Les Paul: Live in New York Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		3.0
Overall		4.0

Les Paul: Live in New York Blu-ray Movie Review

90 years young.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 24, 2011

Making a living playing jazz is not the easiest of careers. A good friend of mine who has appeared on several of my own jazz recordings and who is a multiple Downbeat award winning guitarist, once told me, “In the world of jazz guitar, there’s Pat Metheny and then there’s everyone else.” Of course that’s a massive over-generalization, but it gives some insight into what journeyman jazz players, even those with tons of recordings and awards to their credit, are faced with day in, day out as they attempt to book themselves and earn a living from their craft. In a pre-Metheny age, the adage might have been something along the lines of “there’s Les Paul, and then there’s everyone else,” so pervasive has Paul’s influence been, and not just as a player. For Paul is probably just as well known for having helped to invent the solid body electric guitar and for then introducing the instrument to a generation of musicians who took his basic idea and expanded it far beyond what perhaps even Paul himself had envisioned. In fact it’s more than a little ironic that Paul, who always considered himself first and foremost a jazzman, could be credited in no hyperbolic way as having made rock ‘n’ roll possible due to his innovations with the construction of electric guitars. When you add in the fact that Paul was also one of the first recording artists to really exploit the opportunities of overdubbing and multi-tracking, it becomes more than apparent what a visionary Paul was, and how far beyond “mere” playing Paul’s influence extends.

Typically the art of jazz guitar is routinely traced back to the pioneering work of Django Reinhardt, an honest to goodness Gypsy who suffered a debilitating hand injury due to a fire, one which left two fingers more or less unusable. It’s odd to think of at least two or three other pioneering musicians whose hand injuries led to careers different from what they had initially planned. Master arranger and conductor Percy Faith, often credited with inventing “easy listening” music, was badly injured in a house fire when he was a youth which put an end to his burgeoning studies as a violinist. In a completely different genre, both the Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia and Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi actually had parts of their fingers amputated in accidents but still managed to go on playing. In Iommi's case in particular, it was listening to Django records which convinced him his life as a musician wasn’t necessarily over. Following this kind of sad but somehow inspiring and triumphant set of individuals, Les himself suffered from extremely bad arthritis late in life and as the liner notes to this release state, the ravages of that disease are quite evident in Les’ decreased mobility.

Les declares himself basically a country music artist who branched out in this set of celebratory performances culled from his 90th birthday appearances at Iridium, the Manhattan jazz club where he rather improbably hosted Monday evenings for 25 years at what should have been the tale end of his career. The fact that his style was never a free-flowing improvisatory showcase, at least not in the way it’s thought of for latter day masters like John McLaughlin or even Metheny himself, means that despite the ravages of his arthritis, which by this time in May and June of 2005 was really rather rampant, Les is still able to bang out nicely voiced rhythm accompaniments as a host of fantastic guests jump up from the SRO audience to join Les and his crack trio (including Lou Pollo, Nici Parrott and John Colianni) onstage.

This isn’t really a concert documentary per se, as there are frequent cut-ins during performances of various talking heads opining on Les’ incredible influence on music over the prior half century or so. In fact that may be a turn off for some potential audience members who might prefer to just hear Les play with all the great guests, which include everyone from David Grisman to Steve Miller to Jose Feliciano to, believe it or not, Keith Richards. But on the flipside (to purloin an appropriate term), this is a loving piece which provides a lot of background on Les and especially shows how beloved he was by artists in completely disparate areas of music.

Les made music history with his wife Mary Ford, when the two pioneered overdubbing and had a series of immense hits in the early 1950’s. Though the couple had a bitter divorce in the early 1960’s, there’s a loving if brief tribute to her included her (Ford died in the 1970’s from complications related to diabetes). But even looking past Paul’s Top 40 presence with Ford, what is abundantly clear throughout Les Paul Live in New York is just how prevalent Les’ influence is in all sorts of ways, both musically, in terms of his reverb-heavy, quasi-twangy approach to guitar, and more technically, in terms of his contributions to guitar building and multi-track recording techniques. The fact that he was obviously such a down to earth, funny and accessible guy up until the end seems like icing on the 90th birthday cake.

Les Paul: Live in New York Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Les Paul Live in New York is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Questar Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080i transfer in 1.77:1. While this isn't the sharpest looking Blu-ray in recent memory, fine detail is well above average, colors are accurate and reasonably robust and the image, while just a tad bit soft and fuzzy looking (at least partially due to the stage lighting, which flares rather significantly at times), is at the very least acceptable if not razor sharp. Close-ups fare best here, as might be expected, but even some of those are gauzy looking, especially the dimly lit shots of adoring audience members. Contrast is a bit on the spotty side, again due at least partially to the lighting scheme being utilized, and black levels are variable, leading to some noticeable crush on the far edges of the stage and club.

Les Paul: Live in New York Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Les Paul Live in New York features two sound mixes, a lossless uncompressed LPCM 5.1 mix and a standard Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo fold down. Needless to say, the unabashed recommendation is to stick with the LPCM 5.1 track if you have the home theater setup to handle that, as it provides crystal clear audio that also features a nice use of discrete channelization to not only separate individual instruments but to give a nice sonic approximation of the hall ambience at Iridium. The best thing to my ears in the LPCM mix was the quite fulsome low end, which is gorgeously robust without devolving into any kind of distortion. While Les tends towards a lot of reverb and a semi-twangy sound, his guitar never sound brittle or unpleasant. The many guest stars all sound fantastic, and the balance between the band and the ambient crowd noise is well handled. Talking head sequences and Les' patter with the audience at Iridium also feature excellent fidelity.

Les Paul: Live in New York Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Listerine Show (1080i; 4:27) is an old television clip of Paul and Ford.
• Dark Eyes (1080i; 3:03) is an old black and white short featuring Les playing. This clip has extremely spotty image quality.
• Omnibus (1080i; 11:13) is an old kinescope in surprisingly good shape of the Alistair Cooke series. This clip features a brief interview and Les and Mary doing their huge hit "How High the Moon."
• John Mack (1080i; 6:18) features an interview with the Sound Engineer from the Listerine Show.
• Bonnie Raitt (1080i; 5:08) features an extended interview with Raitt, who recounts her history with guitar and Les' influence.
• Tommy Emmanuel (1080i; 4:38). Tommy plays his acoustic and talks about how important New York and playing with Les has been to his professional growth.
• Bucky Pizzarelli (1080i; 6:39). Another grand old man of jazz guitar recounts his long history with Les.
• Steve Miller (1080i; 10:20). Miller and Paul might seem like odd bedfellows, but this extended piece shows Les' literal lifelong influence on Steve.
• Tony Bennett (1080i; 3:20). Tony reminisces about early V-disc performances of Les.

Les Paul: Live in New York Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Though this Blu-ray is advertised as Les' final performances, rather incredibly this multi-faceted master continued on for another four years, including his regular Iridium gig, until his death in 2005. This is a loving tribute to a man whose contributions to both the language and technology of music is perhaps unsurpassed in the 20th century. Les may frankly not be in the most facile form due to his age and horrible arthritis, but he's still surprisingly nimble, especially mentally, as his quipping with the audience and the various guest stars amply proves. While this documentary could have benefited from more uninterrupted music, it's still a very sweet memorial to one of the most iconic figures in post-World War II music. Highly recommended.