"Actor: Steve Swallow"

• Famous Jazz Duets - Chick Corea And Gary Burton / Carla Bley And Steve Swallow | DVD | (24/08/2001) from £21.58   |  Saving you £-1.59 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  By packaging concerts by two of the genre's most celebrated musicians and distinctive partnerships together on Famous Jazz Duets, the Arthaus label has given jazz experts something to celebrate and newcomers the chance to hear just how mesmerising this level of musicianship can be. Pianist and composer Chick Corea has been working with Gary Burton, perhaps the only world-class vibraphonist there has ever been, since 1970. This is a partnership founded on instinctive artistry. Captured here in a 1981 concert at Tokyo's Yubin Chokin Hall, they play a totally entrancing set of Corea's pieces. Highlights are several delightful "Children's Songs" and the concluding composition, "La Fiesta", in which they take turns to work magic with the overlying melody. Most contagious of all is the sheer, simple delight they obviously take in each other's work. Pianist and sometimes singer Carla Bley has been a major participant in the modern jazz world, both as an artist and mentor. Playing here with bass specialist Steve Swallow in a 1988 concert, she is an intriguing and compelling figure to watch; intense and hypnotic, her compositions command undivided attention. And this partnership's treatment of the traditional spiritual "Soon I Will Be Done with the Troubles of the World" is an emotional tour de force. They can ham it up too, as "Very Very Simple" shows. On the DVD: the 4:3 picture format provides standard video quality totally in keeping with the 1980s production standards of these concerts. Don't expect the stagecraft to match the artistry. But the PCM Stereo is ideally suited to what are, after all, intimate performances in the sense that, while these partnerships are sharing their talent with large audiences, they are also clearly playing for each other's enjoyment. No extras are included except good, detailed booklet notes.--Piers Ford

• The Navigators | DVD | (22/04/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Ken Loach does for the railways in The Navigators what he did for the construction industry in Riff-Raff (1990). As ever, his sympathies lie firmly with the ordinary working blokes, not above of bit of banter and skiving, but essentially trying to do a decent job and stay loyal to their mates in the face of managerial double-talk and corporate devotion to the bottom line. It's 1995, and the Tories have just carried out their disastrous, pea-brained scheme to break up the railways. We follow the fortunes of a gang of track workers in South Yorkshire as they find themselves confronted with all the fallout of privatisation--redundancies, cost-cutting, corner-cutting and the wholesale junking of any concern with safety or quality of work. Accidental deaths, one hapless time-server explains, "have got to be kept to an acceptable level". Two scenes encapsulate the tragic-comic tone of the film. At one point the disbelieving workers are ordered by managers to smash up a load of new equipment; it's surplus to requirements, but can't possibly be sold to "the competition", their former British Rail workmates at the depot down the line. Later, called to a derailment, the track workers pass a whole series of hard-hat wearing managers, each paying no attention to what needs doing but muttering fiercely into a mobile phone trying to pass the buck for the accident to another company. Loach cast the film using local actors and comics, and there's a strong sense of authenticity in the flat accents and dry Yorkshire humour. But ultimately this is a lament for the destruction, not only of what was once a great rail network, but of the pride and camaraderie of those who worked on it. The film's ending is fittingly bleak. --Philip Kemp