Monthly Archives: February 2008

Music Dim Sum

I’ve resisted the charms of subscription music services for years, and among the few major players, I must admit that I flirted with eMusic most frequently. However, I finally rappelled into the music download abyss, and I have a few thoughts about it.

eMusic is a monthly subscription model for a number of track downloads. An album will basically just “cost” as much as the number of tracks it has, which is appealing for jazz albums that have fewer, longer tracks in some cases. I don’t support track based models generally, so I opt to download entire albums, but that option certainly isn’t missing.

The downloads are per month, so they expire and must be used in their entirety, from what I understand. This is reminiscent of Audible, which I must admit I forgot about more than once. I’m hoping I can keep up with eMusic, but judging by my first day’s performance, I don’t think I’ll have much trouble.

I’m not terribly please with the fact that it’s mp3, since my own ears end up picking AAC every time at matched bitrates, as low as 128 kbps. The mp3s are variable in bitrate on eMusic, but so far they look to be variable averaging around 160 kbps, which is acceptable for demoing but certainly not critical listening.

It must be understood that eMusic has a large number of independent labels. This means no Blue Note, no Sony/BMG, etc. etc. While on the grand scheme of things, this represents a large amount of “missing” music, in reality for jazz, blues, soul, r&b, funk fans, this is not really a problem! In fact, some of the all-time greatest recordings from a lot of these genres are represented, like Prestige and Riverside. If you’re down with pop artists, etc., you might have a harder time finding stuff, but you can check out their catalog before signing on.

However, with the enticing 50 free downloads in addition to my 30 for $10.00 this month, I ended up with the following albums:

Albert King – Live Wire/Blues Power
Boyz II Men – Throwback (yes … )
Mingus – Town Hall Concert
Christian McBride – Tonic Disc 1
Dexter Gordon – Complete Prestige Disc 1
Johnnie Taylor – Taylored in Silk
Max Roach – We Insist! Freedom Now Suite
Miles Davis – Workin’
Pharoah Sanders – Live
Monk – Live at the 1964 Monterey Jazz Festival

I’m going to use eMusic to download stuff I absolutely want to hear, though I still want to purchase CD versions of the great stuff because of the bitrate and lossy problem, as well as the whole CD/LP artistry that completely adds to the experience of an album. It also affords me the relatively cheap opportunity to listen to stuff that no one plays on the radio much anymore, like Albert King or Johnnie Taylor. It’s a great way to sample new stuff and hear artists that, for constraints of time and money, I have overlooked, like Jack McDuff, Betty Davis, and Pharoah Sanders.

eMusic, done right, is an interesting experiment. Now to just fend off that desire to upgrade to the 50/month plan ….

Signs of Life?

Wax Poetics is the most well written, interesting music rag I’ve ever picked up. I look forward to the bi-monthly issue filled with stuff I didn’t even know I cared about — but do. Hell, I even like looking at the ads (are you getting this, advertisers?). While recently they have put out two great books – Cover Story and Anthology Vol. 1 (both of which I’ve picked up, of course) and have still had a steady stream of events in NYC, their Feb issue has been delayed for all of Feb. so far. Now I appreciate their attention to detail and wouldn’t mind if the issue delay was simply because of a lack of polish on the new issue or something, but in this age of instant information, I’d sure appreciate an update. My attempts at contacting them in the past have been met with pin dropping silence, as these electronic communiqués end up in the digital landfill called the Spam folder, as far as I can tell. Who knows.

Anyhow, I’ll mention sometime later that Wax Poetics has been touting a digital downloads service which I was all primed to take advantage of, despite being pretty anti-iTunes and generally anything less than CD quality audio. All mention of that seems to be gone, while in its place is a back issue “fire sale,” which makes me wonder why they are so eager to ditch their inventory.

So all of this scant evidence has got me thinking whether or not Wax Poetics might be considering closing up shop, which would be a damn shame as far as I am concerned.

