Gato Barbieri-Live from the Latin Quarter (2000)

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General		Extras
Category	Music	None
Rating
Year Of Production	2000
Running Time	65:47
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Gato Barbieri
Studio Distributor	Warner Vision	Starring	Gato Barbieri Frank Colon Robbie Gonzalez Mario Rodriguez Mark Soskin
Case	Click
RPI	$34.95	Music	Gato Barbieri

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s) English dts 5.1 (1536Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.75:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	Unknown	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    This concert from New York's Latin Quarter nightspot is a good introduction to the music of Gato Barbieri, an Argentinean jazz saxophonist with a career spanning nearly 40 years.

    I have not heard or heard of Gato prior to watching this DVD, so I did not really know what to expect. Indeed, he has been absent from the music scene for a period of ten years before making a "comeback" in the late 1990s. His most recent album is Che Corazon, released in 1999.

    Leandro "Gato" Barbieri was born in Rosario, Argentina and made his debut playing in a jazz band led by Lalo Schifrin. Early influences include Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker but in 1962 Gato moved to Rome where he joined Don Cherry's band and did some work with free jazz exponent Ornette Coleman. In the 1970s, Gato started exploring his Latin American roots and fused them into his music. He has also composed several film scores, including "Last Tango in Paris" for which he won a Grammy.

    From a video perspective, this is a pretty straightforward capture of the concert. I was quite drawn to the music, which seemed to be a fusion of various styles including a languid and somewhat psychedelic saxophone style with elements of free jazz, Latin jazz, contemporary jazz and a bit of funk without sounding like "conventional" fusion.

    From time to time, Gato seems to vocalise utterances into the microphone - I wouldn't quite call this singing but it is more than just spoken words. There are not that many tracks on the DVD, but some of the songs can be quite lengthy - between 10-20 minutes. In the last song, some members of the audience got up from their dinner tables (whether this is spontaneous or planned I cannot say) and started dancing to the music.

    The accompanying band members are:

• Frank Colon - Percussion
• Robbie Gonzalez - Drums
• Mario Rodriguez - Bass
• Mark Soskin - Piano

Video

    This feature is presented in widescreen 1.75:1, but unfortunately without 16x9 enhancement.

    This is a fairly sharp and colourful transfer. In fact, at times I thought the colours were a bit over-saturated and tending towards the garish side. Detail levels are about average given the subdued lighting at the venue. Black levels are very impressive and satisfying.

    I noticed occasional shimmering, particularly when the camera is panning in the vertical direction, so I suspect the transfer has been converted from NTSC to PAL. There is also the usual aliasing noticeable in the guitar strings which are indicative of an interlaced video source.

    MPEG compression artefacts are limited to ringing caused by edge enhancement which looks like it has been applied liberally. Otherwise the transfer seems quite decent and I noted that the transfer bitrate was consistently high throughout the feature.

    There are no subtitle tracks on this single sided single layered disc.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There are three audio tracks on this disc: English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s), English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s), and English dts 5.1 (1536Kb/s). I listened to mainly the dts audio track, but switched to the other two tracks every now and then for comparison purposes.

    I was pleasantly surprised by the full bit rate dts audio track, since most DVDs that have been authored to date have used the "half bit rate" version which compromises audio quality. The design goal of full bit rate dts was to provide six channels of CD quality audio at the same bit rate as a stereo CD.

    Not surprisingly, I found the dts audio track very pleasant to listen to. The surround mix is very immersive and I felt like I was in the middle of the band with significant bleeding of instruments into the rear channels. The centre channel was used, as well as the LFE track (to subtly support the low frequency component of the audio).

    Did it sound like CD quality? Perhaps, but then I did not have a Linear PCM version of the audio to compare with so I can't say for sure.

    The other two audio tracks are also very pleasant to listen to and I did not feel that they were significantly inferior to the dts track. In comparisons between the three tracks, I felt the Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track sounded slightly more dynamic and strident, as well as mixed at a louder level (which makes it seem superficially better sounding if you flick between tracks) however I felt the dts track was more subtle and relaxed.

    The Dolby Digital 2.0 audio track was likewise also listenable though in comparison to the surround tracks the soundstage seemed more two-dimensional. Also, the Dolby Digital 2.0 audio track sounded slightly "thumpy" and somewhat lacking in high frequencies.

    Due to the lack of dialogue in the audio tracks, I did not notice any audio synchronization issues.

    Overall, I would give all three audio tracks high marks for sound quality.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    There are no extras on this disc.

Menu

    The menu is full frame and static.

    This title seems to be identically featured across Regions 1, 2 and 4 (apart from PAL vs NTSC formatting).

    Gato Barbieri - Live From The Latin Quater features the Argentinean jazz saxophonist displaying his unique blend of free jazz, Latin and contemporary jazz style with a supporting band.

    The video transfer is fairly decent and widescreen though sadly not 16x9 enhanced.

    The audio transfers are all excellent and include a full bit rate dts audio track as well as 5.1 and 2.0 Dolby Digital tracks.

    There are no extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall