So Bill is out in Canada yesterday. So how come he says this in CANADA rather than in the USA???
Category: News
Really? Coming Soon….?
I think this is a REAL product coming from Bari Woodwinds. Um…..interesting I guess….though why you’d want this…..I have no clue.
Slow News Day On CNN: The Making Of A Prodigy (Grace Kelly)
It’s obviously a slow weekend when this story about what makes a prodigy is on the front of CNN. Not that CNN is really a relevant news source nowadays with their Twitter usage and general lack of a cohesive professional face.
So, we see these “prodigy” stories ever few years. Grace Kelly is the current one with that mantel (from whomever hands them out). Previously it was Alex Hann, then probably some people before him. I remember as a high schooler Amani A.W. Murray as being THE next big thing. The prodigy of the 90s. Charlie Parker reincarnated. Yet I can find just one CD of his? But he was all the rage…..heck, he made me hit the practice room with more zeal than ever before…..
Anyhow, so, big piece on Grace Kelly. The most interesting comment though was from John Renborn which was
How much did Grace’s parents pay CCN to write yet another publicity stunt for Grace? Her parents have paid Lee Konitz, Phil Woods and others A LOT OF MONEY to play with her. Think Jessica Simpson on sax. Why didn’t CNN ask her about this? She is not a prodigy. She is self centered. Ask her why no one at Berklee wanted to be involved with her. She is not a musicians’ musician. With Grace, it is a carefully organized and well funded campaign by her parents to promote a semi talented performer. Ted Gioia, the noted critic and jazz historian, saw right though her as did the NY Times and others. Take a pretty Korean girl, dress her up in tight, low hung leather pants, high heel sneakers and a tank top, give her a sax… You get the picture. Now she wants to go viral aka like Britney Spears. Pathetic.
As a manager and long time jazz promoter I can tell you she is not a prodigy, not even close. She is a somewhat talented kid who plays decent sax, sings so-so, has parents who have spent hundreds of thousand of dollars promoting her by paying well known sax players, and is not deserving of the another poorly researched article.
I think the better example would have been Lana Del Rey or Rebecca Black but whatever. Grace sorta reminds me of Saori Yano, but Saori Yano is way way hotter. Same sorta thing though. Semi-talented to talented performer using sex appeal. Not like that never happens….gosh, using sex appeal. Though Grace has none for me….maybe that is why they are using the Prodigy approach?
Did the parents pay for this? I know that there is another local music store that frequently gets little lame ass write-ups in the newspaper about what they are doing. Like their stupid group Uke classes. Or that they are selling plastic trombones. So yeah, maybe Grace Kelly’s parents did grease the way for this story on CNN. Would not surprise me in the least. When she gets into Newsweek or Time then I’ll be impressed. CNN? Not impressed.
New Forum Software
We sorta had some forums here, but they were lame. WordPress+Buddypress’s built in forum software sucked hard. Really hard. So, this weekend I was going to install BBPress but then discovered SimplePress. And that is what we are using now. Ties into the WordPress software nicely. Seems good so far.
Special Grammy Award Honoring Steve Jobs/Yo-Yo Ma and Steve Jobs
The Grammy awards are tonight, but some of them have already happened. And Steve Jobs received an award.
Eddy Cue Accepts Special Grammy Award Honoring Steve Jobs:
The Grammy ceremony for the Special Merit Awards was held yesterday, and Apple senior vice president of Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue was on hand to accept the award.
The Recording Academy has also published a brief tribute to Jobs by cellist Yo-Yo Ma, a 16-time Grammy winner and personal friend of Jobs.
Jobs’ Grammy marks the second time he and Apple have been honored by The Recording Academy. Apple itself won a Technical Grammy Award in 2002.
And Cellist Yo-Yo Ma had some things to share about meeting Steve and their relationship. Good stuff.
New FAA Bill Finally has guidelines for Instruments
The AFM applauds passage of FAA Bill :: Official Website of the American Federation of Musicians:
After five years and 23 short-term extensions, Congress has passed legislation reauthorizing the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for the next four years. Included in the bill are provisions that create a uniform national policy regarding musical instruments on airplanes. Any instrument that can be safely stored in the overhead compartment or underneath the seat may be brought on board as carry-on luggage. Additionally, the bill sets standard weight and size requirements for checked instruments, and permits musicians to purchase a seat for oversized instruments, such as cellos, that are too delicate to be checked. Existing law allowed each airline to set their own policy regarding musical instruments, and size requirements varied widely for both carry-on and checked baggage. The American Federation of Musicians (AFM) has been lobbying Congress to enact such a policy for nearly a decade.
(Via www.afm.org)
Finally, something our Congress passes that makes sense. Too bad they didn’t put it out for the public to see before voting on it. Remember that broken promise Mr. Obama?
Finale Notepad 2012…..FREE……AGAIN
File this under news no one really cares about….
