Music Industry News

Al Haig: March 13, 1954

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
May 15, 2009

Like Bud Powell, Al Haig had two sides to his piano-playing personality. He could play as fast and as meticulously as any bebop pianist on New York's 52nd Street in the 1940s, making him a first pick of both Charlie Parker and Stan Getz. But Haig also had a lush, romantic side that favored melody, dense chord changes and impressionistic tempo changes. And like Powell, Haig had inner demons.

The delicate side of Haig is most evident on a March ...

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Changing the Economics of Music

Source: HypeBot
May 15, 2009

Tim Ferriss' 4 Hour Work Week blog has a chapter from Fast Company Magazine founder Alan Webber's new book Rules of Thumb: 52 Truths for Winning at Business Without Losing Your Self. Using The Grateful Dead as a transformative business model, the excerpt contains several important lessons that apply to any artist, label or tech company struggling with the new realities of music. The article and the book are worth a full read, but here is an excerpt:

Music Takes Center Stage in Congress

Source: HypeBot
May 14, 2009

The U.S. House Judiciary Committee is expected debate the newly introduced Webcaster Settlement Act today at a hearing that will also consider the Performance Rights Act that would require broadcast radio stations to pay performers royalties similar to those which songwriters receive.

Digital broadcasters currently pay performance royalties and it is their overall payments that the Webcaster Settlement Act 2009 attempts to address. Introduced byHouse Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. John Conyers, the bill provides webcasters with a new opportunity to ...

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Top 10 Jazz Ironies

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
May 14, 2009

Like the music itself, the history of jazz is loaded with irony. Stuff happens for strange reasons, or there are coincidences that are spring-loaded with unsaid meaning and hidden messages. Sometimes it's the space that says more than the notes. If irony is the gaiety of reflection and the joy of wisdom, as French poet Anatole France once said, then let me share with you a little of both. [Photo by Helen Levitt]

Here are 10 jazz ironies:

1. Cool ...

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Peace, Quiet and Pajama-Clad Jazz

Source: Michael Ricci
May 9, 2009

Frankie Foye styles hair for a living, traveling to studios and locations around the world to make models look just right in fashion advertisements for such clients as Bergdorf Goodman and Victoria’s Secret. Since she spends so many days working with big crews in noisy photography studios filled with blaring music and inordinate demands, she has made her large one-bedroom apartment in the West Village a serene, private sanctuary. “I hardly ever have people over,” Ms. Foye said recently, as ...

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Live Nation Attendance Drops 22%. is Live Music in Trouble Too?

Source: HypeBot
May 9, 2009

Conventional wisdom says that live music is exempt from recessions. Even when times are tough - perhaps particularly when times are tough - people want to party. But that didn"t prevent Live Nation's first-quarter losses widened as the company saw a sharp drop in attendance for North American concerts.

Live Nation's quarterly earnings report showed a loss of $102.7 million, or $1.29 a share, compared with a Q1 2008 loss of $37.2 million (.50 cents per share.) The promoter also ...

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Harry James: In a Mist

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
May 8, 2009

Trumpeter Harry James recorded Bix Beiderbecke's In a Mist just twice--once in 1949 and again in mid-1950. One was a studio date, the other a live radio remote. What's interesting here, of course, is that Bix never recorded his own composition on cornet. For Bix, In a Mist was a piano solo recorded in September 1927. What prompted James to apply his trumpet to the piano piece? In 1949, James was fresh off recording the music for the ersatz Beiderbecke ...

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Jazz This Week: Tony Bennett, Umoja Orchestra, Erin Bode, Denise Thimes, a Tribute to Kind of Blue, and More

Source: St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
May 8, 2009

There's a nice range of choices over the next few days for fans of jazz and creative music in St. Louis, from the swinging sounds of a classic crooner to the percussive gumbo of a young twelve-member ensemble blending jazz, funk, Latin, African music and more. Let's go to the highlights:Tonight, there's a tribute to the 50th anniversary of Miles Davis' Kind of Blue at the Missouri History Museum, with the Legacy Jazz Quintet performing and discussing compositions ...

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