 mixes on the Blu-rays.  Each Blu-ray has that DTS, PCM 5.1 mixes that are almost as good and Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo that seems very inadequate for a high definition format.

 

Unfortunately in all these releases, even the SA-CD, the sound is a little compressed, with compression even competing (sadly) with the best articulation on the Blu-rays.  Why this is makes no sense, but it was the case it what amounts to nine titles we are looking at here.  The DSD (Direct Stream Digital) 2.0 Stereo and PCM 16/44.1 2.0 Stereo on the SA-CD is not bad, but also not up to their best equivalents on other discs.

 

Another issue with the Blu-rays are the identification of what kind of High Definition video is on them.  All say 1080, but never whether they are “i” or “p” which is not a good thing.  They are all softer than they should be for HD, though still better than their DVD equivalents (where applicable on the anamorphically enhanced releases, looking too soft and Video Black weak) as these have to be 1080i shoots.  In a few cases, you might almost think 720p.

 

Fortunately, the performances on all these releases are decent and top rate, though nothing in particular really stuck with me.  I did see the Yellowjackets being even more diverse than expected and Feliciano being more than just a legacy act.  Either way, despite playback limitations, if you are interested in any of these releases, you might just want to pick them up.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo


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