The Blues Masters (1999) (NTSC)

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General		Extras
Category	Music	Menu Animation & Audio Featurette-Review
Rating
Year Of Production	1999
Running Time	42:30 (Case: 45)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Chris Patton
Studio Distributor	Warner Vision	Starring	Colin James
Case	Click
RPI	$34.95	Music	Muddy Waters Willie Dixon Otis Spann

    Anyone interested in the Blues will be interested in this DVD and, pleasingly, I can report that this disc is indeed a little gem.

    Back in 1966, at the height of the period when the Blues was (finally) being heard and appreciated by much wider audiences, CBS Television invited 9 Blues veterans into a Toronto television studio to perform both separately and together, for the purposes of recording a commercial television programme about this increasingly influential musical style. Great thing that CBS did this too, as it turned out to be quite a historic gathering of so many blues legends. Towards the end of the studio sessions, Muddy Waters was heard to exclaim "there aint never been a blues gathering like this". Sadly, there never was such a distinguished gathering of blues legends on this scale again.

    Now, being a made-for-television event dating back to1966, I certainly did not hold any great expectations about the quality of the source material. Pleasingly, however, it exceeded my expectations. The session's videotapes were said to have been recently found, restored and re-edited for this DVD, and what a tremendous job they have done with the restoration! Both the video and audio transfer qualities belie the source material's age. Indeed, the quality on offer here is a heck of a lot better than many other made-for-television productions that I have seen from around this vintage, so it is apparent that the videotapes must have been either very well-preserved in storage for so many years, or carefully and lovingly restored, or probably both.

    This DVD is appropriately presented by Colin James, a Canadian blues guitarist who was heavily influenced by these blues legends. (As a 19-year old, Colin James was befriended by Stevie Ray Vaughan and was to become close friends with this latter-day blues legend, touring with Vaughan and Double Trouble. Colin James has had noted commercial success in his own right, although he is largely unknown outside of his home country of Canada.)  He does a great job of presenting this feature, treating all of the individual blues names with respect and providing some very insightful but brief introductions to each of the performers and their backgrounds.

    The only complaint that I have with this DVD is that it is all-too-brief. With a running time of 42:30, no sooner does it seem to have started and you are really getting into it, than it finishes. Being a made-for-television production, I can only assume this was originally shown on commercial television as a one-hour show. However, now that it has been re-cut for DVD release, it does beg the question of how many other performances didn't make the final cut to DVD? Certainly the commentary and back cover blurb indicate that the recording sessions in 1966 lasted for three days, so what other great performances are we missing out on? Was the quality of the extra material not deemed up to standard for inclusion? It is hard to believe so, when you see the quality of the material which was included. Perhaps they could only locate the videotapes for the original edited TV show, and not the source video tapes? Anyway, it's a real pity that this DVD is so brief. It certainly does have the effect of leaving you wanting to see more.

   A track listing for this DVD follows. The performers of each track are denoted as follows:

1. Muddy Waters
2. Otis Spann
3. Maybelle Hillary
4. Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee
5. Sonny Terry
6. Brownie McGhee
7. Sunnyland Slim
8. Willie Dixon (with Colin James, cleverly edited in) ("Oh no", I hear you cry!  But don't worry, it is bearably done...)
9. Willie Dixon
10. all performers.

    Don't worry if you haven't come across all of these blues names before - there were a couple that I wasn't familiar with, but I can assure you that all of these performances are great and there are no filler tracks. Stand-outs for me are tracks 1, 10, 6 and 8, but really, they're all good.

Video

    The transfer is, naturally, presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1. Note that this disc is an NTSC presentation, so your equipment needs to be NTSC compatible to view it. The feature footage is of course in black and white, but with the first Colin James introduction sequence in colour. One or two of his other in-between song sequences are in colour, but most are left in black and white so as not to be distracting from the principal footage. This is well executed.

