tagged w/ Musicians
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A video interview with and live performance by Athens, Georgia-based rockers Lullwater by Mr. Media, Bob Andelman. http://www.mrmedia.com/?p=2693A video interview with and live performance by Athens, Georgia-based rockers Lullwater... more
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Exclusive live musical performances on Mr. Media® by Johnny G. Lyon, Lullwater, J.D. Malone and The Experts, Josh Flagg, Emii, HoneyHoney, Adam Falcon and 28 North. http://www.mrmedia.com/?p=2397Exclusive live musical performances on Mr. Media® by Johnny G. Lyon, Lullwater,... more
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God has wrought many things out of oppression. He has endowed his creatures with the capacity to create—and from this capacity has flowed the sweet songs of sorrow and joy that have allowed man to cope with his environment and many different situations. Jazz speaks for life. The Blues tell the story of life's difficulties, and if you think for a moment, you will realize that they take the hardest realities of life and put them into music, only to come out with some new hope or sense of triumph. http://www.freeturbine.com/index.php/news/general-music-news/item/dr-martin-luther-king-jr-on-the-importance-of-jazzGod has wrought many things out of oppression. He has endowed his creatures with the... more
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I tuned into “Celebrity Wife Swap” last night and what I saw was severely disappointing: Flava Flav is just a child stuck inside of a 57-year-old's body. No wonder he never found love on all of those “Flavor Of Love” shows.I tuned into “Celebrity Wife Swap” last night and what I saw was severely... more
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Video interview with singer/songwriter Charlene Kaye about working with college friend, Glee's Darren Criss. Conducted by Mr. Media, Bob Andelman. http://www.mrmedia.com/?p=1154Video interview with singer/songwriter Charlene Kaye about working with college... more
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Video interview with Nick Tremulis of the Chicago rock band Candy Golde, featuring Bun E. Carlos of Cheap Trick and John Stirratt of Wilco. By Mr. Media. http://www.mrmedia.com/?p=1207Video interview with Nick Tremulis of the Chicago rock band Candy Golde, featuring Bun... more
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Los Angeles Times...
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Ry Cooder has 'Los Angeles Stories' to tell
Ry Cooder puts California tales on page in his book 'Los Angeles Stories,' as he did in song on his albums 'Chavez Ravine,' 'My Name Is Buddy,' 'I, Flathead.'
PHOTO: Musician Ry Cooder (Chris Pizzello / Associated Press)
By David L. Ulin, Los Angeles Times Book Critic
December 4, 2011
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Let's start with the hands, Ry Cooder's hands. They're large, expressive: hands you could see wrapped around a guitar neck, or in the act of making things. They move when he speaks, creating shapes in the air that take form and dissipate, all in the space of a few words. On a Friday afternoon at the Petersen Automotive Museum, Cooder is using those hands to help recount the saga of "El Chavez Ravine," a 1953 Chevy pickup he commissioned to be rebuilt in 2007 in the style of a vintage ice cream truck and covered with an elaborate mural, by the artist Vincent Valdez, depicting the eviction of Mexican American families from the neighborhood that is now home to Dodger Stadium.
The same story inspired Cooder's 2005 album "Chavez Ravine," the first installment in his so-called "California Trilogy" (the others are "My Name Is Buddy" [2007] and "I, Flathead" [2008]), and, in some ways, it also sits as a ghost narrative to his first book, "Los Angeles Stories" (City Lights: 230 pp., $15.95 paper), a collection of eight loosely linked pieces of fiction that go back in time to a different Southern California, where musicians and aircraft workers and trolley drivers come together and apart in little bungalows and bars. (His latest album, released in August, is "Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down.")
"We lived a block from Douglas Aircraft in a crappy duplex," remembers Cooder, who grew up in Santa Monica during the 1950s. "The hillbillies would be drinking beer up on Ocean Park Boulevard. My father said, 'Don't ever go up there.' So I went up there and listened to the jukeboxes in the bars. It was in the air somehow, it seemed to be real."
What Cooder's getting at, that elusive " it," is the authenticity of old Los Angeles, a "nothing place," and yet one with its own history and style. This is what he has built his work around these last several years, and what he continues to want to explore, the handmade world of people who "aren't fancy talkers and thinkers. They don't ride any wave. They're just there. But if you go to any of those little houses, they'll tell you some stories. People will tell you the most amazing things."
