Download Reviews

Frequently, even free music downloads can be overpriced. Of course, there are always exceptions to any rule and the Monterey Jazz Festival 2008 Music Sampler from iTunes is one fine example of how free can be worth so much more than nothing.

Upon entering the Monterey Fairgrounds on a festival day, there's an assortment of people ...

Hearing Oscar Peterson late in life, his left hand rendered useless by a stroke and arthritis, could be a terribly sad thing, sometimes no more than a whisper of the giant that had me scouring CD bins after first listening to him.

But his magnetism was never just about music, as his fellow Canadians and several ...

Those spending $600 and dodging gunfire to get a glitch-filled PlayStation 3 probably need all the free holiday cheer they can get.

The repeating loop of music on the store's overhead speakers is more likely to make them postal than passive. But the Web offers enough free albums that are exceptional, unique and utterly bizarre (like ...

Saxophonist John Ellis' new album By A Thread is “an early runner for one of the best albums of 2006,"according to one AAJ review. Thanks to his free, two-set live performance available free at his Web site, he's got his hat in the download category as well.

This 2.5 hour session is first-rate in personnel, performance ...

Bill Frisell Further East/Further West Nonesuch Records 2005

Bill Frisell is an exceptional musician because he has the ability to mine the usual guitaristic textures without getting caught up in clichés, to unearth original ore in the same old vein. Further East/Further West (available only in download form) is a ...

As trash-talking goes, getting schooled by the “Professor Of Saxophone" is of questionable caliber. But Miles Osland is in no danger of losing face if words fail him--he wields a horn capable of bludgeoning even the most forward-thinking rebel punk in the classroom.

Some professors put students to sleep lecturing from the book, while others bring ...

Funky classics. Innovative improvisations. Gritty guitars. No cover charge.

This is why I keep wading through so much muck on the Internet.

Guitarist Tim Conley joins the tiny percentage of jazz artists with a significant amount of quality work available free of charge online with several live performances between July and October of 2005 posted at ...

Considering its 80th birthday is next year, Finnish jazz is awfully young at heart.

Finnish-American musicians aboard the M/S Andania brought jazz to the country in 1926, according to urban myth, but a strong presence and identity didn't emerge until the 1960s. Since then versatile musicians, strong government support and high-quality education has produced a breed ...

“There is a long jazz tradition in the Netherlands, from post-bop styles to a thriving avant-garde scene that developed in the 1960s. American jazz musicians have sometimes criticized Dutch jazz, arguing that it doesn't swing, or that it isn't sufficiently rooted in the blues. But with its philosophical roots in absurdism and slapstick, it's one of ...

A pretty free exchange of ideas and culture seems to exist between the U.S. and Canada. As a college student in Washington right next to the border, I saw the young flock north for its lower legal drinking age and older folks camp at our malls in RVs every weekend so they could bargain shop.

But ...

(Note: This is part of the occasional “Back Roads Beat" series about jazz at lesser-known festivals and locations around the world.)

Theresa Sokyrka might be hard to get tickets for, but getting saturated by her live performances is easy.

The runner-up of “Canadian Idol 2" was the headline act at the 2005 Medicine Hat Jazz Festival, ...

These may be the longest days of the year, but for some reason it doesn't seem like there's any extra time to catch up on the music scene.

The legal and free downloads keep sneaking onto my hard drive faster than I can listen to them, much less write proper reviews. So it's time for another ...

A new Ferrari with a bunch of dents is still a pretty nice gift.

Norwegian trumpet modernist Nils Petter Molvaer is offering its acoustical equivalent in an hour-long concert video recently posted free at his web site. It's a large file (291MB) that may frustrate novices trying to save it on their computers, and the video ...

It's this close to being a near-perfect source of free music downloads. But one problem is so critical it's like saying Halle Berry is the perfect date - if she weren't missing her head.

The site www.mp3unsigned.com offers, as its name indicates, songs from musicians lacking big label contracts. Selection is vast and varied, many of ...