Rating: - A Mostly Instrumental Set From Robben Ford
Well I have been a Robben Ford fan for about 20 years. I even got to meet him when he came to Sydney with Larry Carlton last year. This DVD is his second outing with the excellent Ohnre Filter Musik Pur SWR series. The first one with the "Blue Line" band is the best. His very best is the New Paris Concert I reviewed about three years ago. This concert features a great band (as always) and is highlighted by the drummer Gary Novak. The keyboardist, Deron Johnson, is also superb.

This set features the greatness of Robben Ford's fusion of Jazz, Blues and R&B in an instrumental context. Most of the tunes on this disc are instrumentals which span the genres of Blues, Blues-Rock to Smooth Jazz. Robben plays his early 1960s Telecaster throughout the performance and, interestingly, he also includes one tune played on a vintage Stratocaster ("Tiger Walk").

The set includes "Just Like It Is" which is an instrumental which becomes an ode to BB King in the 2000s as "Indianola Blues". Robben sings "When I Leave Home" as a straight ahead Blues-Rock tune. "The Miller's Son" is a variation on the Clapton-Mayall Blues cover instrumental "Steppin' Out' and is very well done. "Chevrolet" features Ford's great knack of redefining other tunes, in this case "Hey Gyp" by Donovan and the Animals. It's a great version. "Freedom" is an interesting instrumental which brings to mind the smooth Jazz of Peter White (who played guitar on the "Year Of The Cat") and it has an interesting change in the bridge.

"Top Of the Hill" is a Steely Dan inspired tune that also reminds one also of John Lennon. It's fantastic. The last three tunes on this disc are instrumentals. "Tiger Walk" is an interesting tune which Robben plays on a 1950s Strat- very unusual (he now plays Gibsons!). "The Champ" is another hard hitting instrumental played on his Telecaster. The final tune "In The Beginning" is a great tune which goes into the final credits of the show. I own almost all of the "Musik Pur" series and in no other DVD does it do this. It tells me that this show was a "second issue" and it was the original show as it was aired in Germany. If this is true it makes this disc very unusual and special for this series.

The bottom line is if you are a Robben Ford fan this is a great, and a bit of a different show. If you are a guitarist you can watch Robben play his various diminished scales and Jazz chords. It's a fun show, good value and interesting. A lot of good music but different than his other DVDs. By the way, the cover photo, like with the Albert Collin's DVDs in this series, is not from this concert but the previous one.