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General		Extras
Category	Documentary	Main Menu Introduction  Menu Audio and Animation  Discography  Audio-only Track
Rating
Year Released	1993
Running Time	61:37 minutes  (Not 60 minutes as stated on the packaging)
RSDL/Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region	1,2,3,4,5,6	Director	Oren Jacoby
Studio Distributor	Columbia Music Video  Sony Music	Starring	David Strathairn (Narrator)
Case	Black Brackley
RPI	$34.95	Music	Benny Goodman

    They toured, they played Carnegie Hall, they hit Hollywood - there was little that Benny Goodman and his band did not do. But it was not just the music, but the fact that he led the march towards integration by hiring Teddy Wilson and creating the Benny Goodman Trio - arguably the first mixed black and white group - that became the Benny Goodman Quartet when Lionel Hampton was hired. Despite the inevitable splits as the likes of Gene Krupa and Harry James left the band to pursue their own musical destiny, Benny Goodman played on and even tackled classical music with some success.

    Benny Goodman may now be dead but there is every chance that his music will never die. Swing was simply too good to ever die and when you talk about the best, then it shall live forever. This documentary presents a decent enough look at his musical life, and does so with the aid of numerous interviews with musicians he played with, family and friends. Adding to the enjoyment is a collection of footage from various sources showing Benny Goodman and the bands he played in and with in action. Whilst there are regrettably no complete performances of any tunes here, there sure are plenty of bites from many of his works, including Sing, Sing, Sing, A Fine Romance, Bugle Call Rag, What A Little Moonlight Can Do, Let's Dance (theme tune to his first big break on radio), Why Don't You Do Right and more. Adding to the importance of the documentary is the fact that it includes audio clips from interviews of the man himself as well as some footage of him taken during an interview (probably during the 1970s).

    If you don't know what all the fuss is about, then this is not a bad way to investigate the phenomenon known as swing. The only problem is that the show is about three hours too short! This is great stuff and thoroughly enjoyable - and if you feel the need to indulge further the music of the man, then the discography (limited to stuff that was available on Columbia Records CDs) will point you in the right direction. To be fair however, you might also want to check out some of the recordings on Bluebird (RCA Records) - there is some terrific stuff there too.

Video

    The transfer is presented in a Full Frame format and is not 16x9 enhanced. Just be aware though that unless you have an NTSC capable display device, all you will be able to see is a black and white snowstorm.

    With material dating from the 1920s through to the 1990s, you naturally run a very wide range of quality here. The 1990s interview footage, presumably shot specifically for the documentary is excellent of course, very sharp and very detailed, whilst some of the 1970s interview material is fairly reasonable. Whilst some of the archival material is a little ropey, in general there is nothing here that raises any great concerns with me, and most is generally far better than the slightly younger material seen for instance in The World At War Part 3 (which review immediately preceded this one). Much of the archival footage is significantly better than I expected and is quite decently sharp with plenty of detail on offer. Clarity is generally quite excellent with very little of the material being hindered by the expected murkiness. There is nothing much in the way of grain in the transfer. There is nothing in the way of any low level noise in the transfer.

    Naturally there is a mixture of material here: modern colour stuff and archival black and white stuff (with some minor amounts of very early colour footage too). There is nothing at all wrong with the 1990s interview footage: very nicely saturated, very vibrant and totally natural. Most of the black and white material has a depth to the tones that I was not really expecting and comes across in a nicely vibrant way. Just the odd piece of material falls into the murky greys category that we do not especially like, but thankfully this is not at all often and the value of the footage outweighs the costs. The early colour footage is fairly lacking in tones but that is entirely expected. Overall, this is better than I expected.

    There are no significant MPEG artefacts in the transfer. There were some problems with aliasing in the transfer, most noticeably during What A Little Moonlight Can Do when the railroad tracks are virtually unwatchable. There is a fairly extensive collection of film artefacts in the transfer, entirely as expected and at times rather noticeably distracting. However, there are some pieces of archival footage that is almost sensationally clean, which is an unexpected bonus.
 
 

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain
Film-to-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The narration from David Strathairn comes up very well in the soundtrack, as does all of the interview material and the archival audio material. There are no audio sync problems with the transfer.

    The music of course comes from Benny Goodman with the help of a whole bunch of arrangers and writers - most notably Fletcher Henderson. Five star stuff all the way!

    The only real issue with the soundtrack is that there is some slight distortion in Why Don't You Do Right but apart from that there is nothing that I would complain about here. And if you listen to the sound bites in the discography, you will soon realize that this could have been significantly worse than it is. There is thankfully little or no hiss in the soundtrack, so that everything sounds quite open and bright (or at least as bright as 1930s sound can be). Overall, a very nice sounding effort especially considering the age of some of the source material.
 
 

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

Discography

Audio Only Track

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Ian Morris (have a laugh, check out the bio)
1st April, 2001