Oscar Peterson - A Night in Vienna DVD

[Aaron Saunders]

Anyone else own this one? I got it for Christmas, and I watched the biography first. I'm only on the second track of the concert, but the playing of everyone (not just Oscar) made me sit up and listen a lot harder -- these guys are fantastic.

Frankly, I can't get enough about learning about my favourite musicians. The biography on Oscar Peterson was AMAZING -- inspiring, pretty scary (I want to play music professionally), and, most of all, deepened my respect for him immensely -- the man's stayed clean his entire life.

EDIT: I'm a little farther ahead in the concert now, and there are some spectacular solos. You can really tell that the guitarist likes Metheny -- in one of his first solos, you can hear fragments and licks from stuff off of Bright Size Life.


The only complaint I have about the whole thing is that the guitarist (playing a Les Paul) left his strings uncut. This irritates me beyond belief -- it's just one of my huge pet peeves, especially in jazz -- but then again, I'm just anal retentive :P. There are lots of close ups of the players, and, more importantly, their hands during solos. Great filming, but I'd like a little more attention paid to the drummer...otherwise, this is a GREAT dvd -- especially for the cost.

[burk48237]

I haven't seen the DVD but I've seen Oscar twice, AMAZING. He is so good that when you hear him on the radio you know it's him because no one else could technicaly play the stuff. Does Nile Henning Orsted
Pederson handle the bass chair on the DVD?, He plays on the Night in Munich CD, Check out Nigerian Marketplace, one of the best Upright lines on CD. On gutiar another Sweede, Ulf Wakenuss plays on that CD, another monster. Oscar has such good time on his solos He almost sounds Quanitized!, He rips off 64th note runsin perfect time!
Hes also had some great players on the low end , nothing wrong with Ray Brown either!

[Aaron Saunders]

Yep, both Niels Henning Orsted Pederson and Ulf Wakenuss are on the DVD. Totally amazing. The drummer is Martin Drew -- I enjoyed his playing throughout (4 rides!), but his solos bored me to tears. He just did a roll one the snare with his left hand and hit random stuff with his right -- both times! Booooooring. On a good note, the solos of all three others are all spectacular, and there's a great call-and-response section between Oscar and Ulf during "Sushi".