Jazz News

Cecil Taylor: Still Wonderfully, Inventive '” and Crazy '” After All These Years

Source: All About Jazz
October 27, 2008

Pianist Cecil Taylor's entrance at Grace Cathedral on Friday was typically cryptic. While padding in his moccasins, at times slowly dancing toward the Steinway at the front of the Gothic hall, this legendary jazz player—one of the purest artists in any genre of the past half-century—chanted and murmured one of his poems: about electrons, infinite mass and the “unit time between two parallel places." He's been doing this for years and the words are always confounding until he sits down ...

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Publicist/Publisher Seizes Opportunity in Micro-Blogging Craze to Promote Blues Music

Source: Just Roots PR
October 27, 2008

Micro-blogging is a craze that is sweeping the globe. Described as “like a blog, but much smaller," users are normally limited to a maximum of 140 per post. These messages can be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user. These messages can be submitted by a variety of means including text messaging, instant messaging, email, MP3, or the web.

“When we were introduced to micro-blogging, we knew that it was the answer ...

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Vinyl Mania: Jazz LP Covers from the 1940s to 1990s

Source: All About Jazz
October 26, 2008

Jazz Covers Wiedemann, Julius (editor) Paulo, Joaquim Taschen Softcover, flaps 9.4 x 9.4 in., 496 pages, $39.99 ISBN: 978-3-8228-2366-8 Edition: English

This volume features a broad selection of jazz record covers, from the 1940s through the decline of LP production in the early 1990s. Each cover is accompanied by with a fact sheet listing performer and album name, art director, photographer, illustrator, year, label, and more. ...

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Apple is Ready to Take a Bite of Silicon Valley

Source: All About Jazz
October 26, 2008

Apple is Flush with Cash $

Comments from Apple CEO Steve Jobs this week suggested that the cash-rich computer and phone maker might be in a good position to start snapping up struggling tech companies. During Apple's earnings call Tuesday, Steve Jobs proudly reported that Apple had $25 billion “safely in the bank" -- and zero debt. More interestingly, he said he saw a bright side to the economic meltdown.

This downturn may also present some extraordinary opportunities for companies ...

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'Father of the MP3' Teaches Machines to Parse Music

Source: All About Jazz
October 26, 2008

Mufin, the latest music-recommendation engine, is going to tell you what to listen to, and it doesn't care what you think.

Computers have been telling us what to listen to for years -- at least since Amazon first told us that if we like X, we might like Y. But humans always have a hand in those recommendations: Pandora hires music experts, while Apple's Genius and CBS's Last.fm use collaborative filtering that notices when songs, artists or albums appear in ...

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EMI Loses a Bundle

Source: Michael Ricci
October 26, 2008

To paraphrase one of its late great former acts, when EMI was 77, it wasnt a very good year.

According to new figures just released, the underdog of the four major labels suffered losses of $1.2 billion in the financial year ended March 31, far deeper than the prior years $455 million. Revenue declined to $2.3 billion from $2.8 billion. The report came from Maltby Capital, owned by funds managed by Guy Hands' private equity firm Terra Firma, which purchased ...

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Saviors of the American Songbook

Source: Michael Ricci
October 26, 2008

WHEN the 19th annual Cabaret Convention begins with the first of four concerts at Jazz at Lincoln Center on Wednesday evening, a genre that has struggled for years below the mass-media radar will lift its collective voice in an annual appeal for attention and respect. Please listen, that voice politely implores. I am in danger of dying of neglect, and I have valuable knowledge gleaned from the American songbook and from show business history about love, memory, art and time. ...

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Avery Sharpe: Jazz Trio Reaches out to Community

Source: All About Jazz
October 26, 2008

The Avery Sharpe Trio, in conjunction with the Community Music School of Springfield, is offering Springfield-area children a unique chance to experience jazz music. The trio, consisting of Sharpe on bass, Winard Harper on drums and Onaje Allan Gumbs on piano, is in residence at the music school for a month. Sharpe is a Springfield native and accomplished musician who now conducts workshops and residencies around the world. He attended the University of Massachusetts, where he began working with many ...

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