Music Industry News

Charlie Harrington Signs with Westone

Source: Michael Ricci
May 17, 2010

The award-winning jazz drummer, Charlie Harrington, is now an official Westone endorser. Charlie's well-renowned technique, mastery of his instrument, and well-established reputation as an in demand session player no doubt played a role in this partnership. Charlie is proud to be a member of the Westone family. Westone, the in-ear experts since 1959, has been at the forefront of in-ear musicians' monitoring technology (IEMs) since the early 1990's. Each one of their professional in-ear musicians' monitors is designed with one ...

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Sleepy Jazz Scene Shows Signs of Awakening

Source: Michael Ricci
May 16, 2010

A recent Sunday afternoon jazz matinee at Cafe Royale was a sleepy affair. About 15 people, most of them middle-aged, sat around this ramshackle downtown San Francisco bar sipping tea and wine while a saxophone, drum and bass trio played a mellow mixture of mostly standards. The noise of rustling bags of pistachios and yogurt-covered pretzels, which several audience members had taken along for snacks, accompanied the polite applause at the end of each number. Anyone who stopped by the ...

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Stars in the Jazz Sky

Source: Jazz Lives by Michael Steinman
May 15, 2010

I've been reading an advance copy of Nat Hentoff's latest book--a collection of his Jazz Times columns, called AT THE JAZZ BAND BALL: SIXTY YEARS ON THE JAZZ SCENE (University of California Press), which will be published next month.

In a chapter devoted to Thelonious Monk, Hentoff presents an interview done at Monk's home in 1956 which contains this short passage: “Charlie Parker? I met him in Vic Dickenson's room where he was visiting one day. Charlie wasn't well known ...

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Are a New Breed of Artists and Musicians Emerging from the Digital Swamp?

Source: HypeBot
May 15, 2010

Press Pause Play

If you accept that music, art and media are effected by the environment in which they were created, then the quantum shifts caused by technology and the net are changing not just the way art is consumed, but also how it is created and the perspective of the creators. That's the premise explored in the forthcoming documentary PressPausePlay. According to the film's web site:

“A new generation of global creators and artists are emerging, equipped with other ...

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Jazz Spouses Get Smart

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
May 15, 2010

Behind most jazz legends is a tireless spouse. As my article in today's Wall Street Journal notes, being married to a jazz legend is tough stuff. Over the years, while their husbands were on the road or out all night playing, the wives of these artists (mostly male) have had to run the home, pay the bills, take the kids to doctors, bring the car in for servicing and make sure everything has been normal and covered. [Pictured: The Musician ...

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James Blood Ulmer - In and Out (2010)

Source: Something Else!
May 15, 2010

By PicoPart Sonny Sharrock, part John Lee Hooker, James “Blood" Ulmer resides in his own unique space overlapping blues, whack jazz, straight jazz, rock, funk and a smattering of other forms. His ragged vocals and jagged guitar form a trademark weathered sound that's sometimes calm, usually stormy and always unpredictable. We at SE tend to particularly like guitarists who can zig-zag around lines delineating styles of music while remaining stubbornly themselves, and Blood fits that bill better than ...

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Priceless Musical Instruments Are Silent Victims of Nashville Flooding

Source: Michael Ricci
May 15, 2010

Facility that stored equipment for country stars such as Taylor Swift, Brad Paisley, Keith Urban and Vince Gill, and housed instruments belonging to Jimi Hendrix, the Who's Peter Townshend and Johnny Cash, spent six days under nine feet of water.

As symbolically devastating as the recent flooding in Nashville was to the home of the historic Grand Ole Opry House, the toll on another building little known outside the city's music community may well have a broader, more lasting impact. ...

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RIAA Wins Major Court Ruling Against Limewire

Source: HypeBot
May 15, 2010

The RIAA and the major labels have won a major court ruling against LimeWire which, much like previous lawsuits with Grokster, Kazaa and Morpheus, contends that the service deliberately encouraged users to violate copyrights and profited from the infringements. The court ruling listed 5 factors that, taken together, establish that LimeWire “intended to encourage “ infringement: 1) LW's awareness of substantial infringement by users, 2) their efforts to attract infringing users, 3) their efforts to enable and assist users to ...

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