[I hate what's happening to internet radio. Unlike so many other things, the companies involved in shutting things down are in the business of profiting from the work of others. There are plenty of small companies where this isn't so, but the big ones certainly are in this business. This is undoubtedly why I'm drawn to the craftsmen and artisans that produce instruments (and other touchable objects.)
There is an implicit feeling embedded in the hype of the last few years that bits are better than atoms because of the inherent flexibility and ease of transportation. That the market is large because it is global.
Certainly for information dissemination this is true. But the same lightweight nature of bits means that there are added responsibilities. You must decide not to copy something you shouldn't. You must decide not to distribute something that you don't own despite its ease and near costless nature. Bits demand a higher ethic than atoms. You can't give atoms to someone else without having less atoms yourself. It acts as a safety valve.
The record labels are masters of taking something that takes years and years to develop and selling it for their own profit because it can be easily reproduced. And we have come to accept that they're selling something "real" when they are not. Music recordings are fine for what they are, but they are not anything like listening to a musician play live.
Some of the larger pop acts do what they can to reproduce what they create in the studio, but that is the exception that proves the rule. No matter how good the recording or the system playing it back, there's nothing like listening to a string quartet play. Or an orchestra, or a rock band, or jazz quartet, or even the first few notes of a young players' first recital. None of that is captured by recorded music. It can only be experienced by being the same room, at the same time with the people playing.
In the end, all we have in life is the life we lead. If the place where you hang out plays recorded music, ask them to have live music. Maybe it's once a month, or once a week, or whatever, but somewhere there's a great musical moment waiting to happen, and there's no reason why you shouldn't be there when it does.]
Today's little guy -- Joe Locke *
[I met Joe about ten years ago. Joe was rooming with a friend, Josh Heineman, in NY. I did some recording work with Joe, and became a big fan of his fiery playing. Never at a loss for a joke, time spent with Joe is always enjoyable. He's made 16 recordings as a leader, but I especially recommend the Storytelling State of Soul recording, which is superb. Land of the Living was one of the songs that I helped to record for the demo of this group years ago. It's great to hear this more mature version.
Mark Ledford is still an integral part of this group. (Some of you will know him from his work with the Pat Metheny Group, with whom he toured for several years.
There are never a great many vibes players. It's a very hard instrument to play, and to play it at level that Joe does... is rare to say the least. It's very little wonder that Joe was voted the #1 vibist in DownBeat Magazine's Critic's Poll, and Brazil's International Jazz Poll.
Joe: "A voluminous amount of wonderful music has been documented by some great artists in my lifetime alone. It is a deep well for us to dip into. On the new cd, State of Soul, we picked up where we left off , recording music we found personally meaningful. From the searching complexity of Joe Chambers' "Hello To The Wind" to the simple beauty of Richard Thompson's "Dimming Of The Day", the common thread running through all of these songs is a simple one - it is the depth of soul contained in the stories told therein. This music comes from disparate sources, but is cohesively united by a group of musicians who love all of these influences, and because of their artistry, know how to create something unique and personal from them."
So buy a recording, or check out some live playing. Support the little guys!]
Steve Zellers' Radio Weblog. "...whats it going to take to get Dave to live on a Mac again?" [Why does it matter? What possible difference could it make what OS Dave uses? (I can think of one reason why it might matter, and it's pretty minor.)]
dive into mark. "Dive Into Accessibility is a republication of my wildly popular series, "30 days to a more accessible weblog", with some minor corrections, a new domain name, and the word "weblog" crossed out and "web site" written in in crayon. ("Man didn't have the right form." "What man?" "The man from the cat detector van." "The loony detector van, you mean." "Look, it's people like you what cause unrest.")" [Excellent!]
4:09:24 PM 
|
