Next comes "Conmigo," featuring percussionist George Ortiz on vocals and tres, a Cuban three-stringed guitar. After a series of angular, playful solos from the band, Sanchez switches things up totally with an uptempo salsa reading of the James Brown classic "Out of Sight." Again, funk and salsa shouldn't play together like chocolate and peanut butter, but holy cow, they do. They do.

By the time the band wraps up the finale, Herbie Hancock's "Watermelon Man," all boundaries are down, the tasteful European jazz enthusiasts of Montreux are in the aisles, and Poncho Sanchez has proven one and for all that he is the living king of the conga.

The last shot of the concert footage is Sanchez after the show, heading into a dressing room. He spies a water cooler and, still worked up from being on stage, treats us to a 30-second conga recital, using the cooler as his drum.

The DVD is shot in letterbox with both steadicam and shoulder cameras. Soloists get their close-ups and the full band shots are well framed and lively. Colors are good and images are crisp, but sometimes suffer from oversaturation from stage lighting. Perhaps some of the problems cropped up in a faulty DVD transfer: I don't know. I only know it doesn't look perfect. The video is marred as well by bizarre screen-saver effects laid over top of some footage; a recurring EQ-monitor effect along the bottom of the screen during three selections is particularly annoying. With performances this good, anything else just gets in the way. I want to see everyone's hands!

Sound and editing are outstanding. The mix is pristine and clear with each instrument given its own space. The edits--and this is a major point I'm glad to see is done right for once--are in time with the music, setting their own tempo and rhythm in counterpoint to the performance. 5.1 Dolby is available, but my primitive home video setup doesn't give any advantage to using this setting.

Extras include: footage from a photo shoot in which Sanchez treats us to a short crash course in how to play the congas; an interview with Sanchez as he wraps his fingers with sports tape before a show, talking about his reverence for "The Great Mongo Santamaria" who taught him how to wrap his fingers; an unnecessary video for "Conmigo" that simply recreates the performance footage using Photoshop effects, and a brief bio and discography section. The performance itself is intercut with short bits of interviews with Sanchez and others such as, unexpectedly, Edward James Olmos.

Poncho Sanchez Live at Montreux is an outstanding document of a wildly underrated musician. Absolutely outstanding.

Performance: A+
Music: A+
Sound: A
Video: B
Extras: B