Jazz at the Movies Band-The Bedroom Mixes (DVD-Audio) (2000) (NTSC)

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General		Extras
Category	Music	Trailer-Bodyheat, Casablanca Credits-Music Credits, Film Credits DVD Credits-Project Credits Notes-Cast Lists, Film Synopses Awards-Film Awards Notes-Resources
Rating
Year Of Production	2000
Running Time	51:54
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Bones Howe Paul Rothchild Dan Rothchild Brooks Arthur
Studio Distributor	Warner Vision	Starring	Various
Case	DVD-Audio Jewel
RPI	Rental	Music	Various

    The Jazz At The Movies Band is not a "real" band, but a bunch of session musicians assembled together to play smooth jazz arrangements of theme songs from famous (and perhaps not quite so famous) films. A number of such records were released in the early 1990s on the Discovery Records label and produced by its president Jac Holzman (founder of Elektra Records in the 1950s).

    The songs are typically smooth jazz arrangements by either Nan Mishkin, Michael Garson or Bob Alcivar and are played by a core set of musicians (different for each album) plus a number of "guest" musicians (as soloists for each song).

    Bedroom Mixes is a "compilation" album featuring songs from the first four Jazz At The Movies albums:

• Body Heat: Jazz at the Movies (1993)
• A Man & A Woman, Sax at the Movies (1993)
• White Heat: Film Noir (1994)
• One from the Heart, Sax at the Movies II (1994)

    According to the "technical note" in the accompanying booklet, these songs were originally recorded onto 24-track analogue 15/30 ips tape, and have been remixed and remastered for 5.1 surround sound.

    It would be tempting to dismiss these arrangements as "muzak" but I didn't find them too objectionable. Certainly the arrangements are a touch above the banal, although the improvisations have obviously been toned down for the lounge lizard audience. I found the music pleasant enough to listen to, and perfect for late night listening with a glass or two of wine, which is no doubt what they are intended for.

Video

    Like most of the Warner DVD-Audio discs released to date, the video content on this disc is in full frame NTSC. Each song is accompanied by stills containing musician credits, film credits, cast listings and film synopses.

    This is a single sided single layered disc.

Audio

    There are 2 audio programmes on the disc: Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) in the DVD-Video section of the disc, and MLP 96/24 5.1 in the DVD-Audio section of the disc. Despite the disc content information section on the back cover, there is no MLP 2.0 track - the stereo version is electronically derived from the multi-channel track using mix-down coefficients stored alongside the track.

    There are no less than nine Groups on the disc, but the first six are all linked to the same set of MLP 5.1 tracks, corresponding to the different menu items on the top menu. Two groups are used for the two trailers included as extras, and one is used for a logo.

    The multi-channel mix can be described as "adventurous." All 5.1 channels are utilized. The piano and saxophones are normally mixed to the front channels, synth and percussions are spread across all channels, and the subwoofer is used to support the low frequency component of the music.

    The soundstage varies from song to song. On some tracks, the saxophone is dead centre, on others it is in the left channel or the right channel. The same goes for the piano and guitar parts.

    Track 6 (Calling You) features Arnold McCuller on vocals, and his voice is layered onto multiple tracks, and spread across more than one channel, creating the illusion that there are multiple clones of himself singing.

    Track 10 (Touch Of Evil) features an interesting pan of the alto sax (played by Gary Foster). At the beginning of the song, the sax comes from the rear left channel, then migrates to the left front channel. This pan continues until, by the end of the song, the sax is coming from the rear right channel!

    The recording is quite dynamic, and it is obvious that minimal compression has been used during the mix. It is obvious that each instrument has been recorded separately onto the multi-track tape, as the overall sound is a bit dry, with no sense of ambience except for copious amounts of reverb applied to the solo instruments (typically piano and saxophone).

    The mix is more subtle than I would have guessed, with lots of detail such as touches of percussion and synth mixed in at low levels scattered across the channels - no doubt intended to please audiophiles!

    The Dolby Digital 5.1 track in the DVD-Video section of the disc is encoded with dialog normalization set to +4dB, so sounds a bit louder than the MLP 5.1 audio track. It discards a fair amount of the reverb present in the high resolution track, thus sounding a bit pinched but is still quite listenable nevertheless. It is quite obvious that the "strings" in the songs are synth patches on the MLP 5.1 track, but somewhat less obvious on the Dolby Digital 5.1 track.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    Apart from two trailers, most of the extras are text-based, and replicated in the booklet. Most of the text is only present on the DVD-Audio section of the disc - the only extras available on the DVD-Video section are the two trailers (plus musician credits and album cover for each song as a still whilst the song is playing).

Menu

    The menus are full frame and static.

Trailer - Bodyheat (2:34), Casablanca (2:49)

    Both these trailers are presented in a somewhat strange aspect ratio (1.41:1 letterboxed), with Linear PCM 48/16 2.0 audio tracks (1536Kb/s). It almost looks as if the top of the frame had been masked, but the bottom left open matte during the telecine transfer.

Notes - Music Credits, Film Credits, Cast Lists, Film Synopses

    These are a set of stills that can also be viewed as browsable pages whilst each song are playing. Depending on which menu item is selected, the songs are played as Groups 2-5.

• Group 2: musician credits for each song
• Group 3: film credits for each song
• Group 4: cast listing for each song
• Group 5: a short paragraph describing each film

DVD Credits - Project Credits

    These are two stills containing production credits.

Awards - Film Awards

    These are a set of stills for the following films:

• Black Orpheus
• Cinema Paradiso
• Bagdad Café
• Last Tango In Paris
• The Bad and the Beautiful
• Touch of Evil
• Casablanca

    The songs play (as Group 6) whilst the stills are being shown.

Notes - Resources

    This is a single still containing sources where you can find additional information about the films featured in this compilation.

Booklet

    This is a foldout set of eight colour "pages" containing a song listing including film attribution, musician credits, film synopses, production credits plus a technical note written by Jac Holtzman.

    This disc appears to be identically featured across all regions.

    Bedroom Mixes is a compilation album of movie themes with smooth jazz arrangements performed by the Jazz At The Movies Band.

    The MLP 5.1 audio track is a discrete and rather adventurous 5.1 remix from the original 24-track analogue multi-track tapes. It sounds quite pleasant, but the soundstage is rather artificial and a touch dry.

    Extras are mainly information replicated from the booklet, plus two trailers.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall