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PLEASE NOTE: Michael D's is currently in READ ONLY MODE. Anything submitted will simply not be written to the database.
Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
Marvin Gaye-Live in Montreux 1980

Marvin Gaye-Live in Montreux 1980

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Released 18-Aug-2003

Cover Art

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Details At A Glance

General Extras
Category Music Main Menu Audio & Animation
Menu Animation & Audio
Booklet
Rating Rated E
Year Of Production ?
Running Time 98:40 (Case: 100)
RSDL / Flipper RSDL (58:27) Cast & Crew
Start Up Menu
Region Coding 1,2,3,4,5,6 Directed By Francois Jaquenod
Studio
Distributor

Warner Vision
Starring Marvin Gaye
Case Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI $34.95 Music None Given


Video Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame Full Frame English Linear PCM 48/16 2.0 (1536Kb/s)
English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s)
English dts 5.1 (768Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio None
16x9 Enhancement No
Video Format 576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio 1.33:1 Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures No
Subtitles None Smoking No
Annoying Product Placement No
Action In or After Credits No

NOTE: The Profanity Filter is ON. Turn it off here.

Plot Synopsis

   Marvin Gaye was born into a Pentecostal minister's household in Washington DC, on April 2nd, 1939. After initially singing in church choirs, he found himself being influenced by contemporary R&B performers including James Brown, and decided to pursue his own musical career. His early efforts to become a 'crooner' in the style of Nat 'King' Cole or even Frank Sinatra weren't terribly successful, and he soon found himself heading towards the Motown music bandwagon on which he would successfully serve for many years as one of the stars of the Rhythm and Blues (R&B) music scene over many years from the 1960s. Whilst he did go through a bad phase in his personal life during much of the 70s, that culminated in his move to Europe which he proclaimed enabled him to be the musician  he 'always wanted to be'.

    Gaye found renewed commercial success in 1982 with his worldwide hit "Sexual Healing" which promised a resurgence in his musical and commercial status. However, just a day short of his 45th birthday, in 1984, he was shot and killed by his father after a bitter domestic dispute. Sadly, the world was robbed of a great singer and performer and it's now only through these older recordings that existing fans, as well as new ones, can enjoy Marvin Gaye at his best.

    This disc presents his live concert in front of the audience at the 14th Jazz Festival in Montreux, Switzerland, in July 1980. As one would expect, this set contains most of the hits from his career (excluding of course "Sexual Healing" which was still 2 years away from release). Most of the songs are reworked  enough to give a different enough sound to satisfy collectors of Gaye's music, or fans of 'classic' R&B.

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Track Listing

1. Got To Give It Up
2. Funky Space Reincarnation
3. Come Get To This
4. Let's Get It On
5. After The Dance
6. If This World Were Mine
7. Ain't Nothing Like The Real Thing
8. Ain't No Mountain High Enough
9. How Sweet It Is(To Be Loved By You)
10. Ain't That Peculiar
11. I'll Be Doggone
12. I Heard It Through The Grapevine
13. Trouble Man
14. Distant Lover
15. Inner City Blues
16. Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)
17. What's Going On

Transfer Quality

Video

   Considering that the source material is close to 23 year old, I was pleasantly surprised by its quality. I've seen much footage from concerts of this era that suffers terribly from problems including oversaturation, lens flare, and focus errors, which thankfully this disc is relatively free of.

    The presentation is in 1.33:1 full screen and is thus not 16x9 enhanced. Given that the credits state that this was a production for Swiss television I suspect that this was the original ratio. However if I didn't know that, many of the shots looked like they were framed for a wider-screen presentation, say 1.85:1, but that might have just been my wishful thinking (especially given that it was 1980!).

    The sharpness was impressively good throughout, except for a few points at which the focus softened a little, which I think was inherent in the source material. Shadow detail was a little poor, which often resulted in peripheral band members 'melding' into the darkness. For example, at 62:53 the backup singers' dark suits disappeared into the background darkness. This might have been due to the very bright stage lighting, as well as the age and quality of the original transfer.

    Early on there appeared to be a fair amount of low level noise present in the dark background, in the form of horizontal stripes. This wasn't overly distracting but was noticeable. However, it wasn't present throughout.

     The colour was somewhat muted and had that 'dated' look to it which really made it look its age. You could say it looked typical of the period. However, Gaye's bright red jacket really stood out well against the muted colours and looked rich and even approached, but didn't actually reach, the level of oversaturation on a few occasions.

    The artefacts I spotted were mainly in the source material and were not attributable to the transfer itself. There were many instances of 'hotspotting' and consequent trails on the screen resulting from very bright stage lights, or reflections of them in the polished brass instruments. This was obviously in the original footage and is not as bad as I've seen in many other televised performances of that era. There were also some distinct dark lines on the right hand edge of the picture around 62:53 which lasted for a few seconds. They didn't look like scratches but some kind of machine-made markings.

    There was no aliasing, even in the close ups of the metal meshing of the microphones.

    There were no subtitles on this disc.

    The layer change occurred at the end of chapter 12 (58:27) and was very noticeable on my player as it resulted in the picture (and sound) pausing for about 1 second. Given that there were no actual 'breaks' in the entire concert I guess it would have been hard to place the layer change in any better way. Perhaps on newer players the layer change might be less intrusive?

