Umphrey's McGee: Live Blu-ray delivers great video and audio in this excellent Blu-ray release
Legendary on the jam band circuit, Chicago-based Umphrey's McGee is presented in an extended version of the concert broadcast in February 2009 by Soundstage, the concert series jointly produced by WTTW, the PBS station in Chicago, and HD Ready.
In addition to booking venerable acts with established reputations, the Soundstage series on
Chicago's PBS station, WTTW, has also done its part for new, up-and-coming musicians. What
better candidate than the local group of improvisational talent known as Umphrey's McGee, who
first got started in 1997 at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, and all of whom
hale from locales in and around the Windy City?
I should acknowledge at the outset that viewing this disc was my first acquaintance with
Umphrey's McGee, whose name is the result of a fateful intersection of the band's original
monicker ("Hubert Humphrey's Traveling Band featuring Flappy McGee"), a shorted-out
microphone and a well-lubricated Rodney Dangerfield acting as emcee. Although I, too, am
originally from the Chicago area, I had left long before Umphrey's McGee got their start, and for
many years they were known almost exclusively to audiences in live venues and at music
festivals. Their first studio album, released in 1998 and cheekily titled Greatest Hits Vol.
III, received little promotion and was not widely distributed. It was intended primarily as a marketing
tool to help the band book performance dates, because its members weren't all that interested in
creating studio music, at least not at the time. They're live performers whose style harkens
back to the tradition of great jazz improvisers—the difference being that Umphrey's McGee doesn't
play jazz. They play everything.
As the band's reputation has grown, it has learned to use digital marketing tools to expand its
audience. Its twice-monthly podcasts consisting of selections from recent concerts are popular
downloads. The "UM Live" program offers recordings of a show for sale immediately after its
conclusion and thereafter online. Even if the music isn't to one's taste, Umphrey's McGee is
worthy of attention as a case study in how technology can bring content providers and fans
together rather than becoming a bone of contention.
For those who prefer a more traditional format, Soundstage provided it. Umphrey's McGee's
performance was recorded in 2007 (according to the band's website), and a
one-hour version featuring seven songs was shown on WTTW in February 2009. E1 Entertainment released a two-hour extended
version on DVD featuring thirteen songs the following June; also included were
two bonus tracks from a later performance at the Auditorium Theater in Chicago. The earlier
DVD is out of print. Image Entertainment is releasing the extended concert on Blu-ray (and re-issuing
it on DVD), minus the bonus tracks.
The line-up for Umphrey's McGee consists of Brendan Bayliss (guitar, vocals), Jake Cinninger
(guitar, synthesizers, vocals), Joel Cummins (keyboards, vocals), Andy Farag (percussion), Ryan
Stasik (bass) and Kris Myers (drums, vocals). (Original drummer Mike Mirro left the band in
2002; Myers was selected from hundreds of audition tapes.)
One listening is not enough for a full appreciation of the band's multi-layered compositions,
which have been built up over years of jamming and performing. The songs have lyrics, but the
bulk of each number is devoted to instrumental exploration of exceptional range and uncanny
precision. Almost every conceivable strain of rock, funk, blues and heavy metal weaves through
the band's work at some point, but none of the shifts feel strained or arbitrary. An integrity
pervades every note and phrase, the kind that only comes from musicians with a carefully
considered and deeply felt sense of the tonal universe they've constructed.
The phenomenon is most striking in songs that are anchored in a distinctive style, such as "Great
American", which opens with a samba-inflected Latin beat. Eventually, though, it evolves into
something that reminded my ear of the early Allman Brothers (accompanied by a neatly
coordinated shift on the part of Bayliss and Cinninger from acoustic to electric guitars). One
might be tempted read some sort of "theme" or "statement" into the title about finding unity in
typical sounds of the two Americas, but the members of the band make it clear in banter between
numbers that their song titles are completely random. Given their penchant for jocular album
titles (Songs for Older Women, Local Band Does OK, Safety in Numbers,
Death by Stereo—who gets the movie reference?), I'd hesitate to disagree.