"Los Angeles Stories" operates almost entirely on such a principle, offering a deftly rendered panorama of the city between 1940 and 1958. Its characters are the forgotten, the lost: a man who goes door-to-door for the Los Angeles City Directory, a tailor who make suits for musicians, a drummer on a three-week gig in Kingman, Ariz., sneaking back into California with piano player Billy Tipton and her underage girlfriend under the cover of night.
"These stories," Cooder says, "became my favorite thing to do. I thought: I can just sit here. I can say whatever I want, and these people will do whatever I tell them." Even more, he continues, in the act of writing, he "remembered things that people have told me, so a lot of what's in the book is from reality."
As a case in point, he cites "End of the Line," set in 1954, in which a motorman, laid off after 15 years on the job, takes his Red Car out for one last run. "It's about a twenty-mile run from downtown to the beach on Jefferson Boulevard," Cooder writes. "First you pass through the downtown residential area. West of Crenshaw, Jefferson is no-man's land until you get to the Hughes Aircraft sheds off to the left. Then you start to smell the ocean and the Ballona Creek marsh. Downtown L.A. smells pretty bad, unless it's raining." The motorman's ex-wife works at Grayson's department store, where she discovers the store manager embezzling funds.
"That's a true story," Cooder acknowledges, with a quiet laugh. "My dad was the one who caught the manager of the store. He told me that story. And so, I'm writing this thing about the motorman, and I thought: Wait a minute, I know. The first wife worked for Grayson's. I know that whole story, don't I? I think I do. I started to write and it all came flooding back."
For Cooder, what's at stake is memory, although it's memory in a collective, as opposed to an individual, sense. Among his influences was the City Directory, a compendium of businesses published annually, in the days before the telephone book. "A friend brought me a copy," he recalls, "a huge, enormous thing, heavy, heavy. Tiny thin paper, tiny type. And I got to reading this thing, page by page. It's so fascinating: the names, the jobs. Pants presser, pants presser, pants presser. More pants pressers than any other work. I learned a lot from that book. It helped me get the names right. Real names mean something. They tell you a lot."
Then, there is the "California Trilogy," with its vivid evocations of time and landscape, and especially "I, Flathead," which came packaged with a novella, written by Cooder, that gave a back story to the songs. "After 'Flathead,'" he explains, "I said, 'This is so much fun I'm going to keep doing it.'" When the idea of a tour with old friend Nick Lowe arose, he seized the opportunity. "I thought: You ought to have something to sell," he says in a laconic drawl. "I didn't want to get into the T-shirt business, so I wrote this book instead."
Originally self-published — "I had some printed in China, but they did everything wrong" — it ended up in the hands of City Lights Books editorial director Elaine Katzenberger, who streamlined the stories, stripping out unwieldy language. Cooder remembers: "I said, 'Oh, I see how you're moving things around more efficiently. I didn't know that stuff but I can learn.' So I went back in and hacked away. It's like anything, you have to get used to it. Songs I know how to do. But the more you do it, the better you get."
This is the same aesthetic Cooder brings to his music — or to "El Chavez Ravine," for that matter — the sense that what's important is the crafting, that it all needs to be well made. "With a song," he observes, "you can get an atmosphere going, that's what a song is, it's a place to be. I tried to do something similar with the stories, to take people places they hadn't been before, places that were familiar and mysterious."
Equally important is a song's ability to forge connections, which is what he hopes for "Los Angeles Stories," as well. "You know," Cooder says, gesturing at the ice cream truck, "people come and look at this, and they don't know the story at all." He talks about the Arechiga family, "the last family to hold out," their name part of the history of the city, if anyone remembers.
"Where we are right now," he says, his hands articulating hidden shadows, "so much has been forgotten and put away. But I still think we want to see things that we don't know about. Go around a corner, and you might have an experience. You might see something you didn't know was there."
.Los Angeles Times...
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Ry Cooder has 'Los Angeles Stories' to tell... more
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So this is a tough subject since Major Recording Artists and also Movie Stars fill a bit gap into normal society by having content for people to either listen to and or watch. However Major Recording Artists and also Major Film Actors get paid tons of money depending on what there contract is. Millions of dollars has gone to major artists or actors for 5 to 10 year contracts.
Now i do not see anyone needing that much money to be honest with you just because they created a song or movie, sure lifestyles can be tedious sometimes but really $53 million dollars does anyone actually know what to do with that much money? except spend it on useless things like cars, houses, boats, vacations and other material items that can be used for something more beneficial.
