Jazz News

Hollywood's Musicians Institute Teaches the Endangered Art of A & R

Source: Michael Ricci
January 5, 2009

In the troubled music industry, many labels have cut or eliminated their artists-and- repertoire staff. But instructors at MI are determined to teach the skill of making a musical connection.

Once upon a time, A&R were the sexiest letters in the music industry's alphabet.

Executives in the artists-and-repertoire division of every major record label were charged with discovering and nurturing new acts, setting them on the path toward gold and platinum albums and Grammy Awards. These high-powered talent brokers would ...

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Refurbished Cell Phones Get a Little Smarter

Source: All About Jazz
January 5, 2009

AT&T's sale of used iPhones may be start of used smartphone trend ? AT&T recently offered refurbished iPhones for $99 (8-gigabyte model) as a promotion. With the slowing economy, other similar promotions may be in the offing.

When AT&T recently offered refurbished 8-gigabyte iPhone 3Gs for $99, news of the deal eclipsed another major iPhone announcement, that Wal-Mart is now stocking the hottest smartphone in America.

If you can get a refurbished iPhone for $99, are good deals ...

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Apple's Jobs Discusses Health Problem

Source: Michael Ricci
January 5, 2009

Reluctantly trying to put to rest persistent speculation about his health, the chief executive of Apple, Steven P. Jobs, disclosed in a public letter on Monday that he was recovering from a hormone imbalance that has contributed to his continuing weight loss.

Mr. Jobs lamented that his decision not to give his annual Macworld keynote set off another flurry of rumors about my health, with some even publishing stories of me on my deathbed. But contrary to reports that he ...

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Apple's Condition Linked to Jobs' Health

Source: Michael Ricci
January 5, 2009

The CEO won't deliver the keynote at Macworld this week, renewing worry about a succession plan. Some important questions can't be asked without sounding crass and insensitive. But there's no way around asking this one that's on everybody's mind, so here goes:

What is Apple Inc.'s plan if CEO Steve Jobs dies?

The question of Jobs' health has been a live discussion thread since he announced in August 2004 that he had undergone surgery for pancreatic cancer. When Apple announced ...

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One Hacker's Audacious Plan to Rule the Black Market in Stolen Credit Cards

Source: All About Jazz
January 5, 2009

Settling into his chair and resting his fingers on his keyboard like a concert pianist, Butler began his attack. Max Butler had an audacious plan to rule the black market in stolen credit cards. But angry hackers and pesky Feds had other ideas.

The heat in Max Butler's safe house was nearly unbearable. It was the equipment's fault. Butler had crammed several servers and laptops into the studio apartment high above San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood, and the mass of processors ...

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The Culture of Scarcity

Source: Michael Ricci
January 4, 2009

Will the current economic crisis lead us to embrace restraint and disdain excess?

We shopped. Then we dropped. Then we started making culture again -- dancing on the rubble of our own excesses, stitching together art from the ragbag of our desires. Every generation or so, throughout modern American history, the culture of hardship has followed hard on the heels of the culture of consumption and prosperity. The financial shifts and shafts of the late 1800s spurred Mark Twain's skeptical ...

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An End and Beginning for the Media

Source: All About Jazz
January 4, 2009

When the economy sneezes, the media business catches pneumonia. The problem for the media business in 2008 was that the economy caught pneumonia. When the economy gets pneumonia, the media business gets it too--then someone knocks it across the back of the head with a shovel. Or several shovels. Advertising is cratering. (GM is essentially a media-funding company with a carmaker attached.) The audience is fragmenting. And the old means of business--grinding up trees and delivering them, shooting radiation to ...

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The Apocalypse is Coming: Musicians Guide What You Need to Pack

Source: All About Jazz
January 4, 2009

Saxaphone, check. Extra reeds, check. Crisis schmisis. Its nothing more than a crisis of consumer confidence, and Wired.com Editor Dylan Tweneys list of 12 Good Gadgets for Hard Times is a great way to spend some money to survive it.

But what happens in a real crisis, the kind where the world stops working, the electricity stops working and (gasp) the internet stops working? Every New Years Eve, some wacko predicts the End of Days. What might you ...

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