Search - Electric Band: Live at the Maintenance Shop on DVD

Great Performance - Mediocre Video Transfer

Craig S. Cherry | Kansas | 08/16/2009

(2 out of 5 stars)

"I saw this performance at "The Maintenance Shop" back in the 80's when I was a student at Iowa State University. It was originally taped by Iowa Public Television as part of the popular "At the Maintenance Shop" series. The original broadcast was shown over two nights, and featured 11 tunes by the then brand-new "Chick Corea Elektric Band." It also included some brief interviews with Chick Corea, talking about his music and why he was pursuing "electric music" at that time.

The performance itself is phenomenal. I was in awe of all three musicians and their technical abilities (and still am, watching it again all these years later). But what made this concert so exciting was the interplay between Chick, Dave and John, and the sense of joy that came from each of their performances. Compared to the rather sterile Electric Band LP that came out shortly after this concert, this live music was truly inventive and free-flowing; some of the best live jazz I've ever experienced.

Unfortunately, this new video transfer leaves much to be desired. My biggest complaint (and the reason I gave it only 2 stars) is the audio track. The bass is noticeably distorted in many of the louder passages, I assume because whoever did the digital transfer set the gain too high and clipped the sound. After I published my original review of this on Amazon, someone emailed me saying that they did not have any problem with the audio. But I rented another copy from Netflix just to see if my disc was defective, and the other copy had the same distortion. So if you're looking for anything close to high-fidelity, you aren't going to get it from this DVD.

There are also issues with video quality (which is grainy throughout). I remember watching this when it aired on IPT, and I don't recall the video being quite this grainy. I also made a tape of the broadcast, and even my cassette recording from over-air TV has better audio qualtiy than this DVD. But what' really sad is that they completely edited out all of Chick's introductions and comments during the show. He was really funny when he spoke, and you get none of that flavor from the DVD. They also chose not to include any written documentation of the band/concert date/concert venue with the DVD beyond the year and that it was recorded at ISU. That's not a must-have, but it would have been nice to include, since most people have no idea what "The Maintenance Shop" is or why Chick Corea would have bothered to play there back then.

So this is the bottom line: if you don't mind the distorted audio tracks and grainy picture, definitely buy this DVD. The performances are amazing, and well worth the reasonable price of the disc. But if you're any sort of audiophile with a higher end system, you'll be frustrated with the distorted audio and muddy picture."

Good Performance - Video Quality Not So Much

GZ | usa | 11/23/2008

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I took a chance on this one as I like Corea's electric work but saw no reviews for it and there was limited info given here on Amazon.

Ok, it's a good performance of the early band, just trio of keyboards, bass and drum and the tunes are great.

Low production values though, the camera work is adequate but somewhat grainy. The sound is stereo (?) only, no 5.1 mix but I was able to tweak some good enough sound out of it with my Yamaha home theater system.

Worth getting IMO but nowhere near as good as the Montreux DVD. Good documentation of this period of the band. Region 0... I was able to play it."