TOP 10 PAID ACTORS OR MUSICIANS
According to People.com, Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus are two of the richest teens in Hollywood! Justin, 17, earned in a reported $53 million this past year — mostly from his movie, Never Say Never, and his fragrance, “Someday” — while Miley Cyrus, 18, made $48 million last year from touring! (Source:People/Hollywoodlife)
So, its clear the top earner last year was Justin Bieber! Although Justin earned the most, As of 2011, Miley is still the richest teens in Hollywood.
So who else made incredible dollars last year! Check out for the complete list!
#1. Jusin Bieber, $53 millions.
#2. Miley Cyrus, $48 millions.
#3. Taylor Lautner: A source reveals that Taylor, 19, earned $8.5 million for the final two installments in the Twilight saga and was paid $7.5 million for this upcoming action-thrilled, Abduction!
#4. Angus T. Jones: The Two and a Half Men star’s current contract is worth an incredible $7.8 million, as he makes $300,000 per episode!
#5. Nick Jonas: He’s not just the hunkiest JoBro — he’s also the richest! Nick’s reported earnings last year totaled $12.5 million.
#6. Selena Gomez: Justin’s gf made $5.5 million last year. Not too shabby!
#7,8. Jaden & Willow Smith: Between music and movies, Will Smith‘s kids are blowing up! Jaden, 13, raked in $5 million in 2010 (with $3 million from The Karate Kid) while 10-year-old Willow’s budding music career (including her hit single “Whip My Hair”) earned her an estimated $4 million.
#9,10. Dakota & Elle Fanning: The sisters’ most recent movies earned them each a pretty penny — Dakota, 17, got $4 million for Breaking Dawn, while 13-year-old Elle got $1.5 million for Super 8.
Turns out that being a movie star is a pretty profitable enterprise.
Forbes has released its list of top paid actors and actresses in between May 2010 and May 2011, with the biggest names in Hollywood populating the top of the money list.
Top amongst all thespians in the last year was Leonardo DiCaprio; the man who played a dirt poor kid in "Titanic" saw his films "Inception" and "Shutter Island" take in a cool $1.2 billion; with contracts that guaranteed him part of the backends, DiCaprio made a whopping $72 million in the last year.
In second was Johnny Depp, with $50 million; the "Pirates of the Caribbean" star was tops the year before, with $75 million. Next came Adam Sandler, with $40 million; his company, "Happy Madison," produced his wildly popular film, "Grown Ups."
In the actress category, Angelina Jolie and Sarah Jessica Parker topped the cash list with $30 million each; Jennifer Aniston was a close third with $28 million.
Hollywood careers are built on smart (and not always obvious) choices. The two men who top our list of Hollywood’s highest-earning actors are living proof of that. While Johnny Depp topped our list last year with $75 million, Leonardo DiCaprio jumps from fifth to first place to beat Depp for the first time. Over the past year Depp earned $50 million to DiCaprio’s $77 million. Both actors have achieved wealth and fame by making some unusual choices with their careers.
After starring in the megahit Titanic in 1997, Leonardo DiCaprio had his pick of roles. The young actor easily could have become a romantic-comedy heartthrob or an action hero. Instead, he waited for offers from great, serious directors. In 2000, he starred in Danny Boyle’s The Beach. Two years later he paired with Martin Scorsese for the first time with Gangs of New York. That same year Steven Spielberg directed the young actor in Catch Me If You Can.
Few of his films were blockbusters, but they established DiCaprio’s reputation as someone who could work with the best directors on the planet.
In 2010, that reputation helped DiCaprio become the highest-earning actor in Hollywood. His two big movies, Shutter Island and Inception, earned a combined $1.2 billion. Shutter Island was DiCaprio’s fourth collaboration with Scorsese and Inception was directed by Christopher Nolan.
DiCaprio always gets a healthy upfront fee to appear in movies, but with these two films, he also got a solid chunk of the profits. We estimate that between May 2010 and May 2011, DiCaprio earned $77 million.
Johnny Depp is another actor who gained fame at a young age and refused to take the obvious path. After the success of the TV show 21 Jump Street, Depp easily could have become an action star but he preferred to work with offbeat directors like Tim Burton and John Waters. Like DiCaprio, Depp’s early choices weren’t always hits. But his insistence on making each role his own paid off with 2003’s Pirates of the Caribbean. Based on the popular Disney ride the movie easily could have been just another summer blockbuster but Depp’s bizarre turn as Captain Jack Sparrow created a character that has become as important to Disney as Peter Pan. The four Pirates movie have so far earned $3.7 billion at the global box office. Jack Sparrow was added to the Pirates ride and Depp can now demand a huge sum for each new movie.
