Al Di Meola: Live at Montreux 1986/1993

Founded in 1967, the Montreux Jazz Festival has established itself as one of the most prestigious annual music events in the world. The extraordinary list of artists who have played there is drawn from across the musical spectrum and from around the world. Al De Meola is one of the world's leading jazz guitar players. He is a pioneer of jazz-rock fusion in the seventies and eighties.

This DVD combines two performances by Al Di Meola at the Montreux Jazz Festival. The first, from 1986, is a solo acoustic performance while the 1993 concert features Di Meola with guitarist Chris Carrington and percussionist Arto Tuncboyaiyan.

I don't mind jazz itself but the performance in 1986 just wasn't my piece of cake. Al Di Meola performs amazingly and is astonishing but I would have liked to hear more structure to the music. Hearing an actual chorus and verse might have been nice. The 1993 performance however was much more to my liking. Maybe it was the fact that there were several musicians playing the same song, but there was more structure to the music and thus pleased me much more.

The video presentation on this DVD seems to be accurate with what was shot. The colours are bright and true and the black levels are pretty well done. I did find the camera work to be a little amateurish but that's beside the point. There was no grain or film damage.

The audio comes in several flavours. We're treated to 5.1 Dolby Surround Sound Audio, DTS 5.1 Surround Sound and Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo. All three come across really well. Due to the style of music being performed on this DVD there really wasn't much need for the surround tracks but they do add a little extra. The music is nicely mixed and the levels are all in the right spot.

Unfortunately there are no extras that I could find. I suppose that makes sense but considering the short length of the footage on this DVD (67 minutes) you'd kinda expect a bit more. Even just having the audio as something you could listen to separately or including a CD of the concerts would have been better then nothing.

In the end I really can only recommend this DVD to fans of Al Di Meola, and even then, I'd suggest trying to find it really cheap. The fact that there isn't much to the DVD really makes it hard to recommend it for anyone else. If you're into jazz you might think about a rental or a sampling before purchasing but other than that, I'd suggest everyone stay away.