Fiery duo take jazz to task
I’ve never heard these guys – and I like them already. I’ve always thought that playing music should have more actual play in it…
Pianist Satoko Fujii and her husband, trumpeter Natsuki Tamura, seem an unlikely couple to storm the citadel of jazz with challenging new sounds. Far from the typical black-clad, scowling and self-absorbed avant-garde artist, they are surprisingly casual — the kind of people you immediately want to call by their first names.
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Coltrane for newcomers
Ravi Coltrane puts together a 4CD compilation of his Dad’s best work… and forgets to put Blue Train on it. D’uh…
Of all the musicians who had an impact on 20th century jazz, John Coltrane was perhaps the most influential and charismatic. Influential, in that it’s almost impossible to listen to a saxophone solo without hearing at least a trace of his gloriously introspective sound. Charismatic, in that more than 35 years after his death, the enduring popularity of his recordings proves that artistic merit and commercial success need not be mutually exclusive.
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TV3, radio assets may list again
I thought this had gone a bit quiet… Anybody want to buy shares in the Radioworks/More FM group… and TV3/TV4?
TV3 and TV4, along with commercial radio assets once part of Radio Pacific, may be heading back to stock exchange listing next year. This is a distinct possibility as Canadian owner CanWest heads into calmer waters over its need to repay debt. Sources close to CanWest’s sale process in New Zealand have indicated the company has received good offers for media asset sales in New Zealand, as well as in Britain and Canada.
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Get ready for a radio revolution
iBiquity’s IBOC (In Band, On-Channel) digital radio system is being touted as the newest next big thing in broadcasting. Seems it was only last week that satellite DAB (Digital Audio Broadcast) was the newest next big thing. Now IBOC’s tipped to put satellite companies like Sirius out of business. Ignore for a moment the fact that very few media ever really ‘replace’ any other… is this process speeding up, or what?
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Guglielmo Marconi made many of the first steps toward wireless radio broadcasting. Now a recent decision by the Federal Communications Commission may pave the way for the one of the biggest developments since the advent of FM broadcasting more than 55 years ago.
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Are the days of “anything goes” radio gone?
I still maintain that people are generally smarter than this kind of station gives them credit for. Not everyone who was listening was laughing with them. Sure, not everyone makes formal complaints… but any joke told day after day becomes tiring – no matter how outrageous it may have seemed at the outset.
It’s become a cliched formula for radio success: bad taste equals good ratings. No outrage seemed too outrageous if the Arbitron numbers were up – until lately.
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Radio stations raise $46,090 to bury family
Radio as community-building? Radio as an important part of its surroundings? Radio generating revenue quickly in order to give it away? Radio being altruistic? What is this socialist nonsense? Don’t they know that the sole purpose of broadcasting is to return a profit to the shareholders?!!!
In just an hour and 45 minutes, two Portuguese-language radio stations raised $46,090 in contributions and pledges from listeners to pay burial expenses for an East San Jose family of four who died in a murder-suicide.
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Fire Burns through Building that’s Part of Music Industry History
The home of Sugarhill Records – spiritual birthplace of hip-hop music – the building in which the first commercially-released rap song was recorded burned to the ground.
A five-alarm fire burned all night and into the morning in Englewood. Flames continued to shoot from the roof of 96 West Street into the morning. It’s a significant building, the home of Sugar Hill Records where the first rap record was recorded over 20 years ago. People came to the scene overnight just to look at the fire, and watch as an important piece of music history went up in flames.
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Is piracy killing the music industry?
Is (yawn) home taping killing music? The music industry once again completely fails to get fresh, creative and inventive about the real problem facing them, and come up once again with their answer to everything: release more ‘best of’ compilations. Memo to the music industry: the landscape has changed. You don’t get different results by doing more of what you’ve always done.
This year’s new releases from Elvis Presley and the Rolling Stones are the music industry’s attempts to combat falling sales figures. A world-wide slump in CD sales means record companies are using traditionally bestselling acts to entice fans back to the shops and away from downloading music from free internet sites.
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