The actor earn an estimated $50 million between May 2010 and May 2011.So this is a tough subject since Major Recording Artists and also Movie Stars fill a... more
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Talented journeyman musician Jason Falkner talks about his current project, musical background, time with the band Jellyfish and much more in this revealing interview with CJ Contributor Joe Dimino. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3G3eCPaQGkTalented journeyman musician Jason Falkner talks about his current project, musical... more
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Monday, 10 October 2011 14:58
Pop singer Kenny Loggins calls marijuana prohibition an "absurd law" and says, "The repression of marijuana is taking a long time to be overthrown." That's why he's backing California's Regulate Marijuana Like Wine initiative that hopes to be on the ballot in 2012.
"It's been a long time coming," Loggins adds. "We've been talking about this for 60 years now. Things got turned around backwards. We've been taught a lot of fear about marijuana that we do need to take on into the next generation. We can regulate marijuana and actually make it a source of revenue for the state and eventually for the nation."
Loggins has had numerous Top 10 hits over the years, starting with "You're Mama Don't Dance" (No. 4, 1973) with Loggins & Messina. His solo hit include "This Is It" (No, 11, 1980), "Footloose" (No. 1, 1984) and "Danger Zone" (No. 2, 1986).
Photo courtesy of Getty ImagesMonday, 10 October 2011 14:58
Pop singer Kenny Loggins calls marijuana prohibition... more
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The New York Times...
October 5, 2011
Bert Jansch, an Influential Folk Guitarist, Is Dead at 67
By WILLIAM GRIMES
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Bert Jansch, a guitarist whose blend of classical, jazz, blues and traditional British folk music inspired a long list of folk and rock guitarists in the 1960s and ’70s, including Donovan, Jimmy Page, Neil Young and Paul Simon, died on Wednesday in London. He was 67.
The cause was lung cancer, The Associated Press reported.
Mr. Jansch caused an immediate sensation with his first album, “Bert Jansch,” released in 1965. He was a mostly self-taught musician. And his idiosyncratic style, with its intricate finger work and bent notes, as well as his bold reinterpretations of traditional material, exerted a powerful influence on a generation of young guitarists. A founder of the progressive British folk group Pentangle, he remains an almost talismanic figure for today’s young artists like Beth Orton and Devendra Banhart.
“With the release of his first album in 1965 he completely reinvented guitar playing and set a standard that is still unequaled today,” Johnny Marr, the former guitarist for the Smiths, wrote in a foreword to the paperback reissue of the 2000 book “Dazzling Stranger: Bert Jansch and the British Folk and Blues Revival,” by Colin Harper. “Without Bert Jansch, rock music as it developed in the ’60s and ’70s would have been very different.”
Mr. Jansch (the name rhymes with blanch) became obsessed with the guitar after a teacher in his elementary school in Edinburgh brought one in for a demonstration. His parents could not afford to pay for more than a few lessons, so he tried to construct his own instrument. “The second one I made was even playable, and I learned to chord a D on it,” he told Frets magazine in 1980.
After buying a guitar at age 15, he began listening to records by Woody Guthrie, Big Bill Broonzy, Brownie McGhee and Lead Belly. Gradually he incorporated influences from classical music, jazz and traditional Celtic and British folk songs. He was particularly influenced by Davy Graham, another seminal guitarist, whose composition “Angi” (also spelled “Angie” and “Anji”) became the centerpiece of Mr. Jansch’s first album.
Mr. Jansch remained reserved about describing his style and how it evolved. “Everyone asks that but I’m sorry, it’s a mystery to me how it developed like this,” he told the newspaper Scotland on Sunday in 2004.
Neil Young, who included Mr. Jansch on his American tour last year, once called him the acoustic equivalent of Jimi Hendrix as an influence on guitar players. Donovan recorded a cover version of Mr. Jansch’s protest song “Do You Hear Me Now” on his “Universal Soldier” album and paid tribute to him with “Bert’s Blues” on the album “Sunshine Superman” and “House of Jansch” on “Mellow Yellow.”
