Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Jazz Icons DVD Series, November 8, 2006
Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers * Live in '58
Dizzy Gillespie * Live in '58 & '70
Louis Armstrong * Live in '59
Quincy Jones * Live in '60
Thelonious Monk * Live in '66
Buddy Rich * Live in '78
Ella Fitzgerald * Live in '57 & '63
Count Basie * Live in '62
Chet Baker * Live in '64 & '79
We'll let others speak for us:
"The release of Jazz Icons(tm) is like the unearthing of a musical time capsule--an audio-visual treasure trove of the music that changed the world. From Big Band and Bebop to Dixieland and Cool, it's all here and it all swings. These jazz legends, from Dizzy and Count to Louis and Ella, are the Bachs and Beethovens of our generation. From an educational standpoint this series is a gift to our culture. I'm honored to be a featured part of it, but I'm more thrilled just to sit down and watch it with my grandkids."
--Quincy Jones
"Louis Armstrong's sound transcends time and style. This DVD captures that intangible power and allows us to gaze upon it in wonder."
--Wynton Marsalis
"Amazing! To see the Art Blakey band playing "Moanin'" a month after I recorded them--it's like watching my own birth."
--Rudy Van Gelder
(engineer of the original Moanin' LP)
"These nine historic DVDs are among the most important visual/aural documents to be mined from the ever-yielding, seemingly hidden jazz treasury. Now, most importantly, they are available to the entire world."
--Ira Gitler, co-author,
The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz (Oxford)
"Considering the almost alarming proliferation of jazz DVDs on the market today, and their extremely variable quality, it is good to know that Reelin' In The Years can be trusted to bring viewers nothing but the best--in content and presentation."
--Dan Morgenstern, Director, Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University; author, Living With Jazz (Pantheon Books)
"The first nine releases hold many delights -- a magnificent Ella Fitzgerald, a crisp Quincy Jones big band -- but none more thrilling than a concert by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers in Brussels in 1958."
-New York Times
many more at [...]
|
|
|
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best collection of Jazz greats ever on DVD, December 31, 2006
To be able to see and hear the greatest names in Jazz in their prime is almost magical.Basie, Ella, Dizzy, Chet Baker, Buddy Rich The Jazz Messengers, Louis Amstrong and Thelonious Monk. Can you believe it? What a great find. As I watch and listen to each of these DVD's I am continuously impressed. The sound and reproduction from concerts and TV shows done in the 60's and 70's is terrific. The beauty of it is that we even get to see what the European TV viewer in many cases did not see, because these are from the original tapes or films BEFORE they were edited for TV . In some cases they were never even broadcast at all.
Watch the expression on Buddy Rich's face as he drives and swings his band (in color) with unbelievable energy. See Chet Baker in his youth as you probably never got to see him at that time, that is, even if you were born then. Catch a great blues singer (I was never familiar with her), Irene Reid on the Count Basie DVD. Her performance of "Backwater Blues" and "ALEXANDERS Rag Time Band" will blow you away as it did the audience at the concert in '62. Watch Thelonious Monk, as you can actually SEE as well as hear, his unusual approach to the piano as he strikes each key in his own special way, and than does his little dance as he himself is completly captivated by the music. I guess I could go on and on about how great each performance is, but you will discover that for yourself when you listen to this beautiful collection of DVD's. Even if you don't go for the whole collection, you got to find something here that you find alluring enough to own.
Just a word to the people that discovered and put this collection together; David Peck,Phillip Gallaway, Mika Peck, and TDK records Thank you ever so much.
For the older fans that take a trip in time and see their favorites perform again just as if we are there "one more time" as Count Basie would say, or to the new, or younger jazz fan that may see and listen to these artists for the first time. We are forever gratefull.
Keep these wonderfull DVD's rolling out of them vaults. I really look forward to the next batch of releases, especially the Charles Mingus and Roland Kirk DVD's. What a blast they will be.
Carl
|
|
|
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Grammy, Oscar, Time Capsule, Dream Come True, January 24, 2008
Thirty five years ago, when I started listening to this music on LP's, I could never have dreamt of seeing clear, lovingly recorded concert and studio performances of so much of this music by these artists. Even now, the quality and content of these films and videos makes me think I have dreamt it. Could it be real? This is jazz treasure, mates.
I thought there would be about a thousand 5-star reviews but -- only 6 reviews at this moment. No matter, this set of DVD's is ** VERY WELL done **. (It couldn't be better ... except it would have been classier to use silence during the menus, instead of music).
I ordered the Volume 2 set immediately after seeing and hearing a few minutes of Volume 1. Yes. Believe it. If you are wondering whether to spring for anything from this Jazz Icon DVD series, I would say, "Yes, go ahead !!! "
|
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
Interact With Your Music: Discover, listen to, and buy new music, all from the pages of SPIN's digital edition, free to Amazon customers.
