Yanni: Live at El Morro, Puerto Rico Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		2.5
Audio		2.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		2.0

Yanni: Live at El Morro, Puerto Rico Blu-ray Movie Review

In case you want to relive your recent PBS Pledge Week. . .

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 28, 2012

I’ll admit it: I have in fact repeatedly berated Yanni, stooping so low as to spell his name Yawni and lumping him in with a number of other “new age” and/or “smooth jazz” supposed artists that I frankly have found to be largely mediocre, churning out disposable market ready fare that may be easily accessible but is also instantly forgettable. Think John Tesh, only with a thicker accent. So color me surprised when I actually discovered a couple of Yanni tunes that positively caught my fancy a few years ago. However, here’s the rub: if you asked me to tell you what they were today, I’d be at a complete and total loss. I think they might have come from Yanni at the Acropolis, but that would be the sum total of my recollection. Yanni’s music has been incredibly successful (as evidenced by the fact that the CD of this concert rested comfortably at the top of the Billboard charts shortly after it was released), so curmudgeonly critical commentary is probably neither here nor there, but they strike me at least as the musical equivalent of fast food: they go down easily enough, are appropriately tasty, but provide little if any actual nutrition. Yanni has crafted his career not just from the sonic side of things, however, putting on relatively large scale stage shows that are often set in colorful locales (like the Acropolis, for instance), and which obviously appeal to a certain demographic who may not exactly be the most demanding listeners, but who know what they like and know that Yanni is it. This Puerto Rico concert falls resolutely into that category. Filmed at the medieval looking El Morro castle (which is in fact from the 16th century) in a gathering storm that some cynics would say was a divinity’s attempt to get the music to stop, Yanni, hair wind blown behind him like he’s flying an airplane, plays his pleasant tunes to the rapturous adoration of an audience that doesn’t just applaud at the end of songs, but seems to actually single out individual notes for laudatory “oohs” and “aahs”.

Yanni’s music is of course extremely well produced and usually features some nice coloristic elements that are often culled from world cultures, but it’s also very derivative at times. Take the opening piece “Truth of Touch”, for example. If that opening descending riff sounds more than a little familiar, it’s because it’s the exact same melodic trope that opens John Barry’s theme to Midnight Cowboy (a song that ironically provided one of the last big hits for two other middle of the road pianists, Ferrante and Teicher). Luckily, Yanni’s follow up tune “Vertigo” has no relation to Bernard Herrmann’s Hitchcock score, unless Yanni is a more skilled camouflage artist than I’m giving him credit for being.

There are some nice displays of musicianship on the part of Yanni’s backup band. Vocalist Lauren Jelencovich has a Sarah Brightman-esque tour de force wafting her way through the vocalese of “Nightingale”, and, later, Victor Espinola on harp and Yoel del Sol on percussion bring some virtuosity to the proceedings, combining cultures effortlessly and lending the evening some much needed authenticity. Jelencovich and Lisa Lavie return for a chant based song called “Niki Nana” that comes off as second rate Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’66, replete with two gorgeous women swaying to a hypnotic beat on stage.

Yanni talks in one of the featurettes about having been drawn to Puerto Rico and El Morro for years, perhaps decades, but the elements were not in that same zone of bliss. The entire concert was precariously close to being canceled due to nonstop rain and winds, which are completely in evidence in some of the footage here (the first night of the initially planned two night event was cut short due to the storm, which some feared posed a safety hazard for both the players and the audience). The ironic thing about all of this is that Yanni, try as he may to whip up some excitement, comes off almost genetically as a placid character, one who crafts perfectly acceptable if undemanding music. The real fireworks were being handled by some other, distant power.

Yanni's set list consists of:

• 01. Truth of Touch
• 02. Vertigo
• 03. The End of August
• 04. The Rain Must Fall
• 05. Felitsa
• 06. Voyage
• 07. Nightingale
• 08. Harp Solo
• 09. Ode to Humanity
• 10. Niki Nana
• 11. One Man’s Dream

Yanni: Live at El Morro, Puerto Rico Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Yanni Live at El Morro, Puerto Rico is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Sony Music (along with an actually funny coalition of corporate sponsors, including Lexus, AT&T, Jet Blue, Visa and FirstBank) with an AVC encoded 1080i transfer in 1.78:1. This is a middling to okay looking high definition presentation that was perhaps hobbled by the inclement weather that is obviously confronting the cast and crew on at least one of the evenings captured here on video. The image is pretty soft looking, with milky blacks, inconsistent contrast and a complete lack of shadow detail, something exacerbated by the fact that most in the band are wearing black. Some of the shots of El Morro look at least somewhat better, relatively speaking, but this is far from a pristine presentation.

Yanni: Live at El Morro, Puerto Rico Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Is it only unintentional irony that Yanni Live at El Morro, Puerto Rico features only lossy Dolby audio options? This seems to invite outright derisive commentary, but I shall resist the temptation, stating only the facts: there are only Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0 mixes available on this Blu-ray. The 2.0 mix is just flat out anemic, with poor amplitude and a somewhat shocking lack of dynamic range. The 5.1 mix is at least a little better, offering a better recreation of the vast soundstage, and offering some good ambient reverb, if also too much audience noise (this is one adulatory audience, as noted above in the main body of the review). Fidelity is okay, not spectacular, but one really has to wonder why Yanni would venture into Blu-ray waters and not offer his fans lossless audio.

Yanni: Live at El Morro, Puerto Rico Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Yanni in Puerto Rico (HD; 5:00) is a promo piece highlighting what Puerto Rico means to Yanni.


• The Storm (1080i; 4:44) is a featurette about some of the inclement weather the crew faced while attempting to tape the show.

Yanni: Live at El Morro, Puerto Rico Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I'm sure there is a cadre of Yanni fans who will suck up every last drop of Yanni Live at El Morro, Puerto Rico and care not one whit about what some pretentious critic has to say about the proceedings. And to those people I simply say, have at it. But for those who want something more lasting than a transitory moment of affability, this Blu-ray has little to offer other than the suspense of wondering if some ruthless God will actually strike Yanni down with a well aimed bolt of lightning. Joking aside, this Blu-ray offers pretty shoddy image quality and less than stellar lossy audio, so it may be hard for even Yanni fans to justify picking it up, especially since it will no doubt be playing ad infinitum (and/or ad nauseam) on your local PBS station for years to come.