Mr. Page, who succumbed to the spell of Mr. Jansch’s first album when it came out, did his own instrumental version of “Blackwaterside,” a traditional song from Mr. Jansch’s third solo album, “Jack Orion” (1966). Retitled “Black Mountain Side,” it appeared on Led Zeppelin’s debut album.
Herbert Jansch was born on Nov. 3, 1943, in Glasgow and grew up in Edinburgh. After leaving school at 15, he became a fixture at the Howff, a local folk club. Two of the club’s regulars, Clive Palmer and Robin Williamson, future members of the Incredible String Band, encouraged him to break out of the narrow Edinburgh scene.
He made his way to London and performed on the streets and in small clubs. After recording “Bert Jansch” on a reel-to-reel tape deck, he teamed up with the singer and guitarist John Renbourn, his second guitarist on “It Don’t Bother Me” and “Jack Orion” and his duet partner on the influential album “Bert and John” (1966).
He and Mr. Renbourn began performing at the Horseshoe Hotel on Tottenham Court Road with the future members of Pentangle: the singer Jacqui McShee, the acoustic bassist Danny Thompson and the drummer Terry Cox.
The group made its debut in a sold-out performance at the Royal Festival Hall on May 27, 1967, and went on to become one of the most dominant folk groups in Britain. It was known for its innovative and eclectic style, which had a marked jazz influence, and for the complex intertwined guitar parts in the “folk baroque” style.
The group’s first album, “Pentangle,” was released in 1968, followed by “Sweet Child,” “Basket of Light,” “Cruel Sister,” “Reflection” and “Solomon’s Seal.”
On New Year’s Day 1973, Mr. Jansch left the group, whose members were buckling under the strain of five world tours. Retreating to a farm in Wales, he returned to a solo career and recorded the album “A Rare Conundrum.” In the late 1970s joined with the fiddler Martin Jenkins to form a duo, Jansch and Jenkins, which became Conundrum after adding the bassist Nigel Smith. For a time Mr. Jansch performed and recorded with various revived versions of Pentangle.
Drinking problems derailed his career for a time, but he rebounded in the 1990s with the album “When the Circus Comes to Town.” He later recorded two critically praised albums, “Crimson Moon” and “The Black Swan,” featuring younger folk-influenced artists.
Mr. Jansch’s first two marriages ended in divorce. He is survived by his wife, Loren Auerbach, and two sons, Kieron and Adam.
.The New York Times...
October 5, 2011
Bert Jansch, an Influential Folk Guitarist,... more
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The SF MusicTech Summit brings together visionaries in the music/technology space, along with the best and brightest developers, entrepreneurs, investors, service providers, journalists, musicians and organizations who work with them at the convergence of culture and commerce. We meet to discuss the evolving music/business/technology ecosystem in a proactive, conducive to dealmaking environment. The Internet is impacting every industry, not least the music industry where the route to fame and fortune is no longer studio > agent > record contract; it’s more about recording a video in your bedroom and selling your music directly to your fans. The music industry doesn’t know what to do with itself, whilst artists are basking in the free tools available for them to promote their music directly to their fans. http://www.freeturbine.com/index.php/news/concerts-news/item/sf-musictech-summit-the-future-of-musical-instrumentsThe SF MusicTech Summit brings together visionaries in the music/technology space,... more
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worrg
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Wane Enterprises Ceo Bruse Wane is seeking producers for his upcoming album "The Dark Knight Album the day the earth stood still. Feel you got that heat he is looking for then submit today watch the video for more. at the link below.
http://www.waneenterprises.com/news/752Wane Enterprises Ceo Bruse Wane is seeking producers for his upcoming album "The... more
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Frank Foster, jazz saxophonist and composer, dies at 82
Frank Foster played with the Count Basie Orchestra and composed its hit "Shiny Stockings." (Los Angeles Times)
July 28, 2011
Frank Foster
Jazz saxophonist and composer
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Frank Foster, 82, a jazz saxophonist who played with the Count Basie Orchestra and composed the band's hit "Shiny Stockings," died Tuesday at his home in Chesapeake, Va., of complications from kidney failure, according to his wife, Cecilia.
Foster was recognized in 2002 by the National Endowment for the Arts as a Jazz Master, the nation's highest jazz honor. His many compositions and arrangements include material for Sarah Vaughan and Frank Sinatra, and a commissioned piece written for jazz orchestra for the 1980 Winter Olympics: "Lake Placid Suite."
