Product Details

• Actors: Erroll Garner, Kelly Martin, Eddie Calhoun
• Format: Black & White, DVD, 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: White Star
• DVD Release Date: July 1, 2002
• Run Time: 72 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00006CXGR
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #29,684 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Pianist Erroll Garner's sheer ebullience, virtuoso technique, and endless flow of ideas are all on hand in these two 1964 performances (totaling 72 minutes) taken from the archives of the BBC. Although players like Bill Evans and McCoy Tyner were moving jazz piano in entirely new directions by that time, Garner's jaunty, florid playing, with its elements of ragtime, stride, and other old-fashioned styles, seems to exist in another world. It's an entertaining world, though, as he makes his way through a repertoire consisting largely of standards like "Just One of Those Things," "Laura," "Lover," "Honeysuckle Rose," and such, most of them featuring Garner's inimitably imaginative introductions. However, although he wrote the tune, he won't play "Misty" for you; that classic appears here only as an audio-only bonus track, an inexplicable move roughly akin to Tony Bennett not singing "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" or Tiny Tim foregoing "Tiptoe Through the Tulips." --Sam Graham

Product Description

Studio: Kultur Release Date: 07/27/2004 Run time: 72 minutes

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Goodness gracious, September 28, 2003

By	Daniel Fineberg (Northridge, California USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

When I heard that they were releasing a DVD of Erroll Garner in performance--a full 70 minutes from a 1964 BBC special--I just about hit the ceiling. By 1964, Garner was quite out of fashion, what with the avant-garde ramblings of Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman and the likes taking center stage, but he had lost very little of his power. Now, years later, all those experimental trends fall away in the presence of Garner's genius. He's joined that uppermost level of jazz pianists--along with Art Tatum, Bud Powell, Monk, Bill Evans, and a tiny handful of others who have become genres of one...singular geniuses. Garner, like Monk, like Tatum, used all of the keyboard, making 88 keys sound like 188. He was a one-man orchestra. But even more astonishing than his technique was his fresh interpretation of standards, almost like intense studies of the compositions. He'd take a tune like "Autumn Leaves" or "I Cover the Waterfront", slow them down, expose and explore every nuance of the melody, make it new. His playing was often baroque, often complex, but always beautiful, and he never even learned to read music. This performance has about 17 tunes, though strangely, he does not play "Misty", his extraordinary signature tune that he played night after night. However, the guys behind the DVD had their thinking caps on, and added an audio performance of it. Now you're out of excuses.

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Man that piano was invented for, September 11, 2002

By	jojo "nevagich" (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

Where do I begin..? My GOD..from the minute He started to play...tears came to my eyes..how could anybody be so~~ good..and sensitive..? leave it to British to preserve our national treasures...Eroll Garner plays piano in this DVD(live in BBC in England) with his working group..his famous introductions that leaves no clue as to what's coming up...including his own band members..is pure Gold..and pure JAZZ...how smooth he enters the tune..and how smooth everybody else follows him..is behind comprihension for commen men...I am a Jazz musician..and anytime I see this DVD I am very happy but also in the same time sick to my stomach that there are or there were human beings who were so~~ good..playing their instruments..do'nt think twice just get the DVD..before..is no longer available..show them to your children..show them to the teens that they think they know who the cool musicians are..show them to who ever will watch...show them an American ican at his best....need I say more...?

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars High level entertainment, February 20, 2003

By	Kurt Starlit (Copenhagen, xxx Denmark) - See all my reviews

Having heard most of Garner's piano works - including "Solo Time" and "Concert by the Sea" - I agree with mr. Nevagich on the musical quality of this DVD.
It is a BBC production showing the Erroll Garner trio entertaining a London audience, circa 1964.
Being a black-and-white recording in mono, sound and picture quality still has got a reasonable level.
This is the first time I see Garner live, and was VERY impressed musically, technically and on a personal level.
Errol Garner had this inexplicable charisma, which is adding to his performance - something I am sure people will appreciate when watching him.
In his hands just about any piano-technical difficulty LOOKS easy. A sign of class, I would say.
Kelly Martin on drums and Eddy Calhoun on bass are clever musicians backing him up in an intelligent way. It is obvious that they all are having a good time. This includes the audience who is working like "a fourth member of the group", as someone (maybe Garner himself) once said.
As usual nothing is decided, Garner just plays whatever he feels, Martin and Calhoun follow their leader.
That is what jazz is all about: playing what you feel.
Garner was mentally and technically able of carrying this out into practice.
The man for whom the piano was invented, someone said.
The best piano player there ever was, says I.

Kurt Starlit
Copenhagen
February 21, 2003