Music Industry News

Music Industry

Young Women Have Their Own Take On Empowerment

Source: Michael Ricci
April 11, 2009

I sat on a panel at the West Hollywood Women's Leadership Conference last month, featuring pioneers and activists. Its title -- “The F Word: Reflections of Feminism and the Portrayal of Women in the Media" -- made our mission clear.

So we panelists came armed with stories, symbols and statistics that reflected our struggle for equality:

The pain of being locked out of show business jobs “because we already have one female writer." The two-year battle to produce a segment ...

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Music Industry

Jazz Aspen: Abb, DBTS, Um

Source: JamBase
April 9, 2009

JAZZ ASPEN SNOWMASS PRESENTS 2009 Summer Lineup The Allman Brothers, Drive-By Truckers, Umphrey's McGee Black Eyed Peas, Smokey Robinson, Al Jarreau and many more

JAZZ ASPEN SNOWMASS JUNE FESTIVAL JUNE 18-27, 2009

New in 2009, the JAS June Festival has been expanded to a ten day event which will include three nights of headline concerts from world-class jazz musicians at the Benedict Music Tent(June 18-20), weekly paid and free performances from JAS Academy Bands and a ...

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Music Industry

Phil Spector Jury Again Interrupted by Illness

Source: Michael Ricci
April 9, 2009

For a second time, deliberations in Phil Spectors murder retrial have been interrupted by juror illness.

The panel, which began weighing evidence March 26, went home at midday today after a juror became sick. Because of court holidays and a prior instance where a juror was ill, the panel has deliberated only about 27 hours over seven days.

Spector, 69, faces second-degree murder charges in the fatal shooting six years ago of Lana Clarkson, a 40-year-old actress. The jurors are ...

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Music Industry

Blockbuster Warns That It Might Go Under

Source: PC Magazine
April 8, 2009

Blockbuster Inc, the largest store-based U.S. movie rental chain, said the risk that it may not complete a deal to amend its credit facilities raises “substantial doubt" about its ability to continue as a going concern, according to a securities filing on Monday. Blockbuster Chief Executive Office Jim Keyes warned investors last month that the company's financial statements and auditors' report likely would include reference to going concern risks until the loan amendments were completed. The company reached an agreement ...

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Music Industry

Spector's Long Legal Battles May Be Sapping His Fortune

Source: Michael Ricci
April 8, 2009

The producer collects royalties from dozens of pop hits. But expenses from two criminal trials appear to be depleting his fortune. He's also facing a wrongful-death suit by Lana Clarkson's mother.

When Phil Spector was booked for murder in 2003, he was a jet-setting millionaire who stayed in luxury hotel suites, left $450 tips on $13 bar bills and paid cash for a 30-room mansion. Six years later, with the case against him in the hands of a jury for ...

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Music Industry

Future of Music Coalition Wants to Rewrite Rules of the Music Industry

Source: HypeBot
April 7, 2009

Artist lobbying group, The Future Of Music Coalition, has issued a “Principles for Artist Compensation in New Business Models". The goals is the adoption of “legitimate digital business models and legitimate digital music marketplaces" which FOMC believes are “critical to musicians' ability to promote, distribute and earn compensation for their music". Highlights include:

Licensing, Collection and Distribution of Revenues

Revenue sharing: Revenues must be equitably shared between copyright owner and original creator(s). Unattributable income: Unattributable income, such as advertising revenue, ...

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Music Industry

The Big Band Thing: New Perspectives

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
April 7, 2009

Comments are still arriving about Bill Kirchner's list of recommended big band recordings since 1955. You will find the original item here and followups here. Not all of the comments are coming to Rifftides. As discussions will in the internet age, this one gravitated to other sites.

Here is a little of what the unfailingly provocative young composer and bandleader Darcy James Argue wrote on his Secrety Society web site.

The thing is, there's an awful lot of bigband music ...

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Music Industry

Harry Meets Frank: Sweet Lorraine

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
April 6, 2009

While it's common knowledge that Frank Sinatra idolized Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong and other jazz artists, he sadly recorded with too few of them in the 1940s. Much of this neglect was due to the image Columbia fashioned for him, his marathon schedule, and corporate fears and racism. Like film-industry movie stars of the period, top singers like Sinatra were told what to do and when to do it by the record labels that employed them. They had little choice. ...

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