The 1959 Newport Jazz Festival was a true musical watershed, as Jazz on a Summer's Day reveals. This 75-minute film captures an event poised on the cusp of a new era, as the cool jazz of Jimmy Guiffre and the effortless scat of Anita O'Day intermingle with the hard bop of the Gerry Mulligan Quartet and the smouldering fusion overtones of the Chico Hamilton Quintet. There's a crisp contribution from Chuck Berry, a typically feel-good set from Louis Armstrong-including a hilarious duo with Jack Teagarden-and, as evening shades into night, a heartfelt performance from Mahalia Jackson, closing with a melting rendition of "The Lord's Prayer". Bert Stern has assembled all these and more into a satisfying sequence, complete with footage of an enthusiastic and informal audience. Shots of the yachting line-up from the America's Cup round out a blissful and what now seems blissfully naïve occasion. On the DVD: Colour picture quality has worn well, whereas sound has deteriorated notably at times: Thelonius Monk's quarter-tones could easily be a semitone flat! Even so, it's worth putting up with this to enjoy a tour through music-making whose relaxed spontaneity would be impossible to emulate today. -Richard Whitehouse.

Texas Paris is a visual record of some of the group's best tunes played live, along with the original promotional videos. Unlike most bands who are usually never even given one chance to make it big, Texas were lucky enough to be given multiple opportunities to become successful. Despite securing a Top 10 hit in 1989, with "I Don't Want a Lover" it wasn't until seven years later, riding on the crest of the Brit-pop phase that the group were to gain long-term popularity. The concert in Paris has added significance, because of the cult 1984 Wim Wenders film Paris, Texas a favourite film of both Sharleen and Johnny and the motivating factor for their choice of the band name. The concert footage is shot superbly well, and has real atmosphere-you feel that you're at the Palais de Bercy rather than at some characterless out-of-town arena in the southeast of England. The electricity of this recording is stirred up further by Spiteri's excellent rapport with the audience, and her amazing stage and vocal performances. The selection of songs and running order is well balanced, with the concert kicking off with their more up-tempo tunes such as "Black Eyed Boy", descending down a notch or two to their slower numbers ("Tired of Being Alone" and "So In Love With You") and then climaxing with favourites such as "Say What You Want". Although she fails to don the latex mask and the stick on side-burns, clad in leather Sharleen's live performance of "Inner Smile" is almost as good (and Elvis-like) as the infamous promotional video for this track. On the DVD: The disc is jam-packed with both the excellent concert footage and videos. Both the concert tracks and the promotional videos can be accessed individually or played together. [+]

This latest dance version of Carmen comes courtesy of choreographer Matthew Bourne, who has devised his own scenario of Bizet's opera set in a garage-diner in the American mid-West, circa 1960. The Car Man toured the UK in 2000 finishing with a four-month run to packed houses at the Old Vic. This film treatment details all the excitement of the occasion. The cinematography assists in capturing the atmosphere of Bourne's treatment-film noir with allusions to Hitchcock-through employment of chiaroscuro. The use of the split-screen technique also enhances the cinematic feel. The music sounds seductive and full-bodied, befitting the new story line (Bourne calls it an “auto-erotic thriller”) in which an enigmatic stranger, Luca, walks into town seducing both Lana (Carmen) and Angelo (Don Jose). A swarthy individual, Luca looks an unlikely dancer until his first solo galvanises the company. The single stage set adapts into eight different permutations, taking us from diner through nightclub and prison and then out on the road in a cinematic finale where the Chevrolet cars of the period are destroyed in a pile up. The period look is further enhanced with the girls in tight-waisted colourful frocks and the men in Brando-esque T-shirts and jeans. The dance ensembles are an extraordinarily versatile group: classical, jazz, modern and flamenco seem natural expressions of their body movements. [+]

Amazing Journey: The Story of the Who is a very satisfying, two-disc set anchored by an excellent documentary directed by Murray Lerner (The Other Side of the Mirror: Bob Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival), whose 1970 footage of the band in concert appears in Lerner's Message to Love: The Isle of Wight Festival. Lerner's new film includes recent and extensive interviews with surviving Who members Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend, who candidly recall every chapter of the group's career, from childhood to the premature deaths of drummer Keith Moon and bassist John Entwistle, and beyond to Daltrey and Townshend's continuing, now-autumnal collaboration. Much of what is said and captured in Amazing Journey has been noted before in myriad ways (including the Who's 1979 autobiographical feature The Kids Are Alright), but the older Daltrey and Townshend get, the richer their insights into Who history. Lerner's organisation of sub-topics and material also makes Amazing Journey powerful and resonant, including the Who's earliest period as an emerging club band (called the High Numbers) emphasising rhythm and blues, and Townshend's gradual transformation into a songwriter trying to break traditional pop forms. Key relationships are examined and explored, but of special note is Daltrey's and Townshend's separate, fascinating assessments of the former's evolution as a vocalist and frontman. (Each maintains that it was Daltrey's personal connection to the central character in Tommy that turned him into an expansive, charismatic singer. ) A second disc contains superb outtakes from Amazing Journey, with an emphasis on the wisdom of Daltrey and Townshend, both in their 60s, examining their individual artistries. Who fans and musicians alike will certainly enjoy an exciting analysis, from the likes of the Edge, Simon Townshend (Pete's brother and member of the Who's backing band) and Eddie Vedder, of Townshend's gifts as a guitarist. A wonderful mini-documentary co-directed by D. A. [+]