Dave Koz: Off The Beaten Path

Rating:
Summary: Fun concert and perfect audio mix, but little of Trinidad
Review: Dave Koz and his excellent 5 piece band perform live here in Trinidad. Dave is a superb jazz saxophonist and the rest of the band are superb jazz musicians as well- drums, keyboards (B3 is featured), bass, and two guitar players.

The venue is hard to determine, possible a large ballroom in a hotel or maybe an outside courtyard. Whichever, the atmosphere here is very relaxed and casual. Feels and looks like a fun relaxing night at your favorite local nightclub/bar on a Saturday night. The crowd here, dressed casually, is seated and thoroughly enjoying the concert. So did I.

Musically, the smooth jazz here is light and upbeat. The exact type of light saxophone jazz heard on smooth jazz radio stations. And Dave Koz is heard often on those radio stations. If you've ever listened to smooth jazz radio, the songs in this concert will sound familiar, as they did to me.

Sometimes smooth jazz radio gets boring, but fortunately, there is a lot more energy and fun here in this concert that smooth jazz radio often fails to project for some reason. This band has a lot of fun playing live, and while this style of jazz is not very complex harmonically, it has immediate toe-tapping appeal. This isn't swing or fusion or experimental jazz, go elsewhere for that.

If you don't like a lot of sax, then skip this dvd. Every song here is a Dave Koz sax feature (recorder on one). He leads the band, plays the melodies most of the time, and is the only one performing lengthy improvisations.

If you love sax, don't hesitate to get this. However, I love sax too but I also like to hear other instruments too. Unfortunately, the other superb musicians here only have the chance very briefly to solo. This is a shame because they are each very good and only get brief moments to improvise.

Dave leads the band in all songs, mostly on alto sax but also on soprano sax and recorder in one song, and works up a tremdous sweat and makes very expressive facial and body gestures while playing, whether it's a big high loud note (that he often holds for a long time until he's just about completely out of breath) to the softest note where his facial expressions portray gentle tenderness.

I found Dave's extended improv solos too often less sophisticated musically and instead stick on a few notes for dramatic effect. When he improvises, he likes to find one note he can stick with and this allows him to play a few notes around that note with just his left hand, which frees up his right hand, which then he'll make a fist and pump 'air' for dramatic effect. On a long high note, he'll bend back and play straight up towards the ceiling until he runs out of breath. All this showmanship is a bit over-dramatic, but he's having a lot of spontaneous good natured fun that's rare to see in a lot of musicians these days.

Dave does his best to create a nice 'gutsy' sax tone, but most of the time I didn't feel it was all that 'gutsy'. Too often high notes are just loud and kinda 'sqealy'. But when he gets to the softer parts in a solo, this is when his sax tone really changes into a beautiful sax tone. Several songs end in a very effective quite note, which are quite nice. He is a master of creating a 'soft-as-a-feather' sax tone. He has also mastered the ability to end a note in a perfect fade. But only a few songs feature his soft playing.

One interesting segment has Koz playing solo with a 20-30 piece steel drum band (they are not in the concert, this is a cutaway segment). This was fairly interesting but only lasted a minute or two. Dave also plays recorder on one song, and even sings on another, and he's not too bad at all (but not a great singer either).

You'll get about an hour of what I just described above. A nice light jazz concert that would be fine to play at your next party through your stereo speakers, with or without the video. The audio mix is absolutely perfect and every part is heard clearly in fine detail.

A bonus is four Dave Koz music videos. These are ok muscially (good smooth jazz but nothing sophisticated) but are not too interesting visually except for one that was shot on a beach in beatiful mono-color tones. It's a beatiful music video.

Forget the hype about being in Trinidad that you'll find on the back of the dvd case. You won't see much of Trinidad at all except for a very brief scene of the ocean (and a beautiful woman Dave walks around on the beach with, but only for a minute), the other edited-in clips of a carnival look like old footage from the 70's. It's nothing but painted skin street carnival folk and truly awful costumes that are created with cheap paint, etc...

It's hard to know really for sure if the concert venue is even in Trinidad- no scenery in the background. I like outdoor concerts with scenery in the background and good cinematography, but this in not an outdoor concert. Instead, this is in a dark room (stage is well lit, but the room is dark). This video is not very interesting cinematically. However, the good news is that the camera follows the music very well most of the time with no goofy editing effects.

But a truly wonderful opportunity was lost here- by not filming more of the beautiful woman we see walking on the beach in one brief scene! If they had cut out the carnival shots, and featured a lot more of her, I would have given this video five stars! Instead I give it 3.5 stars (amazon needs to make decimals possible).

