"Actor: Charlie Monk"

• Dolly Parton - Blue Valley Songbird | DVD | (25/06/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  In a totally unexpected piece of casting, Blue Valley Songbird stars Dolly Parton as a country singer/songwriter with big hair, large breasts and lots of lippy. The comparison ends there, though, because here she plays Leana Taylor, a talented performer hampered by her provincial background (and unpleasant manager/boyfriend) who realises she must escape her small-town roots in order to achieve her true potential. This isn't the most taxing of narratives, but it's the music that counts here. This movie is of the "musical drama" genre--take a star musical performer, give them the lead role in a movie, then furnish them with every excuse to perform therein so long as it can be done as a realistic element within the overall story--and as such it's highly agreeable. Parton not only has buckets of musical talent but also has plausible acting skills, even if the viewer is bound to think that these are mainly to do with being Dolly Parton. In any event, the songs are excellent, so this is well worth watching even if you find yourself fast-forwarding until you see someone picking a guitar up.--Roger Thomas

• Masters Of Jazz | DVD | (27/06/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £49.99

  Featuring spectacular archive footage seemless performances and vivid pivotal interviews with an extraordinary array of the most famous and infamous figures in the American jazz scene including Armstrong Basie Parker Coltrane Monk Charles Holiday Vaughan BB King Duke Ellington Dizzy Gillespie Tony Bennett Billy Taylor Carmen McRae Charles Mingus Wynton Marsalis Miles Davis and Ella Fitzgerald Masters Of Jazz is the most impeccably detailed and indispensible 12 hou

• Masters of Jazz - Session 2 | DVD | (07/05/2007) from £13.49   |  Saving you £2.50 (18.53%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Their History Their Music Their Words! Masters of Jazz tells the epic story of 20th Century Jazz. This DVD features three documentaries: Celebrating Bird: The Triumph of Charlie Parker The World According To Coltrane John Thelonious Monk: American Composer