Music Industry News

Other Places: Barkan to the Rescue

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
July 26, 2010

Jimmy Heath recently said he's been hearing since he was a youngster that jazz is dying. The saxophonist and composer/arranger will be 84 in October. Joining him in discounting death rumors is a younger man, the veteran entrepreneur Todd Barkan, who runs the oddly named but vital Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola, a bastion of jazz in New York City. Barkan is preparing a fall festival designed to help insure the music's vitality by bringing together some of its wise elders with ...

Continue Reading...

Herb Alpert's sculptures, like visual jazz

Source: Michael Ricci
July 25, 2010

The famed trumpet player's abstract works are on display in Beverly Hills. Standing in a forest of sinuous, black totems spiraling into the lofty heights of the main room at Ace Gallery Beverly Hills, Herb Alpert is surrounded by an art form he has practiced for the last two decades--sculpture. By his account and that of those who know him, he's a man who lives on the right side of his brain--he percolates on the creative and the intuitive. “I ...

Continue Reading...

Al Jarreau Stable After Heart Problems

Source: Michael Ricci
July 25, 2010

Jazz and soul music legend Al Jarreau is in a stable condition in a Southern French hospital. This after the performer was hospitalized in the small Alpine town of Gap after complaining of a rapid heartbeat. He was moved to Marseille from Gap and he is reported to have stabilized. He is reported to have thanked the staff at Gap hospital for saving his life. Jarreau has won seven Grammy awards in his career for his pop, jazz and soul ...

Continue Reading...

VMG Worldwide Signs Bob DeSena

Source: All About Jazz
July 25, 2010

Latin Jazz Artist/Producer Bob DeSena Chooses VMG Worldwide For Exclusive Representation Atlanta, GA--VMG Worldwide, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Vexiom Corporation, is one of the world's most preeminent and diversified sports, entertainment, and media companies, is proud to announce the signing of well respected Latin Jazz recording artist and producer Bob DeSena to an exclusive worldwide agreement. VMG Worldwide will also handle global marketing for his upcoming third album “After Midnight" which is scheduled to be released late 2010. “We ...

Continue Reading...

U.S. Pledges to Speed up Visa Process for Artists

Source: AAJ Staff
July 24, 2010

U.S. Pledges To Speed Up Visa Process For Artists By Ben Sisario

Addressing years of complaints about slow and inconsistent processing of visa applications for foreign performing artists, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services told arts groups this week that it was making an effort to speed up and improve its visa operations.

In a meeting on Tuesday in Washington, at the headquarters of the agency--a division of the Department of Homeland Security--officials said that standard applications for ...

Continue Reading...

Five Reasons for a Musician to Consider the Creative Commons

Source: We All Make Music
July 24, 2010

If you want to understand the need for a Creative Commons approach to copyright law for musicians, you could do worse than to visit San Francisco. When you get there, take the 1-California Muni bus to the Outer Richmond District, get off at the 22nd Avenue stop, cross the street to the Bazaar Cafe, and ask for Les Wisner.

Wisner founded the place in 1998, and he runs it with his wife. You can order some tea, a beer, a ...

Continue Reading...

The Argentine Invasion, PT. 3: Juan Cruz de Urquiza

Source: Inverted Garden by Eric Benson
July 24, 2010

Joining Richard Nant in the trumpet section of Guillermo Klein's Base de Nave (at the Vanguard next month) will be Juan Cruz de Urquiza. JCU studied at Berklee with Klein and Nant in the early 90s, but unlike them, he returned to Buenos Aires soon after graduating. Much of the new Argentine jazz comes out of Klein's and Nant's work in mid- to late-90s New York (that's a large focus of my upcoming Checkout report), but JCU's contribution shouldn't be ...

Continue Reading...

Seth Godin: Get It Right for 10 People

Source: HypeBot
July 24, 2010

Don't Go For The Masses,  Go Direct To Fan

Major labels are mass marketing power giants; it's what they do. Before the advent of the social web, they  were the only way to reach the masses. Due to their influence on commercial radio stations, at big-box retail outlets, and on television, much of this remains true. If an artist wants the general public to become familiar with their music and know all words to their songs at the next show, ...

Continue Reading...