Home » Jazz News
Interview News
Timely announcements covering new album releases, tours, concert series, special events, job postings, crowdfunding campaigns and more. You can find more news by searching our website, viewing our news stream, seeing what's trending or reading our blog posts. Subscribe to our news RSS feed and/or embed AAJ news content on your website or blog. Learn about our news service here. Submit news here.
RDIO COO Believes "Sense of Community" Will Differentiate Their Music Service from Rivals
Source:
HypeBot
This is part two of my interview with Carter Adamson, who is the COO of RDIO. In this segment, Adamson talks about the challenges of raising awareness for a music service and keeping fans actively engaged. Hypebot: What elements have you considered adding to RDIO—not now, but down the road? Carter Adamson: Rdio will continue to be very aggressive in 2011, launching new geographies, adding support for more platforms and devices. In addition, we will continue to add more music from ...
Continue Reading
Interview: Junior Mance (Part 2)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Many great jazz pianists of the '40s started out as accompanists. The process of backing a singer or instrumentalist forces you to anticipate space, experiment with harmony and keep swinging time. As a young, confident, sensitive pianist, Junior Mance understood this supporting role perfectly. After he left the Army in 1953, Junior was the house pianist at the Bee Hive in Chicago and toured with Dinah Washington before joining Cannonball Adderley's group. With Washington, Junior provided the brassy singer with ...
Continue Reading
Latin Jazz Conversations: Paquito D'Rivera (Part 2)
Source:
The Latin Jazz Corner by Chip Boaz
Very few musicians set out to influence people through the power of their music; they simply follow the heights of their artistic passions. Influence can't really be forced or created, it arises as a result of an artist's work; there's not really a formula that can guarantee the impact of music. An intensely focused passion towards performance and the willingness to try new things helps grab people's attention. An extreme dedication to the art form further impresses an audience and ...
Continue Reading
A Jazz Legacy, Taylor-Made
Source:
JazzINK by Andrea Canter
I only heard pianist and NEA Jazz Master Billy Taylor in one live performance—at the “Witness" concert at Ordway in St. Paul in early 2009. This program was part of the Vocalessence season, their annual celebration of African American history and culture. For the second half of the afternoon, Vocalessence welcomed the Billy Taylor Trio. A decade ago, Taylor wrote “Peaceful Warrior" in tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, performing with Vocalessence, so this was a reprise. At the time, ...
Continue Reading
RDIO COO Predicts a Groundswell of Interest and Subscribers in Online Music Streaming
Source:
HypeBot
Recently, I spoke with Carter Adamson, who is the COO of RDIO. In this interview, Adamson talks about the challenges of raising awareness for a music service and keeping fans actively engaged. Hypebot: What are the challenges of raising awareness for RDIO in a cost-effective manner? Carter Adamson: It's difficult for new businesses to stand out when there is so much noise in the marketplace. And acquiring customers using traditional methods or online marketing can be very expensive. So we're ...
Continue Reading
Interview: Junior Mance (Part 1)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Pianist Junior Mance has always been a natural. While still in his teens, he played and recorded with some of the most exceptional jazz stars of the late 1940s. What jazz greats admired most about Junior was his fearless confidence and fast hands. Back then, jazz pianists had to do triple duty. They had to be able to play fast and strong. They had to be able to solo brilliantly. And they had to be able to accompany the band's ...
Continue Reading
Latin Jazz Conversations: Paquito D'Rivera (Part 1)
Source:
The Latin Jazz Corner by Chip Boaz
True musical visionaries don't appear out of the blue; they are the result of a life immersed in music from every angle. From a very young age, these artists have access to a wide variety of music and musicians, checking out all the possibilities of a musical life. They spend time in the company of important artistic thinkers and bring those thoughts into their music. Influential mentors guide these artists through proper technique, major musical works, and vast musicality. Most ...
Continue Reading
An Interview with Thumbplay Music Ceo Evan Schwartz on Designing a Great Music Service
Source:
HypeBot
This is part two of my interview with Evan Schwartz, who is the CEO and co-Founder of Thumbplay Music. In this segment, Schwartz talks about balancing passive consumption with active engagement in the fan musical experience, as well as, how elements of gaming can be incorporated into a streaming music service. Hypebot: As we empower passive music listening, how do we keep fans actively engaged with artists? Evan Schwartz: This is something we think about all of the time. We ...
Continue Reading
