Music Industry News

Indictment Dropped Against Dick Cheney

Source: Michael Ricci
December 2, 2008

Cheney and former Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales were included in a Texas prisoner-abuse case, Cheney because he invests in a company that invests in prison firms.

Reporting from Raymondville, Texas -- A judge dismissed indictments against Vice President Dick Cheney and former Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales on Monday and chastised the southern Texas prosecutor who brought the case. Three of the eight indictments returned Nov. 17 targeted private prison operator the GEO Group, state Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr., Cheney ...

Continue Reading...

Koch Records Signs Trumpeter Dominic Farinacci

Source: All About Jazz
December 1, 2008

KOCH Records is happy to announce the newest addition to its burgeoning jazz roster, trumpeter Dominick Farinacci. Having previously recorded six albums as a leader on Japan's M&I label, the 25-year-old Juilliard School graduate is set to release his highly anticipated debut U.S. album, “Lovers, Tales, and Dances" on February 24th, 2009. The album features some of the greatest players in jazz, including Kenny Barron, James Genus, Marc Johnson, Lewis Nash, Jamey Haddad, Joe Lovano, and Joe Locke. The record ...

Continue Reading...

Ticketmaster Live Nation Battle Void Left by Labels

Source: All About Jazz
December 1, 2008

When Live Nation announced they would be launching their own ticketing initiative, many in the industry thought that would mean the end of Ticketmaster.

Instead, Ticketmaster struck back by buying an interest in Front Line Management, essentially putting them in competition with Live Nation not just for concert ticketing but also for album sales, downloads and merchandising opportunities.

Its a seismic shift, in terms of whats occurring with the retail of tickets. But its far bigger than that. Its going ...

Continue Reading...

Modded Pianos Delight Indie Audiences Classical Buffs

Source: All About Jazz
December 1, 2008

Ten-year-old Volker Bertelman couldn't afford a synthesizer, so he modified the family piano to sound like a harpsichord by pressing metal tacks into its hammers. Mom was not amused, but she couldn't have known that her little boy would soon make a living doing more or less the same thing.

Bertelman has become an accomplished player of the “prepared" piano a piano that has been modified by any number of hardware additions under the name Hauschka. For a typical piece, ...

Continue Reading...

The Sound of Change: Can Music Save Cuba?

Source: All About Jazz
November 30, 2008

CUBA. Vintage taxi's pick up passengers at the Hotel Nacional. The capital citys glut of old American Bel Airs, Corsairs and Corvairs has less to do with nostalgia than with the crippling economics of the U.S.M

If this were a music video, it would start in this living room in Havana, with a tight shot of the skinny kid in the white tank top at the keyboard. He counts it off from four, and with a sort of animal ease, ...

Continue Reading...

Desmond Redux in Berlin

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
November 30, 2008

We may as well keep the Desmond string running through the weekend. After the Dave Brubeck Quartet disbanded at the end of 1967, Desmond did not play for more than a year. It wasn't a matter of simply not performing in public or not recording. He did not take his saxophone out of the case, allegedly concentrating on writing How Many Of You Are There In The Quartet? the book that never happened. He also lolled around in the Caribbean. ...

Continue Reading...

Louie Bellson Said It

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
November 29, 2008

"You can imagine the excitement that Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson created. That's the reaction that big bands had in those days. When Harry James played Two O'clock Jump, You Made Me Love You or Bugle Call Rag, people just freaked out. They just stopped while they were dancing to listen. We would play before 3,000 people at the Palladium, but I remember some of those navy and air force bases where we played before fourteen or fifteen thousand people. ...

Continue Reading...

Paul Desmond on the Nature of Fame

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
November 29, 2008

Ted O'Reilly, the Toronto broadcaster, sent me a recording of an interview he did with Paul Desmond in 1975. O'Reilly asked if there was a moment when Desmond realized the astounding degree of popularity the Dave Brubeck Quartet had achieved. Not really, Paul said, but that reminded him of a favorite question.

We were on a State Department tour in '59, and we landed in Ismir, Turkey, and there was this huge hoop-de-do at the airport. They had ...

Continue Reading...