DVD Videos

When Art Blakey and his band The Jazz Messengers played at the 1976 Umbria Jazz Festival, there were luckily cameras around to capture the event. Thus TDK can now present this rare document in a digitally re-mastered version that forms part of their series of legendary Jazz live-recordings.

These three giants of jazz joined forces in January 1983 at the Palazzo dei Congressi in Lugano – a picturesque town in Southern Switzerland that has hosted the fine open air “Jazz Estival” in the summer for almost 30 years now.

Masters of American Music is an award-winning television series – as entertaining as it is educational and memorable – that celebrate a pantheon of the greatest innovators in Jazz. Individual programmes trace the lives and works of master musicians who defined the course of America’s classical music. From its birth in New Orleans, to swing, the big bands, bebop, free Jazz and beyond – all of it is explored with sensitivity and in unique depth. Over 80 interviews were filmed in the making of the series. Featured artists come to life through these interviews, exciting rare performances, period footage and vintage photographs meticulously reproduced. Both the video and audio content has been restored and remastered in accordance with state-of-the-art specifications.

Picture format DVD: NTSC 4:3

Sounds formats DVD: PCM Mono 2.0

Region code: 0

Booklet notes: English, German, French

Subtitles: German, English, French

Running time: DVD1 59 mins, DVD2 59 mins, DVD3 56 mins, DVD4 59 mins, DVD5 98 mins

German FSK: 0