Lionel Hampton – Swinging At His Best
Picture: C
Sound: C Extras: D Music: B-
Lionel “Hamp” Hampton is one of the favorite Jazz legends
of the past, but there is little material of him out on DVD. Passport has issued the basic Lionel
Hampton – Swinging At His Best and it shows the man in his prime. The tracks include:
1) Midnight
Sun
2) Flyin’
Home
3) Lady Be
Good with Patti Page
4) Who
Cares? with Isabelle Freeman
5) Beulah’s
Boogie
6) Love You
Like Mad
7) Ding
Dong Baby
8) Cobbs’
Idea
9) Vibe
Boogie
10) TV Special
11) Bongo Interlude
12) Air Mail Special
13) Slide, Hamp, Slide
This is a fine set that only suffers form being much too
short, but the tracks are well-picked and will make you want to out and get
some of his early work. The full frame
1.33 X 1 image varies throughout.
Usually, it is all in black and white in these passport releases, but
there is some color footage, even though it looks like EastmanColor (or the
like) fading away. With that said, all
the footage looks a few generations down to outright muddy. Still, there are some good performances here
worth bearing the poor performance until better copies might be unearthed. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono is also average
and down a few generations. There are
no extras, but the 40+ minutes of Hampton in his prime will make Jazz fans
happy.
- Nicholas Sheffo
