Product Details

• Actors: Quincy Jones
• Format: Black & White, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Tdk DVD Video
• DVD Release Date: September 26, 2006
• Run Time: 80 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000H9HWS2
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #61,574 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

• This item is part of The Jazz Icons Series.

Editorial Reviews

Jazz Times

"Jazz Icons is doing for jazz what the Criterion Collection has done for classic and important films".

Product Description

Jazz Icons: Quincy Jones features Q conducting what he called his Â"dream band.Â" With an 18-piece orchestra of world-renowned players such as Clark Terry, Phil Woods, Sahib Shihab, Budd Johnson and Benny Bailey, this 80-minute program featuring 17 songs, is one of the fi nest examples of big band jazz ever to be captured on fi lm. Shot in Switzerland and Belgium in 1960, these two concerts are the only known visual documents of this legendary tour—an important lost chapter in an illustrious career which has spanned six decades.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Uncommon pleasures, December 2, 2006

By	Read-Only (New York City) - See all my reviews

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This is a DVD of two fantastic concerts by a little-known big band led by Quincy Jones in 1959-61. The liner notes tell the story of how the band was originally formed to play for a show in Paris and then London but became unemployed when the show closed. Jones took the band on tour, with a combination of his and bandmembers' arrangements. Because the band played almost entirely in Europe, it has not become well known in the US (except via legend) and does not have a recording history.

The music here is "typical" big-band music of the time (reminiscent of Count Basie more than any other band), except that it is far better than most. The arrangements are both surprising and satisfying, going beyond cliches of the big-band style. The soloists are fantastic. Well known musicians such as Phil Woods (before he put on his cap), Quentin "Butter" Jackson, Budd Johnson, and Clark Terry play just as well as you expect them too. But for me the most interesting aspect of the DVD is the lesser known musicians who are captured here. Benny Bailey plays beautifully; after the band broke up, he stayed in Europe, and America was denied one of the great trumpet players of his generation. Melba Liston is best known to us now as an arranger, especially for Randy Weston. She is captured here playing in the trombone section and on a gorgeous solo on "My Reverie." I have read her name a hundred times but have never actually heard her play before (a search on Amazon gives zero hits to her name in the music category). The wonderful Sahib Shihab is another expatriate who spent most of his playing life in Europe and therefore is little known in the US. But his baritone sax work here is extraordinary. Julius Watkins on french horn, Ake Persson on trombone, and Jerome Richardson are three other excellent musicians that you have never seen in concert.

I am emphasizing the historical importance of this disk--the fact that it captures many important musicians who are not widely available elsewhere. However, the music is just fun and beautifully played. You won't feel as if you are doing homework by watching it.

The sound quality was very good, even though mono. The videotape has suffered some loss over the years: halos around people's heads, blurring and artifacts during fast movement, occasional video noise of various kinds. But this does not detract from the enjoyment of the concerts. My initial expectation of the DVD was somewhat low. I thought it might be a workaday big-band outing. Instead, it is an extraordinary document of one of the best bands to play in that era.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Young Quincy in his prime, December 3, 2006

By	Joe Sixpack -- Slipcue.com (...in Middle America) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

Before settling into a long and lucrative career as a Hollywood composer, record mogul and pop producer, Quincy Jones flashed across the jazz horizon as a bright new light, a dynamic composer and arranger worthy, perhaps, of Ellington's mantle. In the late 1950s, he moved to Paris, and toured Europe with a punchy, modernized big band, combining the sleek, coordinated power of the classic bands with the hip, streamlined. poppy melodic punch of Mancini and his generation.

Of the films in the "Jazz Icons" series, this is the best produced and visually most arresting... Perhaps because Jones was living in Europe at the time, he had the opportunity to work closely with the filmmakers -- this show is full of obviously well thought-out, staged sequences and precise blocking, reminiscent in some ways of those old Cab Calloway shorts that used the grandeur of Busby Berkeley-style choreography... It's also more solidly "jazz" than a lot of Jones's later work, giving modern audiences a chance to see what all the fuss was about with this budding musical giant. Cool film.

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good but not great, December 16, 2006

By	C.A. Arthur (Tacoma, Washington) - See all my reviews

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This is one of the least of the glorious Jazz Icon series on DVD. Yes, it's worth the money, and jazz fans will want to own it. But there are flaws. The picture is okay, in general. The sound is only adequate. Worse, the director had a score and irritatingly flicks between the sections and soloists whenever they are featured. Soloists down front got the camera almost up their nose.

The band itself was pretty good, but not the best you've seen and heard. The rhythm section was quite mediocre (the guitar can rarely be heard). French horn player Julius Watkins was given a lot of time to show off his boring chops. On the other hand, no one could complain about Phil Woods, Quentin Jackson, Jerome Richardson, Benny Bailey, and Clark Terry. This tape may contain the only example of a Melba Liston solo. Quincy's arrangements are well above average. The band leader himself just stands in front of the band, wiggling a lot through the numbers, displaying a truly ill-fitting jacket.

So buy it. If only for Phil Woods. But the film does not compete effectively with the other entries in the series.