Music Industry News

Other Places: Paul Bley Speaks

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
August 17, 2008

Thanks to Rifftides reader Brian Nation of the Vancouver, B.C., Jazz Society for directions to a transcribed conversation with Paul Bley. Bley was at the center of changes in jazz in the late l950s. The Canadian pianist has continued for half a century as an instigator of transformation. At the same time, he has been a gravitational force helping to restrain unstructured or loosely structured jazz from flying off into space as random noise. He is pictured recently at the right ...

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Hip-Hop and Jazz Sharing a Similar Destiny?

Source: All About Jazz
August 16, 2008

ATLANTA, Georgia -- It was the music of rebellion and youth. Artists traded witty improvisations onstage chronicling the pain and the promise of being black in America, inspiring inner-city and rural Southern audiences alike in nightclubs and on street corners. Today, Jaspects, an Atlanta-based group of young musicians who were born in the hip-hop era, fuse rap and jazz melodies to introduce younger audiences to jazz and the broader ideas regarding African-American society. For Jaspects, whose music has appeared in ...

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Tipitina's Foundation Instrumental in Special Delivery to the Birthplace of Jazz

Source: All About Jazz
August 16, 2008

Early Wednesday morning, a truck laden with 3,300 pounds of music pulled up to a Mid-City storage facility. Four sweaty staffers from the Tipitina's Foundation, the nonprofit philanthropic arm of the famed music club, spent the day unpacking, sorting and labeling brass, woodwinds, drums and more. “There's a little bit of everything, “ said the foundation's Lauren Cangelosi, flanked by 72 black trumpet cases stacked 10 high. “Cellos, violins, violas, sousaphones, clarinets, baritone saxophones. You name it, we've got it." ...

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Mike Gordon: In His Own Words

Source: All About Jazz
August 15, 2008

By: Andy Gadiel

Mike Gordon Mike Gordon is an enigmatic, ultra-creative, quirky, passionate and serious musician who constantly strives to reinvent himself and push the lines of artistic expression. Since the break-up of Phish he has hardly slowed down, performing with Bob Weir, Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart from The Grateful Dead, Steve Kimock, Bruce Hornsby, Warren Haynes and the Benevento/Russo Duo just to name a few. On August 5, he released his second solo album, Green Sparrow (Rounder), which ...

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Jazz This Week: Ptah Williams, Erin Bode, the St. Louis Cabaret Conference, and More

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

It's mid-August - usually one of the slowest times of the year for live jazz in St. Louis - and yr. humble editor has impending deadlines for paying work, plus a wicked head cold. However, there are still some events this week to tell you about, and so that's what we're going to do, albeit in a perhaps less-verbose-than-usual of way.Let's start with a couple of multi-day events happening this weekend. The St. Louis Cabaret Conference, a four-day ...

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Conducting: Next Stop the Jazz Maestro?

Source: All About Jazz
August 14, 2008

Duke Ellington and his orchestra... watch out for those subtle finger movements

Celebs may try baton-waving coordination on TV's Maestro, but let's compare how jazz legends conduct themselves and their orchestras...

As the Guardian's media columns reported yesterday, the BBC2 show Maestro (in which eight celebrities, including former Blur star Alex James, DJ/producer Goldie and TV presenters Peter Snow and Katie Derham competed for the chance to conduct the BBC Concert Orchestra on a Prom concert) pulled a 1.7 million ...

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Second Life Bluesman Gets First-Life Recording Contract

Source: All About Jazz
August 14, 2008

Nashville bluesman Von Johin learned the art of Mississippi Delta-style blues the old fashioned way: by playing small venues across the country. But despite the traditional nature of his music, Von Johin plays weekly shows in Second Life, as you can see in the video below. His determination has paid off handsomely, with a record deal believed to be the first ever given to a Second Life performer. “Never before has a virtual character been signed to a worldwide recording ...

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Report: Feds Do Little to Fight Spam, Spyware

Source: PC Magazine
August 14, 2008

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - While Web users drown in spam and fend off scams aimed at stealing their money, U.S. federal and state law enforcement authorities are doing little to resolve what has become a multi-billion-dollar problem, a think tank said on Monday. In the 20 states that give a number for consumer complaints, there were roughly 20,000 Internet-related complaints in 2007, said the group, which surveyed officials in all 50 states but received widely varying amounts of data. Eight states ...

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