Music News, Notes & Did You Know?

Jazz Fest releases 2011 Lineup

The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival on Wednesday announced the music lineup for the 2011 festival scheduled for April 29 through May 1 and May 5 through 8.

With 12 stages of virtually every style of roots music, Jazz Fest presents one of the entertainment world's most diverse music lineups. This year is no exception. Fans can catch Arcade Fire, Kid Rock, Bon Jovi and John Mellencamp alongside Jimmy Buffett, Willie Nelson, The Strokes and Lauryn Hill.

And that's just the start of it. Hundreds of Louisiana artists will be taking the stage alongside national acts such as Wilco, Tom Jones, John Legend and Jason Mraz.

For more info go to www.nojazzfest.com

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Turnstyle Record Player Concept Looks Far Out

Read more HERE












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Here is a nice UK story about vinyl:

A Vinyl Upsurge

By Phillip Walker

OLD-STYLE vinyl records are still a hit on Teesside despite download sales taking over the charts.

Digital sales now account for just under 20% of all album sales and last year The BPI and the Official Charts Company’s figures showed digital album sales topping 50 million.

Even so, it looks increasingly unlikely physical media, like vinyl and CDs, will fade away completely.

Read the rest   HERE












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Album Cover Art

Honoring 80s reggae dancehall album cover art

Read more HERE











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An incredible story through the words of a vinyl lover!!

Uncovering Bangkok through its forgotten vinyl records

DJ Chris Menist explains how being an outsider allowed him to breathe new life into Thailand's oft-maligned northeastern beats and vinyl castoffs

Read more: Uncovering Bangkok through its forgotten vinyl records | CNNGo.com HERE

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Interesting sidepiece and some great thoughts:

Vinyl Records: The New Growth Story!

by M Kraten

Times are tough in the music business nowadays! Sales of CDs, and of almost all other forms of recorded music, are dropping precipitously. And the live concert business is wilting as well, with entertainers from U2 to Christina Aguilera forced to cancel performances because of low customer demand.

Earlier this month, however, when Billboard reported its annual SoundScan sales totals, one form of recorded music actually reported a significant increase in sales volume between 2009 and 2010. And the size of that increase would have been impressive in any era: 14% on a year-to-year basis!

Even more surprising was the nature of the format that experienced this increase in sales volume. Yes, it was the venerable disk shaped record, a technology that was first introduced in the 1880s and that overtook the phonograph cylinder during the 1920s. Can it now become the growth story of the 21st century?

Read the rest   HERE

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Vinyl has now done it, it's now a story in Time Magazine!!

Vinyl Gets Its Groove Back

By Kristina Dell

From college dorm rooms to high school sleepovers, an all-but-extinct music medium has been showing up lately. And we don't mean CDs. Vinyl records, especially the full-length LPs that helped define the golden era of rock in the 1960s and '70s, are suddenly cool again.

Read more: Time Magazine

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A rare and intense look inside the mind of Jack White

Jack White's Third Man Records tells the world: Your Music City is not dead
The House that Jack Built

Jack White


Just found this, according to http://www.musicpriceguide.com/ a Jack White record has sold for over $13,000 on eBay recently.  Amazing!!

this from the seller:

Hand Painted ( Dave Buick artwork) Lafayette Blues #15. there are only 15 of these hand painted beauties out there. hard to come by & rare.


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ARTILLERY: New Album Artwork Revealed

Danish thrash metal veterans Artillery have completed work on their sixth album, "My Blood", at Medley Studios in Copenhagen for a March 21 European release via Metal Mind Productions (April 5 in the U.S. through MVD). The cover artwork was created by well-known Polish graphic designer Graal, who has previously worked with VITAL REMANS, SINISTER, SOLITUDE AETURNUS and BULLDOZER. Graal was also responsible for the covers of ARTILLERY's "Through The Years" box and "When Death Comes".

Chilling work, well done......













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Did You Know?

Although it is generally acknowledged that the "Rock 'n' Roll era" began in the US when Bill Haley and His Comets reached the top of the Billboard chart in July, 1955 with "(We're Gonna) Rock Around The Clock", many Rock historians believe that the first true Rock and Roll record was a song called "Rocket 88" by Jackie Brenston and The Delta Cats, which topped the American R&B chart in May, 1951.

