Jazz News

Apple Shares Drop as Jobs Health Rumors Resurface

Source: Michael Ricci
December 31, 2008

The company refuses to comment on Web report. The stock is down 56% for the year. Shares of Apple Inc. were on their way to a gain Tuesday when a website reported that Chief Executive Steve Jobs was in “rapidly declining" health.

The company's stock sank from about $88 to $84.72 within minutes of the report, which cited an anonymous source and was posted on the Gizmodo technology website. The shares then recouped about half of their loss to finish ...

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Elton John's New Year's Eve Party at the O2 London

Source: All About Jazz
December 30, 2008

The O2 has the ultimate NYE party with the legend that is Elton John to help you welcome in 2009.

Elton John has been wowing audiences with his Red Piano show in Las Vegas since 2004 and Elton John's New Year's Eve Party will see him perform his greatest hits at the biggest party in town. The show, the biggest of Elton's extensive career, has been conceptualized and designed by acclaimed photographer and good friend of Elton, David LaChapelle. It's ...

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All He Needs is Royalties

Source: Michael Ricci
December 30, 2008

You may not recognize the name Patrick Halling, but if you’re a Beatles fan you’ve surely heard his work: he played violin on the recording of “All You Need Is Love,” and he is among the musicians asking European Union lawmakers to extend the period during which they can receive royalties for their recorded work.

Mr. Halling, a classically trained violinist, said that he would lose thousands of dollars a year in income when songs by the Beatles, Tom Jones ...

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Writing Nice 'N Easy for Sinatra

Source: Michael Ricci
December 30, 2008

In the fall of 1959, a dashing Los Angeles writer of tunes named Lew Spence got a call from Frank Sinatra’s people. In between concerts on the Vegas Strip, the most popular jazz singer in America had finished a new album of classic, lightly swinging love songs, “The Nearness of You,” named for a Hoagy Carmichael standard. But now Sinatra, in typically volatile form, decided hewanted a new title song written especially for him.

The next morning, as he did ...

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L.A. Clubs Offer Cheaper New Year's Eve Revelry

Source: Michael Ricci
December 30, 2008

On New Year's Eve, the Viper Room on the Sunset Strip will charge a basic cover of $50, or $100 with drinks and other goodies included. Venues on the Sunset Strip and in Hollywood are cutting cover charges and drink prices to draw partygoers. The beat is slowing on the Sunset Strip, muffled by a less-than-festive economy. For the first time in years, clubs in this night-life mecca on Sunset Boulevard and nearby will be ringing in 2009 on Wednesday ...

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Terrence McManus/Mark Helias/Gerry Hemingway at The Stone (NYC) on January 1

Source: All About Jazz
December 30, 2008

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New Web Technologies of '08 You Need to Use Now

Source: All About Jazz
December 30, 2008

Every year, we see scores of innovations trickle onto the web — everything from new browser features to cool web apps to entire programming languages. Some of these concepts just make us smile, then we move on. Some completely blow our minds with their utility and ingenuity — and become must-haves.

For this list, we've compiled the most truly life-altering nuggets of brilliance to hit center stage in 2008: the ideas, products and enhancements to the web experience so huge ...

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Bret Primack Presents: When Billy Taylor Met Ben Webster

Source: All About Jazz
December 30, 2008

The latest edition of Bret “Jazz Video Guy" Primack’s blog is “Billy Taylor Meets Ben Webster.” In the fall of 1944, the very first night twenty-three year old Billy Taylor arrived in New York from Washington, D.C, he sat in at Minton's Playhouse, where Ben Webster was hanging out. Ben liked what he heard and invited Billy to audition for his Quartet, down on 52nd Street, where he was playing opposite Art Tatum. Two nights later Billy had his first ...

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