Music Industry News

"Business of Jazz" Newsletter 2nd Edition Now Available!

Source: Michael Ricci
January 18, 2011

A Global and Unified Voice For Jazz

Read the “Business of Jazz" Newsletter, 2nd Edition now

The Jazz Forward Coalition (JFC) was formed by a consortium of industry leaders who seek to raise jazz's profile by enhancing its vitality and cultural relevance. JFC will utilize existing and emerging technologies in order to sustain growth and expose jazz to a broader community. JFC is developing an interactive website that will allow jazz professionals to network, publish and exchange information and access ...

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All the President's Jazz 2010

Source: Riffs on Jazz by John Anderson
January 17, 2011

For the second year in a row, I have been sending CD compilations of jazz music (12 total) to Reggie Love, President Obama's personal aide, to put on the president's iPod. (How much of it has made it onto the iPod playlist I don't know.) As I stated a year ago when I posted the 2009 presidential playlist, this list reflects my tastes in jazz and should not be construed to be President Obama's choices. So, what follows is the ...

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What Are You Hiding? An Easter Eggs Primer for Musicians

Source: We All Make Music
January 15, 2011

One of the greatest ways to engage your fans is to play with them. Before you get any dirty ideas in your head, allow me to explain. On Wednesday, Andrew W.K.'s twitter followers got into a tizzy because their favorite party/animal motivational speaker has started hiding samples of his new air freshener around New York and tweeting clues about where fans could find them. W.K.'s fun and games might be the year's first example of an artist sending his fans ...

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Report: Spotify Much Closer to U.S. Launch with Support of Two Major Labels

Source: HypeBot
January 15, 2011

We know you've heard this all before, but Spotify really does appear to be getting much closer to a U.S. launch.  The music streamer is nearing a US deal with Sony Entertainment and has gained the support of at least one other major label group, two music industry sources have told the NY Post. “Spotify is launching in the US, for sure," according to one music executive “They've got the deals now." A Spotify spokesman refused to confirm the deals. ...

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As MySpace Falls, Where Will Fans and Musicians Go?

Source: HypeBot
January 15, 2011

Updated. It hasn't been an easy year for MySpace. It's numbers have been down for months, earlier this week the company let go of 47% of its staff and parent NewsCorp is publicly trying to offload it.  But at least until recently, a core portion of it's user base—musicians and the fans that support them—have remained, all be it reluctantly, active on the site.  But as the numbers continue to fall,  where are musicians and their fans headed? The obvious answer ...

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New Life for the Jazz Bakery

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
January 15, 2011

There is good news for jazz listeners in Southern California. The Jazz Bakery can stop roaming. That modern-day rarity, a major jazz club in Los Angeles, the Bakery lost its lease in 2009 and has been presenting concerts in a variety of halls, moving from one spot to another. Now it can reestablish itself in Culver City near where it started nearly two decades ago. A grant from the Annenberg Foundation and an agreement with a Culver City municipal agency ...

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What Sex and Great Music Really Have in Common

Source: HypeBot
January 14, 2011

Scientists say that our brain reacts to great music similar to way it reacts to sex. In both of these situations, the experience of pleasure that we have is mediated by the release of the brain's reward chemical, dopamine. This finding is based on the results of experiments done by analyst Valorie Salimpoor of McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Music produces an intellectual reward, because the listener has to follow the sequence of notes to appreciate it. For the study, the participants ...

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53 Billion Visits a Year...

Source: Digital Music News
January 13, 2011

How many visits are pirate sites getting in a year? Well, one security firm drew a circle around 43 'pirates,' and found traffic levels of 53 billion visits a year. MarkMonitorcounted a range of upload, torrent, and P2P destinations, though actual trades were not tallied (a critical component). “Traffic to sites suspected of offering pirated content was over 146 million visits per day," the report claimed. That's a big number, but MarkMonitor promised it was just 'the tip of the ...

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