Customer Reviews

Return to Forever: Returns - Live at Montreux [Blu-ray]

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The Show: I don't know how to describe these guys. Their musicianship is just beyond excellent. If you're a fan of Return to Forever or just any one individual, you must have this show. Their performance blows me away. I saw their concert in St. Louis (USA) and I'm so happy to have one of their shows on Blu-Ray. The Montreux portion is not the entire show, but close to it. The disc contains the first electric set (minus the "Opening Prayer" tune, the only new RTF song of the tour written by Chick Corea) and most of the second acoustic set (minus the two encores). It's running time is 1 hour, 49 minutes and 16 seconds.

Video Quality: Phenomenal! It's just ridiculously sharp and clear. In some ways, watching this on Blu-Ray is better than actually being there. The Blu-Ray has a 1080i MPEG-4 AVC @ 26 Mbps encoding on a 50GB dual layer disc.

Audio Quality: Again, Phenomenal! The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (24bit/48kHz) track is just so crisp, clear and enveloping. The Linear PCM 2.0 track (24bit/48kHz) is also phenomenal when I want to enjoy straight stereo. The Dolby 5.1 track (16bit/48kHz/640kbps)....I don't plan on listening to that one.

Extras: So this made me mad. The 5 bonus tracks that we get from the July 31, 2008 Clearwater, Florida show are nice to have, but the entire time they placed different angles of video in a box pattern on the screen with some unnecessary visual effects in between. It doesn't even fill in the entire screen either. It's very annoying in my opinion. Nothing like the experience you get from the Montreux portion of the disc. The video and audio attributes are identical to the Montreux set. It's running time is 41 minutes and 36 seconds.

Final Thoughts: This is a must-have Blu-Ray. Unreal quality all around. I gave 4 stars, but I would have easily given 5 if not for the bonus tracks being like they are.

For lovers of RTF and jazz/rock fusion this is the real deal !
For reference, my playback system is comprised of a 61" HD monitor, KEF 5.1 playback system with a Marantz SR6003 receiver, and blu-ray player.
This Blu-Ray disc shines when played back using the lossless uncompressed DTS HD Master audio option.
The bass is tight and deep and the instrument placement in the mix is "spot on" to the show I saw them do in NY last year.
The camera work is excellent and affords the viewer a great view of each player with great close-up view during their solo segments.
Also of note, the bonus tracks filmed on the US leg of this tour offer an interesting drum solo from Lenny White and "Duel of the Jester and the Tyrant" which is not included on the main program, is a a high speed musical gem.
Highly recommended for lovers of this musical genre !

Run,do not walk to get this excellent concert.Like some of the other reviews said- killer video, killer sound and killer performances.Plenty of bottom end on Stan's electric bass and Lenny's bass drum to remove dental work (with a good sub of course)which is what I always missed on those first few early recordings.The acoustic set is to die for with all of Al's different guitars recorded and translated to just sparkle. This is also the most gorgeous upright bass sound I have ever heard recorded to date...

Just as the title of this review says, this is an excellent Blu-ray disc.
The video quality is so lifelike, it's almost like being there. For some reason, my BD player allows me to choose the HD-Audio option even though I can only connect audio to my receiver via digital optical cable, but the sound is incredible nonetheless (I can only get true HD audio via HDMI from my Panasonic BD35 player)! It is easily the best looking and sounding Blu-ray disc that I own (I have about 20 movies and 6 live concerts on Blu-ray).
Finally, as other reviewers have already stated, the performance on this disc is incredible. I never got to see them live, so I don't know if this was commonplace for them, but they deliver a knockout performance here.

If, like me, you're a long time fan of RTF, but never got to see them live (or even if you did), this BD is a must have!
By the way, as someone else already pointed out, the bonus tracks are indeed inferior in quality and production, but as they are "bonus" tracks, I chose not to reduce the star rating for it in my review.

I always loved Stanley Clarke and Al Di Meola back in the 70's and into the 80's and I was also a fan of Return to Forever. Over the years I kind of forgot about them until I picked up this DVD. From the first track I was hooked. This is simply to best music I have heard in years. These four musicians are truly great and a highly recommend the DVD both for its musicianship and its quality.

What a great looking and sounding blu ray!! The sound is incredible, possibly one of the very best concert discs I have for overall sound quality. This is good stuff!!

Video:
The most pristine image that you can enjoy.
Congratulations to all the crew involved in the making of this video: is PERFECT

Sound:
If you want to impress your friends with your 5.1 or 7.1 equipment this is 5 stars recording.

Ive been anticipating this release on Blu-ray since I saw the concert in June 2008 and heard they were doing video.

Stanleys solo is different than I remember which is my only complaint. Other than that the picture if beautiful and the sound is amazing. I dont have the same comments as some other reviewers regading Al's placement in the mix. My systems stage image is nearly perfect.

The bonus material is multiple angle and interesting to me.

RTF was burning down the college airwaves and auto cassette decks in 1977/78. Jazz Rock Fusion is what some folks called it. This music blew minds. Each of these guys were and are excellent musicians on their own with strings of credits as arrangers, producers, music composers and performers. Together they are a freaking force of nature. Romantic Warrior and the recent RTF Anthology will melt your face, they are so sonically and musically powerful. To see these guys together again (live) on stage and captured in HD for posterity is just great. The video and the audio are first rate. The only negative is the set list. Majestic Dance and some other great music, hits if you will, are missing and that is a shame. Check it out anyway. These guys were da bomb back in the day. Great Stuff, highly recommended.

What a Sonic performance these guys put on! I will say I had listened to it twice with my old dual subwoofer system and the sound was very decient. I replaced the dual subs (SPL-12's) with an Optimum 12 and now it's fantastitic. The BD in DTS-MA was breath taking sonicly and visualy this is one of the best I've seen. Chic's synthyzier drum solo was out-of-this-world fantastic! I had no problem hearing Lenny's drum's or kick drum's through out the recording and Stanley's bass playing was just plain awsome.
The Video and Video mix were also outstanding. It's very interisting to actually see how these artists make some of the sounds they do.
I remember way back when I had Records, I had at least 2 of their records and was very impressed at the music they played but lost track other than the individual artists having their own records. In my opinion they never sounded better than together as the RTF.
Test yourself and your system this is a must have BD recording on so many levels I don't have time to say, just GET IT!

I wish Amazon had a 3 criteria rating that would make for a quicker, more accurate and fair rating of Cd's, DVD's and Blu-ray's.

1. Performance
2. Quality of Audio
3. Quality of Video (for DVD's and Blu-ray's)

1.*****
2.*****
3.*****

Artists that wish to have there performances recorded and recognized should be held to a standard. Poor Audio or Video, no matter how good the performance, is still a bad product. Those who would still purchase sub-standard Audio or Video quality recordings and rank that product highly just because of performance are not doing the industry or the band justice. Demand better and we will get it, settle for less and that's what you'll get.