The Jazz Channel Presents Herbie Hancock

I was keen to take a look at this latest offering from the The Channel Presents series of DVD's because this one features a modern jazz giant in the form of innovative pianist Herbie Hancock.

For those of you who have never heard of him, Herbie Hancock was born on the 12th of April 1940 in Chicago Illinois into a musical family that had him playing piano at an early age. Hancock was considered a child prodigy as by the age of 11 he had played with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, playing the solo during a performance of a Mozart piano concerto. Jazz however, was the most attractive style of music to the young Hancock and he performed with a number of local bands and sometimes touring performers during the very late 1950's and early 1960's. In 1961 he played with Donald Byrd who invited him to play in New York. He played a variety of studio and clubs gigs in the 'big apple' which ultimately led to a solo contract with record label Blue Note. He had some early success when his song Watermelon Man was covered by Mongo Santamaria.

In 1963 his career really took off when he joined a quintet of performers fronted by the legendary Miles Davis. The two formed a creative partnership that led them to the famous Jazz/Rock fusion sound that blossomed in the late 1960's and early 1970's. Now a confident, well rounded performer and composer, Hancock moved out on his own adopting the Fender Rhodes electric piano as his main instrument and developing a funky, synthesized sound that led to the Fat Albert Rotunda album of 1969. During this time his band had grown to a sextet but by 1973 things had slowed down and Hancock was forced to reduce the band to just a quartet.

Hancock now changed musical direction adopting a sound that became popular with the emerging Disco scene. His album Head Hunters was a commercial success because of its popularity in the Disco clubs of the time. Despite this musical change of direction, Hancock remained interested in Jazz, demonstrated in 1976 by the re-forming of the Miles Davis Quintet, with Freddie Hubbard in place of Miles Davis.

Throughout the late 1970's and early 1980's, Hancock continued to release Disco influenced music but revisited his jazz roots from time to time. In 1985/1986 Hancock got the opportunity to play and act in the movie Round Midnight but it was his work as composer that won him an Academy Award for best score.

In this performance Hancock plays music from his acclaimed 1998 album Gershwin's World as well as a couple of other landmark tracks such as Maiden Voyage. His band are excellent and the selection of music great. This coupled with a very good audio transfer made this disc a fun and relaxing experience.

The play list for this particular performance is:

1. Fascinating Rhythm	6. Here Come De Honey Man
2. St. Louis Blues	7. Cantaloupe Island
3. Cotton Tail	8. One Finger Soup
4. Blueberry Rhyme	9. Maiden Voyage
5. The Man I Love

I've reviewed a number of these discs now and can report that this particular video transfer is essentially identical to all the others in both aspect ratio and quality.

What we have here is a full-frame transfer that is perfectly adequate but overall is on the soft side. It reveals a reasonable amount of detail in close shots, falling away to adequate in slightly wider shots and poor in very wide shots. When a wide shot is shown, things get pretty fuzzy with the faces of performers basically just flesh coloured blobs. This is typical of this series of releases.

The colour saturation of this transfer is high with strong blues and purples the main feature of the stage lighting. Generally colour saturation is well controlled with the exception being the colour blue. Where ever strong blue light falls, that part of the image is basically a fuzzy blue blob. Thankfully, this only occurs in minor, out of the way parts of the stage making this easy to ignore.

The only other artefact worthy of note is a small amount of aliasing on the piano and double bass.

This is an RSDL (dual layer disc) with the layer change taking place at 62:59. You will definitely notice this layer change but luckily it occurs during a section of applause and so is minimally disruptive.

Another stellar audio transfer can be found on this disc! As is typical with this series, there are DTS, Dolby Digital 5.1 and Dolby Digital 2.0 audio tracks available for selection. I listened to the DTS and Dolby Digital 5.1 offerings.

DTS

Following the high quality path set by its predecessors, this track has a clear and detailed soundscape featuring the front channels. The rear channels are well used to carry reverb as well as applause which creates a nicely immersive soundfield that you sit in rather than in front of. Clear, detailed and refined this is a lovely track.

Despite this being reported as a 5.0 mix, my subwoofer remained awake throughout the concert adding some extra low end punch.

Dolby Digital 5.1

This track has the same sound design as the DTS version and is also of excellent quality. The only difference of note is in the volume level. This track is mastered with a volume level that is about 4db higher. I also felt that this track was slightly less refined than the DTS version but has a better live sound to it.

There is only one extra on this disc and it is an interview feature that runs for just over 10 minutes.

In this interview Herbie Hancock talks about the album Gershwin's World including how he became involved, how the concept was developed and how the music was selected. Many of the pieces performed on this disc are from this critically acclaimed album.

This disc is yummy. The audio quality is excellent and the performances great. Jazz fans, get on your feet and hustle down to your favourite DVD retailer.