Grover Washington-Winelight (DVD-Audio) (1980) (NTSC)

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General		Extras
Category	Music	Main Menu Introduction Booklet Lyrics-Just The Two Of Us Gallery-Photo Credits
Rating
Year Of Production	1980
Running Time	41:11 (Case: 134)
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Programme
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Richard Alderson
Studio Distributor	Warner Vision	Starring	Grover Washington Jr. Bill Withers Ralph MacDonald Steve Gadd Eric Gale
Case	DVD-Audio Jewel
RPI	$32.95	Music	Various

    Grover Washington, Jr. is the legendary saxophone player that has inspired many current players, including people such as David Sanborn and Kenny G. He was one of the first "crossover" jazz artists that managed to extend his popularity to pop/rock listeners.

    Winelight (originally released in 1980) is widely acknowledged as one of his best albums. It won two Grammy® awards for Best Jazz Fusion Recording and Best R&B Song with Bill Withers for "Just the Two of Us." Winelight was certified gold in 1981; to date, it has sold over two million copies.

    The music on this album can best be described as an extension of R&B into soul jazz with lots of smooth fusion and contemporary pop kind of mixed in. Think of it as Kenny G but with a lot more soul and punch, and ... dare I say it ... cojones.

    On this album, Grover plays soprano, alto and tenor saxophones. He is accompanied by:

• Bill Withers - Vocal (Just The Two Of Us)
• Ralph MacDonald - Percussion, Congas, Syndrum
• Steve Gadd - Drums
• Marcus Miller - Bass
• Eric Gale - Guitar
• Paul Griffin - Clavinet (Winelight), Fender Rhodes (Let It Flow, Take Me There)
• Richard Tee - Fender Rhodes (all other tracks)
• Ed Walsh - Oberheim 8 Voice synthesizer
• Ray Chew - Clavinet (Winelight)
• Robert Greenidge - Steel Drums
• Bill Eaton - Oberheim synthesizer (Just The Two Of Us)
• Hilda Harris, Yvonne Lewis, Ullanda McCullough - background vocals

    This is simply another must-have disc if you like jazz saxophone. Just follow the suggestion of the title track, pour yourself a nice glass of wine, dim down the lights, put on the disc, and enjoy! And if you have a companion, even better!

Video

    Like most of the Warner DVD-Audio discs released to date, the video content on this disc is in full frame NTSC. We get one photo still per song that includes the song title. In addition, there are song lyrics stills for "Just The Two Of Us."

    This is a single sided dual layered disc (RSDL). For the DVD-Video portion, Layer 0 contains some menu animations as well as the Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track. Layer 1 contains the dts 5.1 and Linear PCM 2.0 audio track. The layers appears to separate titles. I was not able to ascertain the physical location of DVD-Audio content on the disc.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    This is a recent DVD Audio release, and features an expanded set of audio tracks (instead of just MLP 5.1 on DVD-A and Dolby Digital 5.1 on DVD-V in earlier releases). It is also a single sided dual layered disc (RSDL).

    The audio tracks on the DVD-Audio portion of the disc are:

• MLP 5.1 96/24
• MLP 2.0 192/24

    The audio tracks on the DVD-Video portion of the disc are:

• Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s)
• dts 5.1 (1536Kb/s)
• Linear PCM 2.0 48/24 (2304Kb/s)

    The only audio track missing that I would have liked to see is Linear PCM 2.0 96/24 on the DVD-Video section. So if you are a stereo listener and want to listen to high resolution, you better have a DVD Audio player!

    First of all, I listened to the MLP 2.0 track in its entirety. This is the first 192/24 track I have had an opportunity to listen to, and it is gorgeous. Contrary to my expectations, all that extra sampling rate and bandwidth doesn't really make the audio sound any "brighter" (which kind of makes sense because my ears can't hear any higher than 16 kHz or so anyway!). It does however, make the sound seem "smoother" and the transients much better defined. Smooth and crisp - it's like having your cake and eating it!

    Next up is the MLP 5.1 audio track. Compared to the MLP 2.0 track (which is about as close to "reference quality" as you are able to get) this sounds slightly less crisp, less smooth and "fuzzier", however it more than makes up for this by much better separation and articulation of the individual instruments, as they have been rearranged across more channels thus allowing them to "breathe" into the soundstage more naturally.

    The MLP 5.1 mix is weighted towards the front left and right channels. The front centre channel is mostly used to "fill" in the space between the front left and right, and the rear channels are used for some instruments (percussion and rhythm guitar for example) plus ambience.

    The subwoofer was used lightly to support the low frequency portion of the music.

    The Linear PCM 48/24 2.0 on the DVD-Video portion of the disc is several notches down in quality compared to the MLP 192/24 2.0 audio track - but remember this is still better than CD quality with 1.5 times the bitrate! The recording level is slightly softer, by about 1-2dB, but otherwise this is an excellent track.

    The full bitrate dts 5.1 audio track (1536Kb/s) on the DVD Video part of the side sounds very similar to the MLP track except possibly sounding slightly duller. Finally the Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track (448Kb/s) is also similar but slightly harsher and recorded at a fairly loud level (dialog normalization +4dB).

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    The extras are fairly minimal (but typical for DVD-Audio) on this disc.

Menu

    The menus are full frame and static, but include an animated introduction and menu transitions.

Song Lyrics - Just The Two Of Us

    There is only one song for which there are lyrics - which can be accessed whilst playing the song in DVD Audio (or separately as a menu item in the DVD Video portion of the disc).

Booklet

    This is a 12 page booklet that includes colour photographs, a lengthy essay by David Nathan, track listing, musician/production credits, and dedications.

Photo Gallery

    This is a set of twelve colour stills of various photos of Grover Washington, Jr.

Credits

    This is a set of eight stills listing musicians and production team.

    This disc appears to be identically featured across all regions.

    Winelight is from jazz saxophonist Grover Washington, Jr. and is one of his best albums. Simply a must-have - enough said.

    This RSDL disc contains a full selection of audio tracks, including MLP 96/24 5.1 and MLP 192/24 2.0 on the DVD Audio portion, plus full bitrate dts 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1 and Linear PCM 48/24 2.0 on the DVD-Video portion. The quality of the audio is excellent.

    Extras are minimal.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall