21-March-1999 -- Dad Willerbee writes:

Who is group or composer of the jazz version "2001: A Space Odyssey"?

Dad, the music that is commonly known as the theme for the Stanley Kubrick film "2001: A Space Odyssey" is a Late romantic Piece of Classical music called "Also sprach Zarathustra", Opus 30, composed by Richard Strauss (1864 - 1949). A search of all of the main music search engines and on-line CD sources revealed only a single recording by the James Taylor Quartet, "A Whole Lotta Live, 1998. This is an English import recorded at the Manchester Academy and released on James Taylor's label JTI (JTI M110956).

If there are any other readers that know of another jazz interpretation of "Also sprach Zarathustra", please write to Dad Willerbee.

21-March-1999 -- David Lawyer writes:

Would you know where I could find statistics on the popularity of jazz music in the U.S.? I am doing a report in school and cannot locate anything that would tell me what type of following jazz music has today? Any help or guidance would be appreciated. Thank you.

David, we found a great information source at a World Wide Web site called "Music Economy Basic Information Service" (http://www.gdsourcing.com/works/music.htm) This Canadian site provided a great deal of musical sales-related information. We encourage you to consult this site, but we will provide a 1996 breakdown of music sales across styles from this resource: Rock 32.5%, Pop 9.3%, Country 14.5%, R & B 12%, Rap 8.9%, Gospel 4.1%, Jazz 3.3%, Classical 3.3%, Oldies 0.9%, Soundtracks 0.8%, and New Age 0.7%.

If there are any other readers with other resources David might consult, please write to David Lawyer.

21-March-1999 -- BigFunkyG@aol.com writes:

I am looking for a recording of Dizzy playing "Aquarius" and "Let the Sun Shine In". I heard it on an NPR Jazz Program Called Dizzy's Diamonds hosted by Billy Taylor but there was no information about what album these charts might be on. Do you happen to know where I could find this?

BigFunkyG@aol.com, we found a lot of information regarding this NPR special program. Billy Taylor has a regular gig with NPR called Billy Taylor Live at the Lincoln Center. But this program "Dizzy's Diamonds" is not a part of that series. It was a special. We checked out the Internet using http://www.hotbot.com as the primary search engine. We also accessed the NPR WWW Site (http://www.npr.org) and found mention of the special but no specific information regarding the play list. There is a special service through NPR called the NPR Music Source that will locate pieces of music that are played on NPR, provided that the listener knows the time and the program on which the music was played.

If any of our readership has a better idea for DJ BigFunkyG, please write to BigFunkyG.

01-March-1999 -- Glenn Astarita writes:

My December 1998 AAJ review of Harriet Tubman's CD "I Am A Man" referenced comparisons to the 1980's band "Power Tools" which I incorrectly stated as being led by guitarist Bill Frisell. Power Tools was a cooperative effort, in fact Bill Frisell's replacement was ex-Miles Davis guitarist Pete Cosey. My sincere apologies to the band members for assuming that Frisell fronted this band.