The Associated Press: Jazz Piano Legend Oscar Peterson Dies
Topic: Music
12:21 am EST, Dec 26, 2007
TORONTO (AP) — Oscar Peterson, whose flying fingers, hard-driving swing and melodic improvisations made him one of the world's most famous and influential jazz pianists in a career that spanned seven decades, has died. He was 82.
Oscar Peterson's Christmas Album was recommended by Barry Ritholtz in a post I memed earlier in the month. I bought it and I've been enjoying it this season. I was saddened to hear this news.
JazzMutant's Lemur is clearly the most enhanced and innovative controller device ever created for musicians, sound designers and sound engineers, composers, video and multi-media artists, djs and show control operators. Innovative concept, unique and pioneering multitouch sensor technology, multi target networking plus high performance value combined with ease of use are some but few features that place this next-generation controller in a league of its own.
This is definately the year for ultra cool midi interfaces. This one is a completely user programmable touch screen that can pretty much do whatever you imagine. Lots of videos in Youtube of it's operation.
For a third of the price you can also buy the Tenori-on, which is a less configurable but still very cool interface.
Matrixes of LED buttons cover the front and back surfaces and light up as you touch them, so you can visualize the music while you're composing.
The Big Picture | Friday Night Jazz: Favorite Holiday CDs
Topic: Music
8:39 am EST, Dec 4, 2007
Its that time of year: It started around Halloween, and by now I am already tired of walking into stores and getting assaulted with endless repetitions of really bad, really corny Xmas music we've all heard far too many times to enjoy any longer. (I say, F&%k Rudolph!)
Here's a way to get into the holiday musical spirit without having to endure the usual annoying cloying tunes. This is one holiday-themed list that won't make you ill.
Our family owns three of these and we have prefered them to the usual holiday crap for many years.
I always liked this track. There is some good energy buildup in there. Some kind of anger manages to bleed through the popness of it. Perhaps what motivates the addiction, or perhaps frustration at the distance it creates. Youtube fidelity totally washes out the guitars here, unfortunately.
Link to the Henery Rollins Radio Show that Noteworthy indirectly referenced back in the day. LA Weekly says:
Earning local and national props as a DJ, Rollins labors over his playlists and it shows. Every week is an in-depth lesson in contemporary music history ranging from Delta blues to death metal to little-heard art rock from across the globe. Some of the songs he plays were never released to the public — a few he received as gifts “back in the day,” and some he retrieved from the clutches of another collector.
U Unfortunately I haven't been able to find the actual audio for this on the web. There are a few archived shows from 2004, but nothing recent. Anyone got links, let me know.
Slashdot | Court Rules Playlist Customization Is Not Interactive
Topic: Music
4:22 pm EDT, Apr 30, 2007
The court decision determined that recommendation algorithms that rely on usage data to build playlists server-side are still eligible for broadcast license, thereby substantially lowering the costs of operating a music recommendation site.
MemeStreams could generate agent based music under the compulsary license!
There is a crisis facing internet radio: new mandatory royalty rates are so high that they will force most or all independent internet radio stations off the air.
Rusty Hodge of SomaFM, which has been my favorite internet radio station for years, speaks out on the threats posed by the new webcasting royalties.
For SomaFM, this means our royalties for 2006 will be increased retroactively from about $20,000 to about $600,000. That's more than 3 times what we made in 2006. And our royalties for 2007, based on our current audience size, will be over $1 million dollars, and over $1.5 million by 2009. That's if our audience size stays the same.
For historical reference, all of the small webcasters were shut down due to a similar dispute from June until November, 2002. Congress didn't listen that time until it was too late. Near the end of the negotiations RIAA CEO Hillary Rosen said:
This is like trying to turn chicken shit into chicken salad.
There has been no moment in the history of the Internet that the total lack of understanding of the economics of new media on the part of the music industry was more clear. If you fools had built a participatory culture around music when you were busy trying to destroy it you wouldn't be watching your revenues drop hand over fist today. When will you get a clue?!
