Customer Reviews

Les Paul: Live in New York (Blu-ray/ DVD Combo + Digital Copy)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Les Paul was a true renaissance man - a musician, an inventor, and a funny "rascal" too - during his 94 years, he made hit records, invented the solid body electric guitar and multi-track recording and spent every Monday night for 20 years playing on stage in the fairly intimate Iridium Jazz Club on Broadway in New York City. His audience on a Monday night consisted of tourists, longtime Paul fans and often a celebrity musician or two, who would often "sit in" with the master.

For Paul's 90th birthday month in 2005, some big names were scheduled to appear with Paul and the 54-minute show that forms the core of this DVD captures some of those moments. After a basic intro to Paul, the performances commence. Many of those in the first part of the show are interrupted with comments about him, which were recorded later, but soon the numbers are presented uninterrupted. Australian guitar wiz Tommy Emmanuel, Jose Feliciano, mandolinist David Grisman and Steve Miller are in the program. So are jazz violinist Christian Howes and tap dancer Andrew Nemr - who jam with Paul - but they are never identified until the final credits. I've had the pleasure of seeing Howes play with Paul when I had the opportunity to visit the Iridium, and I've seen the young Nemr do his fancy footwork as well. Keith Richards don's a Les Paul model guitar to trade licks too, but the performance was inserted from a 2002 Richards visit to the Iridium.

Though the package lists "Tributes and Live Performances" by Bonnie Raitt and Tony Bennett, you see them in the same room with Paul. They appear in 4-minute interviews as part of the additional hour of "bonuses". Emmanuel and guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli are there for similar interviews. The longest, and most interesting, comes from Steve Miller, who was practically raised in the Paul house in New Jersey from the time he was five years old. Miller has some great stories.

The other bonus on this wonderful DVD include a really grainy "Soundie" from the 40s of the Les Paul Trio and a complete five minute Les Paul and Mary Ford Listerine TV show from 1953 which is in beautiful condition. The true gem, at least for me, in the bonus section, is an 11-minute portion from the early 1950s TV show Omnibus with Alistair Cooke. Les and Mary demonstrate how multi-tracking works and its both educational as well as highly entertaining. We even get a recent six-minute interview with the sound engineer for the Listerine Show.

There are other video bios of Paul that have been released over the last 20 years ("Chasing Sound" is highly recommended). This DVD makes a great companion and has a lot more performance material, as well as Paul's sometimes-risque humor. The DVD was produced by the Les Paul Estate and is distributed by Questar.

Steve Ramm
"Anything Phonographic"

For anyone that ever had the privaledge of seeing Les Live at the Iridium, this is a great representation of that.
If you never had the chance to go, but always wanted to, this is as close and realistic as it gets.

Les was an amazing showman, The band just Smokes! and the humor between songs is awesome.

Great Disk. Highly recommended..

You cant beat it. I also recommend Les Paul: Chasing Sound, and Jeff Beck: Live at Ronnie Scotts.

Enjoy!

Well Music Lovers YOU GOT TO GET THIS VIDEO CD,FOR REAL.
It has mostly already been said Mr.Paul is by far one of the greatest. So do your self a favor and hear,love and learn about this wonderful gift to us. And all who he has inspired in many ways. This DVD speaks for it self,please hear it and you will feel Mr. Les Pauls gift of love to us. Please hear some of the younger talent he has inspired,like: Garth Pearson,Joe Robinson,Kieran Murphy. The 3 above are not on this. But Mr.Tommy Emmanuel is,and some of my other favorites. Thank you Darryl Forshee Hey guys dig AMAZON.COM FOR GOOD DEALS,for real.

This DVD perfectly captures what Les Paul's shows @ The Iridium were like every Monday Night for years! Les's sense of humor is here...as it always was in performance. One can also see how beautifully Les put his guest musicians at ease on stage, enabling them to be at their best. The only demerit is the fact that Over The Rainbow is not part of the DVD (It became a Les Paul signature number). Buy this...now.

The events captured on this blue-ray disk do not constitute a straight through concert. They do not even constitute a "rocumentary" as the material on Les Paul here is not sufficiently detailed. This is a birthday celebration for a rock and roll pioneer near the end of his life. Les Paul died two years later.

While Les Paul contributed considerably to rock and roll in terms of songs and especially in his invention and improvement of musical instruments (guitars) he was not as well know as he deserved to be. For many of the younger generation this gathering of better known musicians (Steve Miller, Keith Richards, Bonnie Raitt, Tony Bennett and others- some in person, some on video) is an affirmation of the older gentleman. Where will rock and roll be today without the solid body guitar?

It is a delightful evening filled with several short performances and short stories/conversations in a party atmosphere. The performances are very good, the audio and video both excellent. You get both the blue-ray disc and the DVD for one low price and that makes it worth adding to your collection. Les is gone for good.

Les Paul was the innovator and a bit of roguish rascal. For over 75 years, he made hit records, made Gibson famous with the Les Paul solid body guitar.
Check out his Music with Mary Ford! Some recordings with Chet Atkins are also worthy of note.
His 90th performance birthday in 2005 is the heart of this Blu-ray.
Guests include acoustic guitar God Tommy Emmanuel, Jose Feliciano, and Steve Miller to mention a few.
Definitely undervalued at this price!

Buy this disk for the performance, but be prepared to learn that this rascal is not the 1950's straight-laced character you may have assumed. Rate it PG. Ninety years old and arthritic, and he's full of life and still plays better than I can hope to. It will leave you wanting more and less - more Les Paul and less camera kitsch. The performance is 5* and the videography is 2*. The audio is competent and and free of gimmicks, but why does every musical performance have to look like an amateur music video these days? The incessant camera movement, sloppy focus and excessive, boring and ill-timed cut-aways (to cover botched shots?) are an annoying distraction when you are trying to watch a great performance. You don't look away or need "creative" camera angles to avoid boredom when Les Paul is playing! As a guitar player, I like the closeups, but even I know that an extra camera on a tripod left running with a broad shot is how you cover for the guys doing the tight shots. The legendary director John Ford had it right when he said that the actors should move - not the camera. The disk is filled up with plenty of extras for the nostalgia buffs, but I can't believe that they didn't record more of this or other sessions than a measly hour. This performance deserved a state-of-the-art production and an encore, but I guess all his fans would feel that way.

The BluRay disk appears to be a rush job. The pop-up menu for time and chapter number comes up blank on my Panasonic making it hard to find my favorite spots. There is no way to tell it to play through all the extras, so you have to cue up each one separately. This also is the first disk I've seen where the Dolby track is in two-channel stereo and the linear PCM track is the surround. This was unexpected and confusing at first; but I welcome lossless multi-channel sound in any format, and I think it should be mandatory for BluRay.

Got it for my son who knew Les Paul. It's so good I may not give it to him any time soon....:)

What has not been said about this great man the one and only Mr.Les Paul God Bless him a gentlemen legend the man did it all !!!

I can't wait for this to come out!
A legend that shouldn't be forgotten-
Long live Les- Your influence will ripple on forever my friend!