Review of Miriam Makeba: Live at Bern`s Salonger

Introduction

Miriam Makeba is an exquisite singer who was a big star in her native South Africa in the 1950`s. Things started going wrong for her in her homeland in 1959 with an appearance in the anti-apartheid film Come Back Africa, although this appearance lead to an invitation to the Venice Film Festival where she formed a Grammy-winning partnership with Harry Belafonte.

The Grammy was for the album An Evening With Belafonte and Makeba, released in 1963, attracting major attention for this incredible voice. This attention led her to use his new status to highlight the problems back home by speaking at the United Nations and seeking international condemnation for South Africa`s policy of apartheid. Exile from her homeland followed.

In 1966 Makeba appeared at Bern`s Salonger in Stockholm, Sweden. This performance was filmed by Swedish TV and is acknowledged as one of her finest performances. Makeba is joined by William Salter (an American) on bass, Sivuca (a Brazilian) on guitar and accordion and Leopoldo Fleming Jr (from the Caribbean) on congos.

In later years, Makeba would be invited to participate in the Gracelands tour by Paul Simon and was invited back to a revitalised South Africa by Nelson Mandela himself.

Miriam Makeba was voted 38th in a poll of the Top 100 Great South Africans in 2004.

Video

Picture is in black and white and quite dark. The picture is grainy and patchy but I suspect that fans of Makeba probably won`t mind this much. Little damage on the main feature, although that is not the case on the Interview segment that is the main extra.

Audio

Dolby Digital 2.0 track that probably doesn`t do real justice to the voice.

Features

Interview - undated interview that appears to be for Swedish TV but is conducted in English. Short interview with Makeba giving honest views on apartheid and why she left her country, book ended with two songs.

Photo Gallery - just some stills from the main feature, and thus suffer from the same problem as described above.

Commemorative booklet

Conclusion

I have to admit that the only things I know about Miriam Makeba are what I picked up whilst doing research for this interview. I do know that this young lady (about 34 at the time of recording) has an incredible voice and that this DVD, while worthy, doesn`t really do her justice.

The set list is itself is an impressive body of work, a mix of both African and English voiced tracks that showcase her talent against an impressive trio of musicians behind her. It`s just the quality of the material that lets this DVD down, and some of that may have been unavoidable. Both sets of footage here are at least thirty years old and there`s only so much you do to improve on aging film stock. I suspect the budget allocated for this project would not allow any real cleanup on it either.

So if I excuse that, as I do, then what else is wrong? Well, the photo gallery was a bit of a waste of time, but then that`s effectively just standard DVD fare these days. No, what`s really missing is a more contemporary interview with the artist herself or a mini-documentary about her life. That could at least put this performance into perspective for people who had no idea who she was.

Still, I`m sure the lack of my own suggestions would stop Makeba fans from snatching this release up. I just think it could have been made more attractive to the casual buyer.