The longest title of an album to reach the Billboard Hot 200 LP chart is Fiona Apple's

"When the Pawn Hits the Conflicts He Thinks Like a King What He Knows Throws the Blows When He Goes to the Fight and He'll Win the Whole Thing 'Fore He Enters the Ring There's No Body to Batter When Your Mind Is Your Might So When You Go Solo, You Hold Your Own Hand and Remember That Depth Is the Greatest of Heights and If You Know Where You Stand, Then You Know Where to Land and If You Fall It Won't Matter, Cuz You'll Know That You're Right"

The title is made up of 90 words.   Sheeeeesh......

In 1965, Alan Freed, who many credit with coining the term "Rock and Roll", died at the age of 43. Freed was a Cleveland disc jockey who started promoting dances that featured the top artists of the day, including, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino and Jerry Lee Lewis. After moving to New York and appearing in some teen movies, he was caught up in the payola scandal of 1959 for accepting money for playing certain records on his radio show. Before his death, he was virtually broke and fighting charges of tax evasion. It was a sad end for one of Rock and Roll's most important pioneers.

Also in 1965, The Rolling Stones and the Kinks made their first appearances on ABC-TV's Shindig! Also appearing were the Dave Clark Five, Petula Clark, Bobby Vee, Bobby Sherman and Gerry And The Pacemakers.



In 1968, an amazing event unfolded as John Fred's "Judy In Disguise (With Glasses"), a song title inspired by the Beatles "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds," knocked the Fab Four's "Hello Goodbye" out of Billboard's top spot.

In 1973, Jerry Lee Lewis was booked to play the Grand Ole Opry on the condition that he would stick to Country and Western tunes only. Jerry did just that for a while, but eventually broke into his old Rock hits from the 50's, while swearing up a storm. He proclaimed, "I am the rock and rollin', country and western, rhythm and blues singin' motherf***er."  Nice, and I couldn't agree more!



And in 1982, the infamous Ozzy Osbourne bit the head off of what he thought was a plastic bat thrown at him during a concert in Des Moines. The bat turned out to be real and Ozzy later went through a series of injections against rabies. Mmmmmm....good stuff

CTI Records 40th Anniversary Celebration, Continues With 180-gram Vinyl LP Reissues

SONY MASTERWORKS JAZZ RELEASES CLASSIC REISSUES FROM GEORGE BENSON, DEODATO, MILT JACKSON, PAUL DESMOND, JIM HALL AND RON CARTER

Available January 25, 2011

Also available, critically acclaimed CTI Records: The Cool Revolution deluxe 4-CD box and California Concert: The Hollywood Palladium 2-CD set featuring previously unreleased tracks

NEW YORK, Jan. 20, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Masterworks Jazz continues the celebration of the 40th anniversary of CTI Records, the beloved jazz label founded in 1970 by producer Creed Taylor with the release of 6 more classic reissues available on January 25th, 2011. They include: White Rabbit by George Benson, All Blues by Ron Carter (first time on CD in the U.S.), Prelude by Deodato, Pure Desmond by Paul Desmond, Concierto by Jim Hall, and Milt Jackson's Sunflower. The reissues are packaged in eco-friendly softpack sleeves that replicate the original gatefold LP design and their iconic covers most with photos by Pete Turner.

White Rabbit is perhaps George Benson's finest album for CTI, featuring the signature title track arrangement of the Jefferson Airplane classic – a 1972 Grammy® nominee for Best Jazz Performance by a Group.

All Blues by Ron Carter makes its debut on CD in the U.S. (it was previously only released in Japan). Carter was voted Bassist of the Year in DOWNBEAT's Readers' Poll in 1973, 1974 and 1975, highlighting his work with CTI.

Deodato's Prelude includes his Grammy®-winning hit title track, an arrangement of Richard Strauss's fanfare from Also Sprach Zarathustra, used as the main theme in 2001: A Space Odyssey. This song is the biggest hit the CTI label would ever have. The album's title track won 1974 Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance, and rose to No. 2 on the U.S. pop charts.

Pure Desmond by Paul Desmond was not only highly praised but it also brought to the spotlight the considerable talents of Canadian guitarist Ed Bickert. It also features Ron Carter on bass and Connie Kay on drums. Paul Desmond was voted by DOWNBEAT's readers into its Jazz Hall of Fame in 1977.