    The most surprising aspect of the video transfer of the original footage is just how clear and sharp it is. Whilst there is obviously going to be some amount of grain present from a 1966 analogue video master, the grain is only really noticeable during the odd few close-ups (eg. Willie Dixon's facial close-ups in track 1). For the most part however, the level of foreground sharpness appears to me to improve somewhat after track 1 and then remain sharp for the rest of the feature. Background detail ranges from being very good (for the majority of the time) to just good - but always remains better than satisfactory. It is also evident that the original studio cameramen employed some deliberately tight focus-pulling on the blues legends themselves, in order that they stand out as the front-members of their bands. Consequently where you find that background resolution is perhaps not as sharp as it could be, I would tend to put this down more to being a deliberate source issue, rather than any macro-blocking effect. Having said that, there is still certainly enough background detail to be seen in things like the bass guitar strings and drums, which is pleasing.

    The colours in this transfer, such as they are, are also very striking. There is plenty of definition across the greys in this transfer and the studio lighting effects, which are used very inventively by the original studio producer/director, are well captured in the transfer. See the great use of silhouettes in track 4 and gradual lighting fade-up for examples of how striking and well defined the images are. The main stage backdrop behind all of the performers is a plain black, and this helps to keep the foreground images crisp and clear. The depth of the blacks and the faithful contrasts this transfer achieves is striking indeed for an analogue video source.

    Here is the best part: no source artefacts or transfer artefacts (for the vast majority) are evident. I did not detect any analogue tape-tracking errors or other old video nasties at all, apart from some obvious but very isolated instances of low level noise and overmodulation effects to be found around some of the performers' shirt collars, during the very last track only. This overmodulation is the result of the old technology video cameras and recorders being used, with the recording gain having been set too high during the original studio shoot. Apart from this very isolated problem manifesting during the very last track however, there are no other material artefacts to note, including no aliasing noticed on my TV and no real macro-blocking issues. The producers of this DVD have done a superb job cleaning and restoring the original videotapes. The consistently high transfer bit-rate also confirms the quality of the transfer.

    Being such a short feature, this DVD is single-layered and, for the record, it does not contain subtitles.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    I must admit that I was expecting to prefer the Dolby Stereo mix and dismiss the surround mix, as I much prefer natural/original audio tracks to more obviously unnatural-sounding surround mixes. However in this situation, I did actually prefer the 5.1 mix.

    Before explaining why, some commentary on the breadth and quality of the audio mixes, as most of the comments relate to both mixes. It is apparent that the original audio recordings have been lovingly re-mastered for both audio tracks. They are both very clear and distinct, and the first aspect that impressed me was the surprisingly minimal amount of hiss. Next, I noted the complete absence of any sound dropouts or other sound anomalies, as might well have been expected and forgivable for the source.

    Both audio mixes are very naturally front-weighted and both balance well across the front of the sound stage. Again, this was a pleasant surprise, as I had expected a very dead, "front-and-centre" experience. The stereo sound is well balanced on both tracks, but with no obvious or aggressive left to right panning employed (and thankfully none added in artificially in the re-master). The quality of the high-hats and other high-end percussion is amazingly clear for such an old audio recording. Vocals and the mid-range is also OK. With some very strong lead vocals and very loud harmonica in some tracks, it is pleasing to hear that the vocal only threatens to distort on a few minor occasions without actually doing so (listen to track 1 for an example). The clarity of the piano pieces in tracks 3 and 8 is also spectacular - now these guys really did know how to tinkle the old ivories!  Finally, the bass is also for the most part clear in both audio mixes; just check out the fidelity of the bass resonations in track 10 - listening to it you could easily forget this recording is 36 years old - superb stuff!  My only complaint here though is that the bass is not filled-out enough with use of the subwoofer. Oh well, can't expect too much I suppose...

    Now whilst the Dolby Stereo mix is very natural sounding, I have to admit that against my better judgment the Dolby Digital 5.1 mix won me over. The 5.1 mix is just as natural sounding as the stereo version, and the producers have sensibly left it front-weighted rather than give in to any temptation to make more obvious use of the surrounds. The result is a 5.1 mix which ever-so-subtly expands the sound stage and gives the thing some room to breathe. The rear speaker volume is kept unobtrusive and employed in only a subtle way to fill out the room. Well done.

    There were no problems with audio sync observed with my player.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    For the record, the menus on this disc are all animated and are also presented in colour, in 1.33:1 and with 2-channel audio. The animated "juke box" menu - really just a track selection menu - is really cool.  

    All too brief, but this disc is nonetheless a little gem. Vintage footage, lovingly restored and presented. A must see for any blues fan.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall