The Sex Pistols and Keith Jarrett get positive reviews.
SEX PISTOLS
There'll always be an England
Fremantle Home Entertainment
****
Whether you regard the Sex Pistols as shadows of their former, younger, leaner selves, or simply as rock caricatures (the kind of people they formed the band to get rid of), there's no denying they look at us now from the stages of the world with grins on their faces and two-fingered salutes.
The fact that they're packing 'em in around the world on the basis of their one and only studio album (1977's Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols) and the charisma (part cartoon, part curio) of lead singer John Lydon is proof that either you can fool all of the people all of the time, or that there is something far more substantial to the Pistols than meets the eye.
Whatever. This DVD is fabulous stuff, with a cracking live show from London. Julian Temple directs. Extras include a highly amusing documentary wherein the four original members revisit their old London haunts.
TONY CLAYTON-LEA
KEITH JARRETT
Standards 1/2 Tokyo
ECM
****
These DVDs, long unavailable, document two Tokyo concerts by Jarrett's Standards Trio, with Garry Peacock (bass) and Jack DeJohnette (drums), in 1985 and 1986 - they are not the Standards 1and 2CDs. Imaginatively shot, they reveal the intensely physical nature of trio performance, especially on Jarrett's part, the intimacy of their musical dialogue, and their mutual pleasure in playing.
Amid some lovely ballads, volume 1 has a slightly more visceral character, with the trio grooving compellingly on Rider, God Bless the Childand the coda to Prism.
On volume 2, the sound is fuller and richer and the repertoire almost exclusively standards, yielding some exceptional moments on Blame It on My Youth, Georgia on My Mind, When I Fall in Loveand Young and Foolish.
www.music connection.org.uk
RAY COMISKEY