The band's precision can be readily observed in the song "Higgins", which is based in a reggae
tune from which it veers off in unpredictable directions, always returning to the classic "off beat"
or "ska stroke" rhythm that gives reggae its distinctive sound. This is no mean feat for six
musicians to perform, especially when they do it repeatedly, without apparent effort, and without
any obvious "conductor" leading the way.
Watching the audience (which, it must be acknowledged, skewed considerably younger than the
usual Soundstage crowd), I could see that many members knew these songs well—more than a
few were greeted with applause of recognition—and I began to wonder how many of Umphrey's
McGee's fans follow their work the way die-hard fans of jazz greats like John Coltrane and
Thelonius Monk would follow them, listening to the evolution of songs through performance and
improvisation. Indeed, thanks to innovations like podcasts and web distribution, Umphrey's
McGee's fans are no longer limited by the logistics of travel. They can keep up with the band
from anywhere. I don't know that I've been converted to that degree, but I'm looking forward to
hearing this concert again.
The complete song list follows; songs marked with an asterisk are those that were included in the
PBS broadcast, according to Soundstage's website:
Perhaps the most striking aspect of Image's 1080i, AVC-encoded Blu-ray for Umphrey's McGee:
Live is just how bright the picture is. This isn't a result of excessive contrast, but rather an
effect
of the lighting design for this particular Soundstage show. Whether this was the band's choice or
the production team's is impossible to say, but it does complement the band's "garage band"
aesthetic, which has them playing in street clothes instead of costumes. It will be interesting to
see whether, as the members of Umphrey's McGee advance into later years, they're still willing
to appear under such unforgiving illumination or instead find themselves embracing the more
flattering shades preferred by the aging acts I have generally reviewed at Soundstage.
Contrary to its usual practice with two-hour concert discs, Image has opted for a BD-25, which
may account for the greater prevalence of video noise and aliasing on amplifier grilles and other
patterned surfaces than has been typical in this series. Other than these faults, however,
compression artifacts were not observed, and the image sported the clarity and detail one would
expect from a hi-def video capture. Color, black levels and contrast were appropriate, and
interlacing artifacts were not observable while the image was in motion. (Screencaps are a
different issue.) While maybe a hair's breadth below other discs I've seen in the series (and not
enough to deduct a half star), this is a worthy addition.
The DTS-HD MA 5.1 track reflects HD Ready's usual approach to mixing concerts recorded for
Soundstage. The viewer is placed in the position of an audience member with the sounds of
cheering and applause directed to the surrounds, while the band and vocalists remain spread
across the front soundstage, with some degree of presence in the surrounds to create a sense of
space and depth. In general since its early outing with the band Chicago, HD Ready has avoided
localizing specific instruments to left or right, but occasionally here it has chosen to anchor
Cinninger's lead guitar to the left speaker, when he is carrying a specific "voice" within the mix.
This approach is always risky in a concert recording, because the picture editing constantly shifts
the position of the players, while the sound editing leaves them in the same sonic positions, but
HD Ready has been sufficiently conservative that the technique doesn't become distracting. As
usual with the mixes for Soundstage, their quality is demonstrated by the ability to pick out the
individual instruments, even the separate layers of percussion contributed by Farag and Myers.
Here is a band dedicated to live performance, brought to your listening room with the finest
technology available for reproducing it.
(Note: A PCM 2.0 track is also available for all selections.)
In addition to their expert musicianship, Umphrey's McGee should be congratulated for their
inventive use of technology to expand their audience for live performance, rather than
allowing it to limit them. Although this Blu-ray disc is the highest and best form of concert presentation
available today, it is almost a throwback to an earlier time, when one considers the advances the
band has pioneered. A 2007 concert? Right now there are fans listening to the concert the band
played yesterday. We Blu-ray geeks are behind the times. Recommended.
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