Jazz News

Allyn Ferguson: Prolific Hollywood Composer Dies

Source: Michael Ricci
June 30, 2010

Allyn Ferguson, a prolific, Emmy-winning composer who co-wrote the themes for the popular TV series “Charlie's Angels" and “Barney Miller," has died. He was 85.

Ferguson, who also was known as an arranger and conductor, died of natural causes June 23 at his home in Westlake Village, said his daughter, Jill Ferguson.

Teamed with composer Jack Elliott in a television scoring partnership, Ferguson and Elliott wrote the themes for “Charlie's Angels" and “Barney Miller" in the 1970s as well as ...

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In Face-Off With China, Google Blinks

Source: All About Jazz
June 30, 2010

Google said it will stop automatically redirecting web searchers in China to an uncensored portal in Hong Kong as it hopes to convince Beijing to renew its operating license in the world's largest Internet market.

Google's unexpected announcement comes ahead of Wednesday's deadline when the Internet giants license is up for renewal.

Its clear from conversations we have had with Chinese government officials that they find the redirect unacceptable, and that if we continue redirecting users, our Internet Content Provider ...

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E.U. Criticizes Mobile Phone Roaming Charges

Source: Michael Ricci
June 30, 2010

Mobile phone operators in Europe are charging close to the highest roaming fees allowed, three years after price caps were first imposed, according to data released Tuesday by the European Commission.

The findings raise the likelihood that the commission will recommend next year that the European Unions price caps be extended, rather than be allowed to expire. “Three years since the rules came in, most operators propose retail prices that hover around the maximum legal caps, the Unions commissioner for ...

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Copyright Ruling Worries Hollywood

Source: All About Jazz
June 30, 2010

The irony is hard to ignore: Just as Hollywood was hailing a White House plan to fight piracy last week, a federal court was handing down a ruling that many in entertainment see as an invitation to infringe.

It's even triggered suggestions that Congress will have to step in if the decision isn't reversed by a higher court. U.S. District Judge Louis L. Stanton's decision against Viacom and in favor of Google and YouTube placed the onus on copyright holders ...

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Beach Boy Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin

Source: All About Jazz
June 30, 2010

'Match made in heaven': Brian Wilson and George Gershwin. Brian Wilson says he chose the George Gershwin songs “that I thought I could do justice to."

The album title alone is enough to make pop-music pundits drool, pairing two of the 20th century's most celebrated tunesmiths: Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin.

The recording itself, which arrives Aug. 17, was a “labor of love" for Wilson, 68, who was a George Gershwin fan long before he was a Beach Boy or had ...

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ACLU Study Highlights U.S. Surveillance Society

Source: All About Jazz
June 30, 2010

Welcome to the surveillance society. That's what the American Civil Liberties Union concluded Tuesday with a report chronicling government spying and the detention of groups and individuals “for doing little more than peacefully exercising their First Amendment rights."

The report, Policing Free Speech: Police Surveillance and Obstruction of First Amendment-Protected Activity, surveys news accounts and studies of questionable snooping and arrests in 33 states and the District of Columbia over the past decade. The survey provides an outline ...

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Verizon iPhone Coming in January?

Source: Michael Ricci
June 30, 2010

The rumor that won't die about the phone that never seems to lose adoration flared up again Tuesday. Apple's iPhone could be available on Verizon Wireless in January, according to a report in Bloomberg.

Hopes that Apple's coveted smartphone will break from the shackles of its exclusive U.S. agreement with AT&T have percolated in the form of technology gossip since 2007, the year the first iPhone hit stores and drew long lines of customers. Three years and three iPhones later, ...

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Playboy Sues Drake for Copyright Infringement

Source: Michael Ricci
June 30, 2010

Drake has emerged as one of raps hottest acts. The rapper Drakes breakthrough single, “Best I Ever Had," which went from a mixtape to a popular EP, didn't get to be the best all on it's own, according to a copyright infringement suit filed by Playboy Enterprises.

In the suit, which Playboy filed in a California federal court on June 25, the company says that Drake, whose real name is Aubrey Graham, used material from the 1975 song “Fallin in ...

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