Book / Magazine News

Perfecting Sound Forever: An Aural History of Recorded Music

Source: Michael Ricci
July 6, 2009

A compelling look at the birth and evolution of recording, and how it changed the way the world hears itself.

And in the beginning, there was no recorded sound. For millennia, music lovers had to play songs for each other in order to hear their favorite music. Because of this, perhaps -- as Greg Milner points out in his exhaustive, technically precise and fascinating survey “Perfecting Sound Forever: An Aural History of Recorded Music" -- the primary objective of the ...

Continue Reading

AllAboutJazz-New York July 2009 Issue Now Available!

Source: All About Jazz
June 27, 2009

It seems that this space has become a proclamation board for bad news. After announcing the end-as-we-know-it of the JVC Jazz Festivals, we are saddened to inform you, our reading public, of the folding of JazzTimes magazine. This development is of grave concern to us at AllAboutJazz-New York because it is a) another punch to the gut of jazz when it already seems to be hardly standing and b) another in a litany of “traditional media” closures. It may be ...

Continue Reading

Michael Jackson: The Wounds, the Broken Heart

Source: Michael Ricci
June 27, 2009

Pop music critic Robert Hilburn recalls the years when the public turned its back on the singer. 'I'm lonely,' a 23-year-old Jackson said.

Robert Hilburn was The Times' pop music critic from 1970 to 2005. Parts of this article are excerpted from his memoir, “Corn Flakes With John Lennon, and Other Tales From a Rock 'n' Roll Life," which will be published in October.

I'll always regret that my last conversation with Michael Jackson ended with him angrily hanging up ...

Continue Reading

ByrneJazz Releases Linear Jazz Improvisation "Polytonal Triad Etudes (Book 5)"

Source: All About Jazz
June 23, 2009

Jazz Artist/Educator Ed Byrne's new advanced improvisation book is now available! ByrneJazz.com announces the release of Ed Byrne's new jazz improvisation method, Linear Jazz Improvisation Polytonal Triad Etudes." New! Linear Jazz Improvisation: Polytonal Triad Etudes (Book 5) This book offers enough advanced modern vocabulary to keep you occupied for at least a year! It begins with an 8-bar pantonal line based on triads, and then develops it in a variety of mind-blowing ways. Learn to sing and play it ~ ...

Continue Reading

Graham Collier: A New Book and a New Double CD

Source: All About Jazz
June 22, 2009

With The Jazz Composer, Moving Music Off The Paper, veteran British jazz composer Graham Collier takes a philosophical look at the subject of jazz and jazz composition--published by Northway Books. Graham Collier's radical new analysis of the place of the composer in jazz is nothing less than a complete reassessment of the direction in which the music is developing and a powerful argument for fresh thinking. He focuses on Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus and Gil Evans, among many other composers, ...

Continue Reading

The Ghosts of Harlem: New Book by Hank O'Neal

Source: All About Jazz
June 21, 2009

Music producer, author, photographer and former CIA agent, Hank O'Neal has plenty of experiences from which to draw inspiration. It would be easy to assume that it was O'Neal's stint as a spy that gave him the ability to walk into Harlem homes of jazz legends and come out with amazing stories and photographs. However, it is more likely that it was O'Neal's love of jazz, knowledge of music and easy-going personality that made 42 musicians pour out personal tales ...

Continue Reading

Jazztimes "Temporarily Suspended," Staff "Furloughed"

Source: Jazz Beyond Jazz by Howard Mandel
June 10, 2009

JazzTimes confirms rumors first reported here the 38-year-old monthly magazine's deep financial distress requires it to stop publishing. Its management hopes for a brand-sale and re-emergence. But in a longer email to freelance contributors, those same managers adopt a can't-help-you-pal shrug toward the brand's freelance contributors. “The brand and operation will undergo reorganization and restructuring in order to remain competitive in the current media," according to the brief note on the mag's website. In the iteration of this message that ...

Continue Reading

The News from Jazztimes: It's True

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
June 10, 2009

The following announcement is posted on the JazzTimes web site:

To our readers and members of the jazz community:

JazzTimes has temporarily suspended publication of the magazine and has furloughed the bulk of its staff while it finalizes a sale of its assets. The brand and operation will undergo reorganization and restructuring in order to remain competitive in the current media climate. Print publishing is expected to resume as soon ...

Continue Reading