Born in Cincinnati on Sept. 23, 1928, Foster "had an ear for music" from an early age, he said in an NEA interview in 2008. Jazz big bands caught his attention when he was 12. Foster's first instrument was clarinet, but at age 13 he took up the sax. He played in a dance band at Wilberforce University and went on to join Basie's band in 1953.
During his 11-year tenure with Basie, Foster not only played tenor saxophone and other woodwinds but also contributed numerous arrangements and compositions for the band, including the jazz standard "Shiny Stockings," Down for the Count" and "Back to the Apple."
Two years after Basie's death in 1984, Foster returned to assume leadership of the Count Basie Orchestra from Thad Jones. He led the band until 1995, winning two Grammy Awards during his tenure.
Foster also led his own big band, Frank Foster's Loud Minority, in addition to playing as a sideman in drummer Elvin Jones' combo and co-leading a quintet with a fellow Basie veteran, saxophonist-flutist Frank Wess.
Foster also served as a musical consultant in the New York City public schools and taught at Queens College and the State University of New York at Buffalo.
In the NEA interview, Foster said: "I had always had as much fun writing as playing.... But when you play something, if you mess up, you can't make it right. But you can write something, and if it's not right, you can change it. And I always had as much pleasure writing as playing because the thrill of hearing your music played back to you is almost indescribable."
.Frank Foster, jazz saxophonist and composer, dies at 82
Frank Foster played... more
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There is something fascinating about the act of musical improvisation—that moment when a musician departs from the score, embarking on a thematically relevant, yet wholly spontaneous composition. We normally think of it as the province of jazz musicians, conjuring the iconic image of a sax player wailing through riffs in a smoky, dim-lit club. John Coltrane and Bill Evans were masters. Miles Davis was never much for rehearsal. He used to gather his band in the studio, rattle off a few suggestions for the broad shape each track should take, and hit record. http://www.makeahistory.com/index.php/album-rewievs/42963-the-improvisational-brainThere is something fascinating about the act of musical improvisation—that... more
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worrg
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Los Angeles Times...
Library of Congress builds the record collection of the century
The sounds of everybody from Duke Ellington to Jelly Roll Morton to obscure surfer dudes are preserved at a Library of Congress facility in Virginia. Access is limited, but that is about to change.
By Randy Lewis, Los Angeles Times
May 8, 2011
Reporting from Culpeper, Va. ——
PART ONE...
About an hour south of Washington, D.C., deep beneath rolling hills near the verdant Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, lies a storehouse filled with bounty.
At one time, during the Cold War, that treasure was cash — about $3-billion worth — that the Federal Reserve had socked away inside cinderblock bunkers built to keep an accessible, safe stash of funds in case of nuclear attack.
Now what's buried here, however, is cultural rather than financial: The bunkers are a repository containing nearly 100 miles of shelves stacked with some 6 million items: reels of film; kinescopes; videotape and screenplays; magnetic audiotape; wax cylinders; shellac, metal and vinyl discs; wire recordings; paper piano rolls; photographs; manuscripts; and other materials. In short, a century's worth of the nation's musical and cinematic legacy.
This is the Library of Congress' $250-million Packard Campus for Audio-Visual Conservation, a 45-acre vault and state-of-the-art preservation and restoration facility on Virginia's Mt. Pony. It's here that a recent donation from Universal Music Group, nearly a quarter-million master recordings by musicians including Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday and Bing Crosby, is now permanently housed. Some staff members busy themselves daily cleaning and gluing fragile 100-year-old films back together; others meticulously vacuum dust from the grooves of ancient 78 rpm discs, which are washed before being transferred to digital files that can be accessed by scholars, musicologists, journalists, filmmakers, musicians and other visitors.
As part of the Library of Congress, this trove is available to anyone, free. But because of the complexities of copyright law, access is restricted to the library's reading rooms in Washington and Culpeper. Library officials, however, are poised to unveil a new program that will significantly expand public access to a big chunk of the library's goods, even if it won't provide carte blanche availability to everything stored there. A news conference is scheduled for Tuesday to announce the details.
The library's main storage facility induces a chill, literally: It's kept at 50 degrees and 35% relative humidity to prevent materials from degrading. It's even frostier at the opposite end of the property in the vault for volatile nitrate film, which is cooled to 35 degrees.
