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Great music with only so-so video

How’s this DVD title for a mouthful: Willie Nelson & Wynton Marsalis: Live From Jazz At Lincoln Center, NYC? One may wonder how or why one of Country music’s “Outlaws” got hooked up with one of Jazz’s great trumpet players. Much less, what music would they produce? Country musician and yodeler Jimmie Rodgers recorded “Blue Yodel #9” with trumpet great Louis Armstrong and Armstrong’s wife on piano back in 1930. But this is a full-length performance close to an hour long recorded over a period of two nights back in January, 2007.

There are snippets of interviews with Willie, Wynton and some of the band that are interspersed between songs, making the DVD come out to nearly an hour-and-a-half for total running time. Overall, there are thirteen tracks on this disc filled with a mixture of New Orleans Jazz, Mississippi Delta Blues and a touch of Country as the seven-piece band makes their way through a few of Marsalis’ songs, Willie’s “Stardust” and some songs made famous by Hank Williams, Hoagy Carmichael, Jimmy Reed and Duke Ellington. The show originally appeared on the CD Two Men With The Blues, but has finally been released in this visual format at a very impressive looking club with a huge window overlooking the nightline of Manhattan.

Marsalis’ band compliment Willie and his harmonica player, Mickey Raphael, quite well. The funky piano playing of Dan Nimmer; the plunking, upright bass style of Carlos Henriquez; the smooth sax of Walter Blanding; the tight syncopated drumming of Ali Jackson - all of these musicians play along for a great performance on songs such as “Georgia On My Mind,” “Bright Lights, Big City,” “My Bucket’s Got A Hole In It,” “Sweet Georgia Brown” and “Down By The Riverside,” to name a few of the tracks.

Musically, this show is pretty entertaining. Visually, I’m less than impressed. Filmed by Danny Clinch, I’m not sure what artsy style he was going for, but it isn’t great. There are scenes where there is B-roll footage that doesn’t match up to the audio; odd little shots such as an entirely black screen with one band member in a square popping up on the screen for less than 2 seconds; the dulled down, grayish tone of the interviews in comparison to the color of the stage performance; some of the odd camera angles between bars in the balcony or between the heads of people watching the show and a few other shots that make it seem as though this was supposed to be stylish. Quite honestly, it comes across as Cable Access amateur.

That’s not to say that the show isn’t worth watching, but you might want to rent before you buy. Also a word of warning, there are a couple of scenes where cursing pops up here and there, so if granny likes Willie’s music, you might want to check out the disc before she pops it into the DVD player and gets offended by someone’s language.

The DVD is widescreen, in English and has Dolby Digital Stereo, Dolby 5.1 Surround and DTS Digital Surround audio options. There is a nice fold out booklet that accompanies the DVD. There are no extras beyond the interviews that are part of the actual program.

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