Customer Reviews

Jazz at Smithsonian [VHS]

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This movie is a must for all Blakey fans. Wynton Marsalis leads the 3-man horn section to deliver a powerful and exhilerating performance. Blakey gets the group rolling and once they start jamming there's no stopping them. Blakey sets the stage with his "Jazz Messengers" for Wynton and Branford Marsalis, as he did for Curtis Fuller, Freddie Hubbard, and Cedar Walton. All four songs on this set are amazing, and Wynton is featured all alone in the horn section on one. Everyone in this does an amazing job.

I've Seen this Concert So Many Times&I Never Get Bored with It.Art Blakey is One OF The Baddest Musicians Ever Period&Here He has The Great Talents of The Marsalis's Brothers Here.Wynton&Branford.The Music&Arrangements are Fantastic.A Must Have.

This is a video of one of Blakey's more cohesive ensembles, with the unusual attention to dynamics and the employment of Dixieland textures in the closing theme both testifying to the influence of Wynton Marsalis. The program is primarily "neo-bop," opening with two original numbers based on a minor scale, or Dorian mode, followed by a Wynton feature on Kurt Weil's "My Ship." His playing throughout is flashy if not slick (with a curiously conservative Branford on alto sax and a taking-care-of business Bill Pierce on tenor), but all three horns are lacking in warmth, lyricism and, at times, melodic logic. The star of the session, to my ears, is the unsung pianist, Donald Brown. He's the only musician who "eats up" the "I Got Rhythm" chord changes of the final complete number.

The audio is no better than a "C". Worse, Blakey's drums are mostly lost in the mix. Look for a far more engaging video, "Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers," recorded live in 1976 in Umbria, Italy. Featuring Bill Hardman and Dave Schnitter, the trumpet player and tenor man who played longer with Blakey than any other frontline, this strikingly filmed DVD also presents a rare opportunity to make the acquaintance of these superb, but underrated and largely forgotten, musicians.