Music Industry News

Wired Magazine Music Photos

Source: All About Jazz
November 17, 2008

Top 10 Wired.com Music Photos, Decided by You

Conveying the excitement people feel about music in a still image can be like describing sight to the blind. The 10 reader-elected finalists of our music photo contest may not make you hear music, but they expertly capture a musical moment. Blair takes home the gold with his photo “The Horn Player" at left. Click through the gallery to see the contestants who were nipping at his heels. Since we had so ...

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Other Places: Frank Wess

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
November 17, 2008

In today's Washington Post, Matt Schudel writes about Frank Wess. The 86-year-old tenor saxophonist and flutist is still active and about to play in Washington, D.C., where he spent much of his early career. Schudel quotes pianist Billy Taylor, Wess's contemporary, about the saxophonist's influence on him when they were in high school together.

“He's the reason I don't play the tenor saxophone," Taylor says. “I was going to try to be the new Ben Webster," the tenor ...

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Glenn Branca Featured in Riverfront Times

Source: St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
November 15, 2008

The Riverfront Times this week has several pieces related to composer Glenn Branca, whose symphony for 100 electric guitars “Hallucination City" was performed last night at The Pageant as part of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra's Guitar Festival. There's a feature story about the event here; an extended interview with Branca by the RFT's Roy Kasten here; and a two-part account by guitarist and RFT scribe Ryan Wasoba of what it was like to prepare and play the ...

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Dawn of the Jazz Age: Sir Duke Ellington's Adventures in Britain

Source: All About Jazz
November 13, 2008

Seventy-five years ago, Duke Ellington and his orchestra's first tour of England transformed how Ellington, American music and African American music were viewed on both sides of the Atlantic. It changed how Ellington viewed his own artistry, encouraging him to experiment further beyond the danceable sounds audiences typically expected of black artists in the jazz world. And in the US, Ellington's 1933 British tour significantly pushed forward the idea of Americans finally accepting their own music as a serious art ...

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Dizzy Gillespie at the Spotlite

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
November 12, 2008

Few big bands were as flexible, innovative or influential in 1946 as Dizzy Gillespie's bebop orchestra. In the mid-1940s, most jazz bands and musicians were playing swing, a syncopated rhythmic style that had kept dance halls and record stores humming since the mid-1930s. Bebop, by contrast, had a much freer feel, requiring cat-like musical dexterity and on-the-fly creativity. Bop musicians were less concerned about pleasing dancers as they were on blowing away listeners. 

Most big-name bandleaders in 1946 excoriated bebop. ...

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The Chicago Jazz Ensemble Announces Staff Promotions

Source: All About Jazz
November 11, 2008

The Chicago Jazz Ensemble, under the artistic direction of Jon Faddis, named Dana Hall as its Music Director and Darius Hampton as Education Director, it was announced by J. Richard Dunscomb, CJE Executive Director. In addition to their new roles, Hall will maintain his seat as drummer for the CJE and Hampton will continue as Music Librarian. “We are pleased to celebrate the expanded roles of these two exceptional jazz aficionados, “ said Dunscomb. “Dana is as talented on the ...

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Bird and Diz: Spotlite Mystery Solved

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
November 11, 2008

As a jazz journalist and historian, there's nothing I love more than a good jazz mystery. Tell me there's a story that has missing facts or hasn't been resolved, and I'm off to the races. Yesterday, when I spoke with legendary jazz writer Ira Gitler about his fabulous liner notes to the new CD, Dizzy Gillespie Big Band: Showtime at the Spotlite (52d Street, New York City, June 1946), something Ira said got me going.

When I asked Ira [pictured] ...

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Jay Blakesberg: Waiting For That Moment

Source: JamBase
November 11, 2008

Words by: Dennis Cook | All images by: Jay Blakesberg

Jerry Garcia Photographers, particularly music photographers, aren't often viewed as artists by a fair number of people. The influx of inexpensive digital gear and the too-easy proliferation of images on the Internet have contributed to this artistic slide, or at least helped fuel the perception that any asshole with a camera can be a photographer. Jay Blakesberg knows different. A veteran of more than three decades in the pit, he ...

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