Grateful Dead: Blues for Allah Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		0.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.5

Grateful Dead: Blues for Allah Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 3, 2025

Ask any generalist music fan to offer the names of some "fusion" musicians and chances are you'll get answers ranging from, say, Miles Davis to John McLaughlin, at least if "fusion" is further delineated as either "jazz fusion" or "jazz rock fusion". Any number of more mainstream artists and bands started picking up on the invigorating cross-genre musical currents that were rippling through the zeitgeist of the late sixties into the early seventies, and while probably undeniably more in the pop arena that either Davis or McLaughlin, aggregations like Chicago and/or Blood, Sweat and Tears started experimenting with different sounds, formats and styles, along with a glut of other similarly eclectic artists ranging from Sergio Mendes to Frank Zappa. The four aforementioned examples are obviously on the very tippy tip of an extremely deep iceberg, but one way or the other, few would probably instantly think of The Grateful Dead as a "traditional" fusion band, despite their inherently wending, exploratory approach. In a way Blues for Allah serves as a reminder that the Dead were able to craft all sorts of stylistically varied music, and once again Rhino is offering a really gorgeous Atmos update of an older album by the venerable Steven Wilson. This release also offers a fairly rare on disc supplement of two bonus tracks (in remixed stereo). There is in fact probably an arguable stylistic link, if admittedly tangential, between some of this album and some of the similar "eastern" or "Middle Eastern" influences that can attend any given Mahavishnu Orchestra album, if (again admittedly) without some of the hyperbolic flourishes that McLaughlin and his cohort often seemed to favor.

The album's track list can be seen in several of the screenshots of the disc menu(s) I've uploaded to accompany this review. See screenshot 9 for the two bonus tracks. Comparing screenshots 5 and 6 shows how the color of the track changes as you scroll through the track list without selecting a new track.

Grateful Dead: Blues for Allah Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

This is another Rhino audio Blu-ray with a static menu. See screenshot 10 for the main menu that appears after disc boot up. Choosing an audio codec then leads directly to the main album track list. While colored buttons on your remote are inoperable, you can toggle between audio codecs with the audio button on your remote (without navigating down to the list of codecs at the bottom of the menu), and best of all, the song does not start over. That said, toggling from the instrumental versions back to the Atmos track did start things over for me.

Grateful Dead: Blues for Allah Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Blues for Allah features Dolby Atmos, DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 options. Both the Atmos and 5.1 tracks are wonderfully immersive, and the Atmos track really gets to show off its surround stuff in moments like the drum batteries opening Franklin's Tower. But the entire album really attains an inviting spaciousness in both the Atmos and DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 versions. This is a commendable Atmos track that (no pun intended) elevates the immersive capabilities of the 5.1 version without really making things sound too dispersed. Instrumentation is nicely channelized, though a lot of the massed rhythm instruments tend to emanate from the side and rear channels simultaneously. Vocals (this album has more than its fair share of instrumentals) are well prioritized and tend to hover in the center of the soundstage quite effectively.

Grateful Dead: Blues for Allah Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

As mentioned above, the Blu-ray offers two bonus tracks as delineated in screenshot 9. The keepcase also encloses a booklet with lyrics and production information.

Grateful Dead: Blues for Allah Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

In a very real way, there's probably no greater paradigm of a "fusion" band than The Grateful Dead, and Blues for Allah, which was really rather a successful release back in the mid-seventies, is an excellent example of why. Steven Wilson once again proves his mastery at crafting beautifully immersive surround tracks and convincing new stereo remixes. Highly recommended.