For his work on Concierto, Jim Hall received a Grammy® nomination in 1975 for Best Jazz Performance by a Soloist. He was also named Guitarist of the Year in DOWNBEAT's Jazz Poll in 1974, the year before he recorded Concierto.

Sunflower is the most revered album by Milt Jackson, one of the greatest of jazz vibraphone players, and most acclaimed improvisational blues instrumentalists of all time. He was a founding member of the legendary Modern Jazz Quartet, voted by DOWNBEAT's readers into its Jazz Hall of Fame in 1999.

Sony MASTERWORKS Jazz kicked off the 40th anniversary celebration with the release of CTI Records: The Cool Revolution, a deluxe 4-CD multi-artist box set retrospective in the Fall. Receiving rave reviews The Associated Press dubbed it "…the most comprehensive anthology to date" and NPR said it was "… as striking a portrait of the Jazz World in the '70s as you'll find anywhere."

Also released in the Fall was the double-CD restoration of California Concert: The Hollywood Palladium (1971) which included 90-minutes of music rarely heard and never before available. It is the most complete version of the historic Hollywood Palladium all-star concert recorded July 18, 1971. It doubles the content of the original five-song LP release with five additional tracks - three of them previously unreleased - and restores the original concert sequence for the first time. Creed Taylor hand-picked a dream team of CTI artists for the occasion: Freddie Hubbard, Hubert Laws, Hank Crawford, Stanley Turrentine, George Benson, Johnny Hammond, Ron Carter, Billy Cobham and Airto Moreira. Liner notes are by multi-Grammy winning musician-producer Bob Belden who says California Concert: The Hollywood Palladium "...ranks up there with the greatest jazz concerts of all time…"

The celebration also included reissues of the first set of 6 classic CTI albums: She Was Too Good To Me by Chet Baker, God Bless the Child by Kenny Burrell, Red Clay by Freddie Hubbard, StoneFlower by Antonio Carlos Jobim, Morning Star by Hubert Laws (first time on CD), and Stanley Turrentine's Sugar.

In addition, Sony also released the following 180-gram vinyl LP reissues of 4 classic CTI albums using the original gatefold sleeve designs accompanied with digital download cards: Red Clay by Freddie Hubbard, Stanley Turrentine's Sugar, White Rabbit by George Benson and Prelude by Deodato.

In the 1970s, CTI, its music, its style and its discriminating quality transformed contemporary jazz. The roster worked almost like a repertory company, in which great musicians took turns in the spotlight and accompanying each other. The albums they and their colleagues created set new standards in their look as well as their sound. "[Creed Taylor's] plan was ingeniously simple, yet famously maverick: record top-tier musicians, keeping their artistic integrity intact while also making their art palatable to the people. CTI thus achieved that rare balance of jazz and commercialism," writes Dan Ouellette in the liner notes. CTI surpassed the majors and fellow indies to be named the #1 Jazz Label of 1974 by Billboard. The immediate success of CTI's recordings has echoed across the decades in a profound influence on jazz, pop, R&B and hip-hop.

SOURCE Masterworks Jazz

Don Kirshner Remembered

Music mogul Don Kirshner, whom Time magazine once called "the man with the golden ear," had expressed disappointment over not having been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. (Joshua Prezant / Washington Post)


It always amazes me that the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame has not recognized his contributions to the industry (shame on the Hall). Heck, he brought some cool TV shows back then, something that we don't have right now (sans videos). Could you imagine some of the brightest stars doing this today? I can't......

Don Kirshner dies at 76; music mogul

Don Kirshner guided the careers of songwriters, launched the Monkees and introduced TV audiences to an array of musicians and comics through his show in the 1970s.

Don Kirshner, the veteran music mogul who shepherded songs from a monstrously talented stable of young writers to the top of the pop charts in the 1960s, launched the career of the Monkees and then became a familiar face to millions of rock fans as impresario of his late-night music TV series in the 1970s, died Monday of heart failure in Boca Raton, Fla., where he had lived for the last decade, a family spokeswoman said Tuesday. He was 76.

"Don Kirshner's Rock Concert" brought the biggest names in rock and pop music to television in live performances instead of the lip-synced sessions that often characterized rock music on television.

Read the rest of this LA Times write up HERE









 
Black Sabbath: "War Pigs" (Live on "Don Kirshner's Rock Concert", 1975)