Thriller turns 25

When I first heard about this project to do a 25th anniversary edition of Michael Jackson’s phenomenal album Thriller, I was very excited.

Until I saw what they were trying to do with it.

Updates for 2008, it features the likes of Fergie (not the ManU boss, but that one), Kanye, will.i.am, and others doing what amount to tributes or covers of the original classics. As far as I can tell, MJ 2008 may have had little to do with this project save opening his royalty checks, which would be a shame if true — it does sound like he might have been involved on the remake of PYT, which might just be the most poorly selected track for his involvement. Hopefully someone had the good sense at getting him involved as a musical director or something on the rest. I would still like to believe, along with all the rest of the stuff that’s going on up there in the tragic story of Michael’s adult life, that there’s still a musical genius lurking up there.

The Village Voice has a nice glimpse into the album, which I will be avoiding on principle of believing that my copies of Thriller are far superior to any of the reworked material. I’m half-interested in the will.i.am version because of his involvement on Talib’s new joint, but I’ll be looking more closely at one of the other two types of 25th anniversary gimmicky packaging. Look at it as a small donation to the Save The Michael Jackson fund, though that’s probably not tax-deductible.

In any case, I forget that this generation of young people didn’t grow up with Michael. I wonder what they think of him; rather, I wonder if they know his musical legacy. To be sure, Thriller is how he should be remembered.

Not, "Are The Grammy’s Meaningful." Here’s Why.

The lament I continually hear from jazz folks is, “The Grammy’s aren’t meaningful,” but I don’t think they could be farther from the truth. As it happens, the Grammy’s continue to represent a night of celebration of music that gets more media coverage than the election of the next French president. There are two things I’ve noticed about this year’s Grammy awards — one of which is older news, and the other of which came as a surprise. The first is obvious — by most accounts, the awards, which is now in its 50th year, celebrate popular artists. This music largely bites. It’s catchy (read: often annoying) pop music with oft shallow lyrics and no musical sensibility at all. It’s overplayed commercial drivel that doesn’t deserve the airtime it receives. The Grammy’s certainly don’t help that situation.

Of course, in this ringing endorsement of popular music, it should be said that there often emerge gems of truly great music that can inspire pride in the people who reap the benefits of its cultural gifts. This is the Anti-Amy Winehouse, who took home several awards, except they’ll have to be mailed to her since apparently her Visa was denied.

However, the second and, to me, the more important observation to come from the Grammy’s is that it celebrates lifetime achievements in music. I’m not even referring to the award by that name as much as I am through the symbolism inherent in giving Herbie Hancock’s River: The Joni Letters the highest honor of Album of the Year, an album that didn’t even have a terrible amount of critical acclaim (despite my own recommendation of All Things Herbie, followed by my endorsement of All Things Joni). This was a true gesture to one of the greatest American musicians of all time, a brilliant composer, and one of the most dynamic talents in music in the world. His success is broad, but he is not nearly as celebrated as one of his impressive career should be. To have Herbie Hancock’s name in print and on screen in front of millions of folks brings everything that he stands for to the limelight, if not for just the briefest of moments. This can only be good for the art form of jazz.

To potentially open up a whole new generation of listeners to his creations, and in one fell swoop introduce them to Joni Mitchell, whose largely unknown to young listeners (it’s a cultural travesty) is perhaps the crowning achievement of the otherwise symbolic gesture of Album of the Year. The people who purchase this album in the coming year to see what it’s all about will explore avenues of music from hearing Joni herself, along with Luciana Souza and others. They will be familiar with the names of Corinne Bailey Rae and past Grammy glory Norah Jones, which may pique a musical curiosity to try and understand the link between all of these fine musicians.

It was a night for the Grammy’s that I am surprised by and in awe of. As Herbie said, it was the first time in 43 years that a jazz album had won this accolade, the last being Stan Getz and Joao Gilberto’s Getz/Gilberto. Of course, strictly speaking, this is the least of jazz in Herbie’s catalog, but the spirit still remains.

Here’s to his music being celebrated for another generation.