Almost every guitarist knows his name: Les Paul. Jeff Beck, not a small one himself, honors the luthier and virtuoso who died in 2009 on this DVD with a performance at the Iridium Jazz Club. It was this hall that was treated to a performance by an elderly Les Paul every week (he was already in his nineties at his last concert). Beck is sincere in his tribute and clearly didn't want to be the rock
… star, but to emulate his own hero. The audience full of well-known actors and musicians had largely come for him, but also received top performances from singer Darrel Higham. Beck's protégé Imelda May sings the songs with which Les Paul and his then wife Mary Ford scored hits in the 1940s and 1950s. A nice detail is that there is a whole chorus of previously recorded voices from May, just as Les Paul recorded Ford's voice layer upon layer, a technique that was hardly used at the time. Very clever how a bunch of British can make American music so well. The extras on the DVD include recordings of Jeff Beck and Les Paul together. (JE)more
