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DVD/Video/Film Reviews
The Last Great Traffic Jam
Doug Collette
DC writes regularly about rock and roll, jazz and the blues, composing reviews of CD's, DVD's, live performances, books and films, as well as conducting interviews.“ The Last Great Traffic Jam on DVD may not be the truly comprehensive package it could be, but the DualDisc sets of Traffic Jam and Steve Winwoods About Time provide a full picture of Traffic's legacy. ”
Traffic
The Last Great Traffic Jam
Epic Records
2005
Steve Winwood has enacted some compromises during the course of his forty-year career—remember Roll with It and the beer commercials?—but he's never done a thing to sully the name or image of Traffic. The almost-mythic English band founded with hornman Chris Wood and drummer/composer/vocalist Jim Capaldi had its roots in a free- wheeling eclectic taste in music and a similarly improvisational means of playing and songwriting collectively that ties it directly into the jamband ethic of today.
Little wonder then that, when Winwood and Capaldi reformed the band in 1994— sadly minus Wood who had passed away a decade before the then 'new' studio album Far FromHome and a decade after the previous Traffic album When the Eagle Flies—they toured in large part as an opening act for the Grateful Dead. The iconic San Francisco band has played "Dear Mr. Fantasy often during its most recent phase of live performance, so the connection was enhanced even further as audiences, perhaps not so familiar with Traffic, received a stellar introduction and those who enjoyed both bands received a double bonus.
The release of The Last Great Traffic Jam serves the two important purposes, not the least of the two providing due homage to the late Jim Capaldi, founding member and drummer for the band who died in January of this year. In addition, by concentrating on live performance footage from the 1994 Traffic tour, it reinforces the distinction of this band, both in terms of the unique blend of English folk music, R&B and rock, as well as the open-ended approach to musicianship that helped them find such favor with the jamband audience (one show here finds the group opening for the Grateful Dead, whose co-founder and lead guitarist, Jerry Garcia, appears with Traffic on one tune).
Given the resources at the disposal of any artist availing themselves of the DVD format, it's somewhat mystifying there's not more to the package. There's no denying how artfully the performance footage is interwoven from soundchecks, different venues as well as different takes of a single number into a cohesive whole: you can't help but get a sense of this Traffic lineup—including bassist Rosko Gee, a veteran of its 1974 incarnation, saxophonist Randall Bramblett, who played on Steve Winwood solo albums plus Mike McEvoy on keyboards and Walfredo Reyes Jr. on percussion (he trades the traps with Capaldi in a couple instances)—of a single albeit versatile mindset as they traverse tunes as different as the bouncy rock and roll of "Medicated Goo and the ethereal likes of "40,000 Headmen.
The selection of songs from a fairly broad expanse of styles (based, interestingly enough, on only a half-dozen bonafide albums) presents an accurate picture not only of Traffic, but in particular, its focal point Steve Winwood. Quick cuts from the various cameras are a bit off-putting but do help illustrate how the band revolves around Winwood. Playing electric guitar much of the time reminds what a soulful passionate player he is, while there's not a single number that he sings that does not surprise in just how little his one-of-a-kind voice has changed in the more than quarter century since he first debuted with the Spencer Davis group in 1965.
As facile at the keyboards as the fretboard, Winwood sits at what may be his favorite axe, the Hammond organ, for a romp through SDG's Gimme Some Lovin, but also extends himself to acoustic piano for the mystical "The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys. Though perhaps not technically brilliant, Winwood is a highly intuitive musician who knows how to set and expand upon a mood and, with the group following suit—Capaldi anchoring them with his gritty drumming— it's easy to discern the roots of the band's earliest jams in the fabled Berkshire cottage they lived in when they first got together.
Such nuggets of Traffic history, while not essential to the audiences they played for a decade ago, would be well served on this DVD but they're only hinted at in the snippets of commentary between performances. Such segments don't detract from the pacing of the disc, but you have to wish that additional content was included. There's not even an audio set-up, much less any historical information about the band's development (Capaldi and Bramblett both reference original sax/flautist Chris Wood) or more extensive interviews. Long-time Traffic fans, and perhaps new aficionados to the group too, may well find this disc wanting because the performances contained herein are of a high enough quality to make anyone curious about the group.