Rating:
Summary: Fun concert and perfect audio mix, but little of Trinidad
Review: Dave Koz and his excellent 5 piece band perform live here in Trinidad. Dave is a superb jazz saxophonist and the rest of the band are superb jazz musicians as well- drums, keyboards (B3 is featured), bass, and two guitar players.

The venue is hard to determine, possible a large ballroom in a hotel or maybe an outside courtyard. Whichever, the atmosphere here is very relaxed and casual. Feels and looks like a fun relaxing night at your favorite local nightclub/bar on a Saturday night. The crowd here, dressed casually, is seated and thoroughly enjoying the concert. So did I.

Musically, the smooth jazz here is light and upbeat. The exact type of light saxophone jazz heard on smooth jazz radio stations. And Dave Koz is heard often on those radio stations. If you've ever listened to smooth jazz radio, the songs in this concert will sound familiar, as they did to me.

Sometimes smooth jazz radio gets boring, but fortunately, there is a lot more energy and fun here in this concert that smooth jazz radio often fails to project for some reason. This band has a lot of fun playing live, and while this style of jazz is not very complex harmonically, it has immediate toe-tapping appeal. This isn't swing or fusion or experimental jazz, go elsewhere for that.

If you don't like a lot of sax, then skip this dvd. Every song here is a Dave Koz sax feature (recorder on one). He leads the band, plays the melodies most of the time, and is the only one performing lengthy improvisations.

If you love sax, don't hesitate to get this. However, I love sax too but I also like to hear other instruments too. Unfortunately, the other superb musicians here only have the chance very briefly to solo. This is a shame because they are each very good and only get brief moments to improvise.

Dave leads the band in all songs, mostly on alto sax but also on soprano sax and recorder in one song, and works up a tremdous sweat and makes very expressive facial and body gestures while playing, whether it's a big high loud note (that he often holds for a long time until he's just about completely out of breath) to the softest note where his facial expressions portray gentle tenderness.

I found Dave's extended improv solos too often less sophisticated musically and instead stick on a few notes for dramatic effect. When he improvises, he likes to find one note he can stick with and this allows him to play a few notes around that note with just his left hand, which frees up his right hand, which then he'll make a fist and pump 'air' for dramatic effect. On a long high note, he'll bend back and play straight up towards the ceiling until he runs out of breath. All this showmanship is a bit over-dramatic, but he's having a lot of spontaneous good natured fun that's rare to see in a lot of musicians these days.

Dave does his best to create a nice 'gutsy' sax tone, but most of the time I didn't feel it was all that 'gutsy'. Too often high notes are just loud and kinda 'sqealy'. But when he gets to the softer parts in a solo, this is when his sax tone really changes into a beautiful sax tone. Several songs end in a very effective quite note, which are quite nice. He is a master of creating a 'soft-as-a-feather' sax tone. He has also mastered the ability to end a note in a perfect fade. But only a few songs feature his soft playing.

One interesting segment has Koz playing solo with a 20-30 piece steel drum band (they are not in the concert, this is a cutaway segment). This was fairly interesting but only lasted a minute or two. Dave also plays recorder on one song, and even sings on another, and he's not too bad at all (but not a great singer either).

You'll get about an hour of what I just described above. A nice light jazz concert that would be fine to play at your next party through your stereo speakers, with or without the video. The audio mix is absolutely perfect and every part is heard clearly in fine detail.

A bonus is four Dave Koz music videos. These are ok muscially (good smooth jazz but nothing sophisticated) but are not too interesting visually except for one that was shot on a beach in beatiful mono-color tones. It's a beatiful music video.

Forget the hype about being in Trinidad that you'll find on the back of the dvd case. You won't see much of Trinidad at all except for a very brief scene of the ocean (and a beautiful woman Dave walks around on the beach with, but only for a minute), the other edited-in clips of a carnival look like old footage from the 70's. It's nothing but painted skin street carnival folk and truly awful costumes that are created with cheap paint, etc...

It's hard to know really for sure if the concert venue is even in Trinidad- no scenery in the background. I like outdoor concerts with scenery in the background and good cinematography, but this in not an outdoor concert. Instead, this is in a dark room (stage is well lit, but the room is dark). This video is not very interesting cinematically. However, the good news is that the camera follows the music very well most of the time with no goofy editing effects.

But a truly wonderful opportunity was lost here- by not filming more of the beautiful woman we see walking on the beach in one brief scene! If they had cut out the carnival shots, and featured a lot more of her, I would have given this video five stars! Instead I give it 3.5 stars (amazon needs to make decimals possible).