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"The Institute's New Jazz Typology"
Source:
Brilliant Corners, a Boston Jazz Blog
By Steve Provizer ..."why is the Tristano school always shown as a branch of cool jazz? Those guys were hardcore bebop heads. Is it just that they were white and some of them wore glasses so people confuse them with Brubeck?" —Ian Carey Mr. Carey, The Institute is here for you. Our first attempt at typology, utilizing shifting hair patterns, was primitive. Now, 6 months later, our staff has devised a truly scientific means of classifying jazz musicians in their ...
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The Real Reason Why Fans File-Share Music
Source:
HypeBot
I believe that there are many different reasons why fans file-share music. Also, I think that the longer music downloading occurs, the more we're not talking about greedy fans, entitlement, and anti-corporate rebellion anymore. This is a decade in the making. It will go on another one after that. However, if the evolution of the online ecosystem is allowed to reach its potential, I think there's a way to make a service that's better than piracy. It's hard to imagine ...
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Making Music Cheaper Than Coffee Won't Devalue It
Source:
HypeBot
People say that if music costs less than a cup of coffee or a bottle of water it will devalue the 'art' of music. Ian S. Port, the SF Weekly music editor, doesn't think so. He contends that fans don't judge the artistic value of music by what it costs. If true, they would look down on the artists that give away free MP3s and those available on file-sharing sites. Some do. As far as young fans are concerned, they ...
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"Ellington on Art and Craft"
Source:
Brilliant Corners, a Boston Jazz Blog
By Steve Provizer Duke Ellington said: “The wise players are those that play what they can master." Indeed, a highly controversial thing to say, especially in light of the radical shifts jazz has undergone in the last 60 or so years. Let's say it values the “craft" in jazz more heavily than the “art." Art versus craft has been taken up in other guises here in the blog, but it's important to reapproach it through the words of someone as ...
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Correspondence, Illustrated: "Isfahan"
Source:
Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
Rifftides reader Mike Paulson writes:Looked up this clip on YouTube after watching Scott Robinson play “Isfahan" with Martin Wind at The Seasons the other evening. I am amazed at how timeless this arrangement is. Hard to improve on perfection. Not sure why Duke had to hold the sheet music for Johnny Hodges. Ellington and Billy Strayhorn got the inspiration for “Isfahan" during the band's tour of the Middle East in 1963. It became ...
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If Only the Industry Had Licensed Napster. and Other Industry Fairy Tales...
Source:
Digital Music News
(#musicindustry) If only the labels had licensed Napster, then everything would have been different. How many times have you heard that one before? Well, it's a complete revisionist fantasy, and Jim Griffin and Audiogalaxy just proved it.
Because even if ol' Hilary Rosen and the RIAA gang were the most tech-forward visionary, they would have still marched up against a wall. And that wall is their own industry.
You see, Griffin was attempting to relaunch Audiogalaxy as a licensed P2P. ...
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Horns and Hormones
Source:
Brilliant Corners, a Boston Jazz Blog
By Steve Provizer Getting married tends to take a guy out of the blog loop, but like Freddie Kruger, I manage to stay alive for the sequels... I just finished reading “Hotter Than That," sub-titled “The Trumpet, Jazz and American Culture." I might add-"That's Awfully Grandiose For A Book That Slices Off Such A Teeny Tiny Piece of It," but that's the kind of blurb and sub-title hyperbole that jazz books aimed for a general audience sometimes indulge in. I ...
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Dance Music and the Joys of the No BS! Brass Band
Source:
Inverted Garden by Eric Benson
"Jazz is dance music," Wynton Marsalis wrote in program notes earlier this year. “If it doesn't sound good, people won't want to dance to it. And if you can't dance to it, then it's not jazz." The statement, separating jazz and “not jazz," is the kind of shot-across-the-bow that Marsalis delights in lobbing at hostile parties, potential hostile parties, and imagined hostile parties. Defining “jazz" is Marsalis's great lexical quest, and he's long held central the idea that jazz must, ...
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