The long hallway also can spark images of the closing scene in "Raiders of the Lost Ark," although it's not a single airplane hangar-sized room full of crates packed with who-knows-what treasures. Instead, the second-floor hallway leads past 17 vaults, each of which yields shelf after shelf filled with platters of vinyl, shellac or wax or magnetic tape in various formats: open reel as well as audiocassettes, four- and eight-track tape cartridges and digital audiotapes. There also are a good number of vintage wax cylinders as well as metal master discs.
The breadth of the library's stock is impossible to summarize. But in addition to copies of every published recording registered for protection in recent decades with the U.S. Copyright Office, the library has acquired personal collections from classical music giants such as Leonard Bernstein, composer Aaron Copland and pianist Wanda Landowska, in some cases including never-released test pressings, as well as every 78 rpm disc recorded by jazz titan Jelly Roll Morton.
It possesses tens of thousands of lacquer discs from NBC Radio, including the network's complete archive of World War II coverage; documentarian Tony Schwartz's trove of audio recordings from the streets of New York; and half a million LPs, among which are dozens of surf and hot-rod music-themed discs that Capitol Records issued in the '60s to capitalize on those crazes, including "Hot Rod Hootenanny" by Mr. Gasser & the Weirdos, with cover art and songs co-written by fabled car designer Ed "Big Daddy" Roth.
The sound vault is so extensive that when Universal Music Group's gift was announced, Gene DeAnna, who heads the recorded sound section, didn't bat an eye. The new donation, which takes up a mile of linear shelving space, is one of the largest single gifts to the library ever. But it represents only about a 1% expansion of the audio collection, which typically grows by 120,000 to 150,000 items per year, about two-thirds of which is sound recordings. And within are essential recordings of the American experience.
When producers at Sony Music's Legacy division were working on the new box set "Robert Johnson: The Complete Recordings: The Centennial Edition," for example, they tapped the library for some metal masters and shellac discs that were better than what the label had in its own archive.
But records and tapes aren't the only musical recordings here. Preservation specialist Larry Miller pulled out some rare wax cylinders about 4 inches in diameter, much larger and thicker than the standard 2-inch cylinders that proliferated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries until flat discs took over.
"Back in those days, there were patent wars," Miller said. "Everyone was trying to not pay money to someone else for use of a particular format." Like the Beta-VHS videotape wars in the '70s and '80s, or the Blu-ray versus HD-DVD battles more recently. "It was a higher fidelity version and had longer playing time too," DeAnna said. "It was kind of like the Blu-ray of its day."
Universal's donation upped the total 2010 acquisition for the recorded sound division to more than 300,000 items. The final truckload of recordings that had long been housed in Universal's vault in Pennsylvania was scheduled to arrive in Culpeper on Wednesday.
The question is how many people will have access to it.
Beyond the library's mission of physical conservation and restoration of its vast archive, providing public access to it is both a driving goal and key hurdle these days. Physically converting aging films or recordings to contemporary playback media is a breeze compared with navigating the copyright clearances that would permit broad access.
It's a byproduct of copyright law, which characteristically lags several steps behind changes in technology. This reality is particularly challenging when it comes to music: Although music compositions have been under the purview of federal copyright law since 1831, sound recordings didn't get that protection until 1972. Before that, ownership of recordings was determined by state and common law — something the 1972 federal law didn't change.
And there's the rub for DeAnna. The shift to digital technology that makes streaming access possible will inevitably push the boundaries of current copyright law. Deanna added that, if nothing else, academia should have access to the music.
"We should be able to have Internet streaming access on secure sites — and more than one, not just our reading room," he said. "We should have partnerships with universities around the country — we should have at least that" ability to allow researchers and students remote use of the library's materials.
CONTINUED...Los Angeles Times...
Library of Congress builds the record collection of the... more
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Yeah, Osama is dead . . . but here is my son Pat and his PVC instrument performing at the KY3 studio in Springfield, MO.
Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkuoHS7midUYeah, Osama is dead . . . but here is my son Pat and his PVC instrument performing at... more
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You know how you have that really cool talent you like to pull out at parties? Texas in July drummer Adam Gray is here to make you question your abilities.
He has not one but two cool talents, and he can do them simultaneously to make music. It's viral gold. The only thing he's missing is a baby animal, but unless you can juggle kittens while playing the harp you might wanna let Adam take the wheel on this one via:// The Daily WhatYou know how you have that really cool talent you like to pull out at parties? Texas... more
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