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

Audio

   The soundtrack on this DVD is presented in three distinct flavours. Linear PCM stereo, DTS 5.1 and Dolby Digital 5.1.

    I listened to the disc in its entirety in both DTS and Dolby Digital, and did extensive comparative sampling of the Linear PCM soundtrack. I was pleased that this was one of those discs that allowed the user to change between DTS and other soundtracks 'on the fly'.

    Obviously the original recording was in stereo and would have probably been without any surround encoding (I say 'probably', because there were some proprietary systems of 'surround sound' being experimented with during the 1970s). Hence, the outcome on this disk is a soundstage that is well spread across the front speakers with some audience applause being pumped into the rears during the mastering of the disc to give that '5.1' effect.

    The Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack initially sounded the best. It was the 'brightest' with a deeper bass and higher treble and beautifully spread across the front speakers to provide a nice wide soundstage. I say 'initially' because I found myself listening more to the DTS 5.1 mix after reviewing was over.

    The DTS 5.1 soundtrack sounded a little muted in contrast to the Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. I found that Gaye's vocals were also mixed a little too low and were, at times, a little difficult to distinguish from the background music. Curiously, his vocals were also not anchored to the centre speaker, but appeared diffused and hence somewhat 'detached' from the action on-screen, almost like some of those 'phase tests' on audio setup disks. This problem didn't occur on the Dolby Digital 5.1 track, nor on the Linear PCM.

    To my ears, the Linear PCM soundtrack sounded pretty poor with substantially reduced dynamics, as well as a noticeably narrower soundstage across the front speakers, which almost made it sound 'mono' in comparison to the other two soundtracks on this disk.

    Despite, or perhaps because of, the extra dynamics of the Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, I found that the DTS mix (once you get used to diffused vocals) was easier to listen to for extended periods.

    Lip sync was good throughout which was helped by the fact that there was probably very little (if any) post-recording mixing or re-editing done. Lip sync was a little difficult to judge when I listened to the DTS track for the abovementioned reason that his vocals sounded somewhat 'detached'.

    The music, and the stage performance, itself were just great. It really was good to see Marvin in full flight whether singing, playing the piano or percussion, or smoothly seducing women in the audience!  His vocals and obvious charisma were in fine form. There was a great mix of his styles here, ranging from the very 'funky' opening tracks like Got to Give it Up and Funky Space Reincarnation (what a 70s title!), to some lovely ballads (originally performed with Tammy Terrell). Some jazzy influences were present in tracks like Trouble Man and Distant Lover. There was a nice stage-oriented rendition of Heard it Through the Grapevine. I particularly enjoyed watching Marvin in the percussion duet with drummer Preston Wilcox.  It is a great performance, not just by the lead singer, but also by his backing singers and very competent band.

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

Extras

Main Menu Audio & Animation

   The main menu was nicely done, with video and audio excerpts from the concert in the background. This was the same in the chapter selection menu from which the user could easily choose which song they wished to listen to as each song corresponded to a chapter on the disc.

    Only the audio selection menu screen was, ironically perhaps, silent and still. From this screen, the user could choose between the Linear PCM, DTS 5.1 or Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtracks. As previously mentioned, audio selection could also be done 'on the fly' via the remote.

Booklet

    A 4 page booklet comprising primarily a biography of Marvin Gaye written by Dave McAleer and credited to the Guiness Book of British Hit Singles. It was informative and also focused on this actual concert, though it was probably produced for an earlier VHS or perhaps Laserdisc release.

    The booklet also contained a listing of every band member and the instruments that they played, as well the production crews of the original show and those who were involved in  the DVD mastering.

R4 vs R1

NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.

    This release appears to be identical in R4 and R1.

Summary

    Marvin Gaye- Live in Montreux 1980 is a good anthology of the late performer's great recording career, presented in the form of a live concert which offers some variations on many familiar songs. Gaye is in fine form, both vocally, and in stage presence, and is backed by a great sounding and obviously talented stage ensemble.

    The video quality, considering the age and form of the source material, surprised me pleasantly. It is clear at all times and most defects were minor and attributable to the source rather than the transfer.

    The audio, presented here in no less than three choices, was likewise impressive (at least in DTS and Dolby Digital versions).

    This is a must-have disc for any Marvin Gaye fans, old or new, as well as those who fondly remember R&B as it was in the 1970s; brassy, funky and yet, at times, oh so smooooooth!  This is a performance that is worth watching a number of times, or just listening to with your display device switched off. It's great to have the late Marvin Gaye's fine stage performance preserved in an excellent manner on this DVD.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Satish Rajah (don't read my bio!)
Tuesday, September 23, 2003
Review Equipment
DVDPioneer DV-344 Multi-Region, using S-Video output
DisplaySony KV-XA34M31 80cm. Calibrated with Ultimate DVD Platinum. This display device is 16x9 capable.
Audio DecoderBuilt in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Ultimate DVD Platinum.
AmplificationDenon AVR-2801
SpeakersMain: Mission 753; Centre: Mission m7c2; rear: Mission 77DS; Sub: JBL PB10

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