Walter Trout and the Radicals: Relentless: The Concert
Ruf 3003
Format: DVD-Video

Musical Performance
Sound Quality
Picture Quality
Overall Enjoyment

Now this is what should be expected from a concert on DVD! Relentless: The Concert is a first-class production throughout. The video has bright, saturated colors, deep blacks, and a Dolby Digital 5.1 mix that doesn’t sound as if it was pulled from 50-year-old masters and processed to death. I was especially impressed with the direction. Often in concert films, the camera seems anchored to the lead singer or bandleader. Here, Trout shows his humility by having the camera move around to give each member of his band their time in the limelight. This keeps things interesting and kinetic. The extras show why Trout has such a devout following: he’s a down-to earth guy who loves playing his guitar. This music may not be for all tastes, but if you give it a chance, you might find yourself getting as involved as I did....Anthony Di Marco

Jacques Loussier Trio: The Best of Play Bach
Telarc CD-63590
Format: Hybrid Multichannel SACD

Musical Performance
Sound Quality
Overall Enjoyment

Jacques Loussier and his trio have been successfully marrying classical music and jazz since 1959, when the original Play Bach album appeared. Shocking at the time, this music now brings smiles of enjoyment to both jazz and classical listeners. These re-recordings, made in 1993 and 1994 in France, have been remixed to 5.1 for this release. Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor is the big piece, but I liked the ensuing Pastorale, with a virtuoso bass solo by Vincent Charbonnier that is of demonstration caliber -- just the right track for testing the subwoofer crossover balance. The surrounds have wisely been used to provide only ambience and space, and the up-front sound is well-balanced, warm, and transparent; André Aprino’s drums are particularly well-reproduced. Both sets of SACD tracks, two- and multichannel, have noticeably more presence than those carrying the regular CD sound....Rad Bennett

Bach: Six Motets
RIAS-Kammerchor; Members of the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin; René Jacobs, conductor.
Harmonia Mundi 801589
Format: Hybrid Multichannel SACD

Musical Performance
Sound Quality
Overall Enjoyment

Recorded in 1997, these lovely performances have been re-mixed to multichannel SACD with loving care. The acoustic seems that of a large church or cathedral, and on both the two- and multichannel SACD tracks the pure and clear voices at the front stage seem ethereally suspended in air. That air around the singers all but disappears in the bit-challenged CD track, which sounds earthbound by comparison. The small organ used in the continuo produced a singularly dulcet sound; it, too, is recorded with maximum fidelity. This is one of the best expansions of two-channel material that I have heard: definitive performances in definitive sound....Rad Bennett

Aimee Mann: Bachelor No.2
Mobile Fidelity UDSACD 2025
Format: Hybrid Stereo SACD

Musical Performance
Sound Quality
Overall Enjoyment

Bachelor No.2 shares four songs with the soundtrack to P.T. Anderson's Magnolia, a terrific film whose raw emotions provide the perfect visuals for Aimee Mann's songs of inner weather. Mann sets brainy lyrics to hummable tunes with layered arrangements -- her songs are much more "Eleanor Rigby" than "Birthday." There is so much to admire in a song like "It Takes All Kinds," including a wicked lyric right at the beginning: "As we were speaking of the devil / you walked right in / wearing hubris like a medal." Mobile Fidelity gave us the wonderful hybrid SACD of Lost in Space, Mann's best album so far, and has done a fine job on Bachelor No.2 as well. The SACD's gains in clarity and the retrieval of low-level detail over the CD's generally good sound are unmistakable and simply can't be duplicated with different speakers or electronics. Amidst an overabundance of mediocre back-catalog re-releases, SACDs like Bachelor No.2 make the format worthwhile....Marc Mickelson

Lisa Gerrard/Patrick Cassidy: Immortal Memory
4AD 72403-2
Format: CD

Musical Performance
Sound Quality
Overall Enjoyment

Immortal Memory contains perfect music for reflecting and observing life. Like life, it is dramatic and melancholy, bittersweet yet lovely. Lisa Gerrard’s voice defies description -- otherworldly, angelic, gorgeous. Composer Patrick Cassidy surrounds each vocal with music that is just as ethereal and passionate. Devout fans of Dead Can Dance will note some familiar traits; still, the music is more reminiscent of Gerrard’s film work than her collaboration with Brendan Perry. Influences from the soundtracks for Gladiator, Mission: Impossible 2, and The Insider are readily apparent in "Amergin’s Invocation" and "Sailing to Byzantium." The recording is good overall: Gerrard’s voice is dynamic and palpable, yet dynamic compression is apparent in the orchestral tracks. I would kill to hear this music on multichannel SACD -- the effect of "I Asked for Love" and "Elegy" would, I’m sure, bring me to tears. Immortal Memory is a wonderfully human effort....Anthony Di Marco

Jimi Hendrix: Jimi Plays Berkeley
Universal Music 1172-09
Format: DVD-Video

Musical Performance
Sound Quality
Picture Quality
Overall Enjoyment

I can’t think of an artist who was more passionate about his music or his instrument than Jimi Hendrix. Sadly, that passion was cut short a few months after this performance at Berkeley. I wasn’t sure how a 34-year-old concert film would fare on DVD. I’ve been disappointed with more recent samples, including Paul McCartney’s Paul Is Live. Jimi Plays Berkeley, however, is a wonderful concert film -- it’s well-shot, well-edited, and, considering its age, it sounds great. The 5.1 mix is much better than the two-channel track. The rear channels add space and energy to the performance, and give this concert a very "live" sound. The filmmakers also do a nice job of juxtaposing footage that gives a feel for the political and social mood at the time. Top it all off with 11 additional audio-only tracks from Hendrix’s second set and you have a classic example of the force and genius that defined a unique talent....Anthony Di Marco

Jane Olivor: Safe Return
Image 2074
Format: DVD-Video

Musical Performance
Sound Quality
Picture Quality
Overall Enjoyment

In the 1970s, Jane Olivor had a substantial fan base among the chanteuse-and-cabaret set. During a time of emotional distress compounded by having to nurse a sick husband, she dropped out of the music business. After his passing and a period of mourning, Olivor decided to try the music business again, and was delighted to find there was still a substantial audience for her style of graceful song interpretation. Unlike many cabaret divas, such as Blossom Dearie and Carol Sloane, Olivor hasn’t gravitated toward jazz -- her backup band has a nice sound, but stays strictly within the arrangements. One of the delights of cabaret music is listening to the softest moments swell into the loudest climaxes, but the engineers have applied so much compression here that it all sounds the same. Thirty years into her singing career, Olivor seems to be in good voice, with a slightly thickened vibrato, but again, it’s hard to tell through the compression. The recording is multi-mono with no attempt at a natural soundstage. Two of Olivor’s hits, "Some Enchanted Evening" and "The Last Time I Felt Like This," are included here, but none of her rock re-makes....Wes Marshall