Van Morrison: Live at Montreux 1980/1974

The Montreux Jazz Festival has flourished since 1967, bringing thousands of music fans to Switzerland each July. From its jazz-only beginnings, the festival has branched out to encompass blues, rock, world music, and other genres. Van Morrison has appeared several times over the years and this DVD captures two of his early performances, a 9-song set in 1974 and 15-song set from 1980.

George Ivan Morrison, in case you didn't know, is the world's greatest singer, rivaled only by the great Etta James. Famous for resisting the label "rock star," Morrison can sing anything -- rock, blues, soul, jazz, country -- with equal style and intensity, though he has resisted diving into the increasingly shallow standards pool. Even non-fans have heard him sing with imdb listing his performances on the soundtrack of 37 movies, my favorite being the use of "Everyone" in The Royal Tenenbaums. While Morrison performs on a handful of DVDs, most notably Scorsese's The Last Waltz, acolytes have long been waiting for the first Van-only disc.

Though the 1980 show is the first in the 2-disc set, it is best to begin with the 1974 performance. As festival founder Claude Nobs writes in the accompanying booklet (the only extra), he had to find musicians quickly after being notified that Morrison would arrive alone. The three-piece band performs adequately, but lacks the power and slickness of the 1980 group. Three of the nine songs are throwaway instrumentals and some of the others were new to the audience. Intended for an album scheduled to be released in 1975, only to be cancelled, "Twilight Zone" and "Foggy Mountain Top" (Van's best performances here) had to wait for the outstanding 1998 miscellany disc, "The Philosopher's Stone."

The 1980 performance, which finds Morrison with a bit less hair and more girth around the middle, opens with a rousing rendition of "Wavelength" and keeps up the pace from there. There are also outstanding versions of "And It Stoned Me" and "Wild Night," backed by eight musicians, including Morrison regulars John Platania on guitar and Pee Wee Ellis on sax. Three years after becoming a film composer, Mark Isham hits a few sour notes on trumpet. Morrison alters the tempo several times on "Tupelo Honey" and "Moondance," giving the latter an almost bossa nova beat at times.

Notoriously distant from his audiences, even hostile at times, Van is well behaved in both concerts (though his "thank you" sounds a bit more clipped in 1980 and he can't get off the stage fast enough). I've seen him onstage several times in recent years and he is a tad more mellow, as can be seen in the 4-song DVD included in the deluxe edition" of "Pay the Devil.

Though the case claims the DVD includes "carefully restored footage," the visuals are problematic. Like the DVDs of anything originally recorded on '70s videotape, the image is a bit grainy and murky at times, especially during the 1974 show. The direction is standard TV, cutting from one musician to another for no apparent reason -- the director of the 1980 concert seems fascinated by Isham's unusually thick fingers -- but the sound is outstanding. In fact, I had to turn the volume on my speakers much lower than the usual setting.

This DVD set is a good starting point, but doesn't showcase all of Morrison's many talents. Of course, there will undoubtedly be more Morrison DVDs. How about starting with the 1989 Beacon concert featuring John Lee Hooker and Mose Alison? -- Michael Adams