Larry Carlton & Steve Lukather Band: The Paris Concert Blu-ray Movie
HomeLarry Carlton & Steve Lukather Band: The Paris Concert Blu-ray Movie 
in-akustik | 2001 | 127 min | Not rated | Jan 25, 2011
Price
List price:Listed on Amazon marketplace
Movie rating
6.6 | / 10 |
Blu-ray rating
| Users |  | 0.0 |
| Reviewer |  | 4.0 |
| Overall | | 4.0 |
Overview
Larry Carlton & Steve Lukather Band: The Paris Concert (2001)
TRACK LISTING
1. The Pump
2. Blues Force
3. It Was Only Yesterday
4. Red House
5. Don't Give It Up
6. Room 306
7. Put It Where You Want It
| Music | 100% |
Specifications
Video
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080i
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Audio
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English: LPCM 2.0 (48kHz, 24-bit)
Subtitles
None
Discs
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Playback
Region A (B, C untested)
Review
Rating summary
| Movie | | 4.0 |
| Video |  | 3.0 |
| Audio |  | 4.5 |
| Extras | | 3.0 |
| Overall | | 4.0 |
Larry Carlton & Steve Lukather Band: The Paris Concert Blu-ray Movie Review
Two guitar heroes prove their versatility.
Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 24, 2011Are you old enough to remember LPs? Back in the day when what you held as you listened to music was big enough to feature type that could actually be read, there was a certain class of people (some would say nerd) who would obsessively read credits and liner notes to inform themselves about the various albums they had purchased. But enough about me. With the advent of CDs and the sometimes miniscule type in insert booklets, I have to wonder if credits reading has gone out of style, and so it’s perhaps become even harder for session musicians to gain a foothold in the general public conciousness. One session guy who has managed, at least within his own probably relatively small scale world, to attain a certain renown is guitarist Larry Carlton. Though he may not command the marquee value of, say, George Benson, Pat Metheny, or other jazz guys who have shot to the top of the charts, Carlton is if anything probably more prolific than either of those gentlemen, having contributed to hundreds, maybe even thousands, of recordings over his long career. As a sideman Carlton has backed up everyone from Michael Jackson to Steely Dan to (ahem) The Partridge Family, which surely gives some indication of how fluent Carlton is in a variety of styles. I first noticed his work on the lovely early 1970s output of Joni Mitchell, who with her jazz inflected albums like Court and Spark invigorated her own folk-rock vocabulary with an entirely new sensibility, part of which can certainly be attributed to Carlton’s input. Carlton also released a string of albums around that same time with the early fusion progenitors L.A. Express, but he’s probably become better known to modern jazz-pop fans for his work with Fourplay, even as he continues to churn out an amazing number of dates for other headliners. If Carlton has hewed to a career away from the Top 40 limelight (at least under his own name), the same can’t be said for Toto’s guitarist Steve Lukather, whose teenage friendships with David Paich and the Porcaro brothers helped to lay the foundation for one of the most successful “supergroups” of the late 1970s and 1980s. Even as one Toto album and single after another continued to chart, Lukather, like Carlton, was forging an incredibly lucrative and busy side career as a session guy for (like Carlton) Michael Jackson, Olivia Newton-John and well over a thousand other dates.
Lukather, who goes by the nickname Luke, plays in a full throated rock inflected style which on its face may seem to be at odds with Carlton’s lighter, more Benson-esque jazz touch. And yet this 2001 Paris concert, one in the New Morning series of Blu-rays which in-akustik has been releasing fairly regularly over the past few years, proves that two fairly disparate artists can create a unique marriage when they each bring such an exciting level of mastery to their project. The fact that this set features only seven numbers and yet lasts around an hour and a half is also testament to how fully each guitarist is allowed to stretch out and explore the nooks and crannies of each individual tune. There’s no denying, however, that this set leans fairly heavily toward the rock-funk end of the spectrum, though it does visit the jazz-lite topography that has made Carlton more of a household name in recent years.
As Carlton reveals in one of the extras included in this Blu-ray, he’s actually known Luke for decades, despite being nearly ten years older and having already established himself as one of the reigning session men of the day by the time Luke appeared on the professional horizon. The uniting factor here was Jeff Porcaro, a childhood buddy of Luke’s who ended up working with Carlton some years later. What becomes clear is that there’s a mutual friendship, admiration and respect between these two players that allows them to be gracious rhythm backup partners when one of them is soloing, but which also allows each of them to feel free to dominate at any predetermined moment. We therefore get a good handle on both artists’ styles and sensibilities throughout the concert.
The music business tends to be a fragmented, category driven industry that loves to pigeonhole artists and get them to repeat whatever brought them their initial success. Perhaps that’s one reason artists like Luke and Carlton have spent large portions of the careers working for others, those others being the ones who would face the rigors of pigeonholing. What those two lifetimes of experience have given these guys is the ability to instantly segue into any number of different genres, and though this particular concert stays fairly firmly in the rock-blues side of things, there are glancing blows at any number of different approaches, giving this concert a wonderful freshness and variety of sounds.
The entire set list consists of:
The Pump
Blues Force
It Was Only Yesterday
Red House
Don’t Give It Up
Room 335
Put It Where You Want It
Larry Carlton & Steve Lukather Band: The Paris Concert Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality
Like the other New Morning releases in-akustik has offered on Blu-ray, Larry Carlton and Steve Lukather is presented via an AVC encode in 1080i and 1.78:1. As most of these other releases have been, the image quality on this release is not top tier. Unfortunately, even more than some of the other New Morning releases, this outing suffers from an overly soft and blurry image which is further hobbled by stage lighting that seems to work at odds with the filming. Only in extreme close-ups do we get anything approaching hi-def clarity and pop. Colors are decent throughout, with good to excellent saturation, but again, it's only in the close-ups that things really resonate fully. There's moderate to severe crushing in the darker segments and contrast is at odds with the bright lighting a lot of the time.
Larry Carlton & Steve Lukather Band: The Paris Concert Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality
Much better are the two lossless audio options, DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and LPCM 2.0, both of which present the music in full flower, with a lot of fiery action throughout all frequencies. Fidelity is spot on, highlighting Luke's blistering attack and Carlton's more refined, laid back approach. Bass, drums and keys are all spread naturally throughout the soundfield and provide ample low end throughout the set. The drums are especially well positioned and extremely present without being overwhelming. Crowd noise does not intrude very much during the songs themselves, but fills the surrounds during the applause interstitials. Any fans of either or both of these fine headliners will be more than satisfied with the reproduction of these excellent lossless mixes.
Larry Carlton & Steve Lukather Band: The Paris Concert Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras
- Soundcheck Sketches (1080i; 9:20) is a 2001 Paris look at the long and enduring friendship between Carlton and Luke.
- In Conversation With Larry Carlton (1080i; 12:29) is an interesting first-person account by Carlson of his childhood and long professional music career.
- Talking to Luke (1080i; 6:59) does similar service for Lukather, as he walks around Paris in July of 2001.
- Guitar Tips From Larry to His Fans (1080i; 6:21) is a 2004 moment between Carlton and some backstage wannabe guitar heroes, and it proves how accessible and really friendly this guitar god is.
Larry Carlton & Steve Lukather Band: The Paris Concert Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation
The New Morning series has been one of the most consistently entertaining pop-rock-jazz sets of releases over the past few years, and this outing with Larry Carlton and Steve Lukather is no exception. Though the Blu-ray is hobbled by a softer than average image quality, the soundtrack is fully alive and present and helps to make up for that shortcoming. Recommended.