One of the biggest bone head decisions was MakeMusic charging for NotePad, which had been free up until version 2009 (I think). Well, duh…..no one bought it. And the exposure they got for providing a fairly adequate notation program for free evaporated.
Now, at NAMM, they announced that 2012 version of Finale Notepad is going to be free. Now….if they would only maybe follow through? Hello Minnesota….you there?
I dunno exactly what the point is in announcing something then waiting like a month to deliver it. How hard is it to strip out the DRM in it? Seriously, how MakeMusic stays in business is anyone’s guess.
UPDATE 2/15/2012 Seems they, over a month after they announced it, have released Notepad.
John Williams is 80 Today
One of the best, if not THE BEST, movie composers, John Williams, turns 80 today. Though the article suggests 5 scores of his to listen to, there are TONS more. Like Indiana Jones music, ET, Superman (original), Catch Me If You Can (which has a great saxophone part done by Dan Higgins), Saving Private Ryan….just to name a FEW.
Wiki him. He has pretty much shaped music in movies since the 70s.
NAMM 2012
There are a lot of interesting things announced at the NAMM show. Here are some of the ones I thought were interesting.
Behringer Pad-housing USB mixers
iPad plus mixer? YES!
Premium 32-Input 4/2-Bus Mixer with iPAD Docking Station, XENYX Mic Preamps & Compressors, KLARK TEKNIK Multi-FX Processor, Wireless Option and USB/Audio Interface
Technological Innovation, Seamless Integration The Apple iPad has opened a Pandora’s Box of opportunity for musicians. The iX docking station will send signal both two and from your iPad with a wide range of routing options. Tap into the hundreds of music apps including our own FX Processor that lets you dig deeper into your mic with top-notch EQs, studio-quality compressors and reverbs, plus a spectrum analyzer. With a wide variety to choose from in the app store, you can record to Garage Band, tune and monitor your rig through the room analyzer mic input, and more. The opportunities are endless.
Sounds cool to me.
Wait, another iPad mixer thing……but from Mackie?
With 16 boutique-quality Onyx mic preamps and the performance of 24bit Cirrus Logic® AD/DA converters, you have unparalleled sound quality. Seamless wired to wireless iPad control means you can mix from anywhere in the venue. This gives you the mobile freedom to control not only the mix, but powerful plug-ins like EQ, dynamics, effects and more. The sleek DL1608 even supports up to 10 iPad devices. Forget bulky consoles and racks of gear. The power is at your fingertips.
Wait, wasn’t the iPad just a fad? Hmm…..
Thunderbolt accessories??
Apollo offers compatibility with Intel’s new Thunderbolt technology, as found on the newest iMacs, MacBook Pros, MacBook Airs, and next-generation PCs.
Available via a user-installable dual-port Thunderbolt I/O Option Card (sold separately), Thunderbolt provides lower latency, reduced audio buffer size, improved performance, and greater UAD plug-in instances versus FireWire. And because Thunderbolt offers many times the bandwith of FireWire, it allows music producers to connect numerous devices in series with the Apollo interface — including hard drives, processors, and additional computer monitors — all with fast, flawless performance.
Symphony 64 | Thunderbolt
64 Channel Thunderbolt connection for Apogee Symphony I/O
Connect Symphony I/O to any Thunderbolt™ equipped Mac for true Thunderbolt compatibility and performance. Symphony | 64 Thunderbolt will also connect X-Symphony equipped AD-16X, DA-16X, Rosetta 800 and Rosetta 200 converters to Thunderbolt Macs.
Yes, We Were Down Protesting SOPA & PIPA (and a US Government that is Deaf)
Jazz-Sax was down protesting SOPA & PIPA. Two bills that were funded by the entertainment industry. It’s amazing how if you pay a Senator or a Congress person lots of money, they can agree on a Bill and fast track it through to get voted on. Can anyone say “Special Interests”? Why are we continually electing people like Feinstein, Boxer, Pelosi, McCain, etc who do not do the bidding of the people? Anyone remember the NDAA bill that was passed that allows indefinite detentions of citizens. That is even more outrageous. Ugh. Change? I don’t see it Mr. Obama, Congress (both parties). I see a government that is strictly looking to keep itself in power. Look at the wealth of these people in Washington (or in politics in general). It is disgusting.
Be warned, the SOPA bill is not dead. It has been delayed while Congress is off on “retreat” for two weeks before they start campaigning to get elected again. Disgusting. So the internet will probably again have a blackout day. You have been warned.
For further reading on all the stupid pieces of legislation happening in Congress:
PandoDaily – Forget SOPA, Hollywood Already Had a Field Day with the Justice System
Consumerist – Jeff Jarvis Weighs In: SOPA “Changes The Architecture Of Our Greatest Tool Of Speech
Consumerist – Google Breaks Down SOPA Opposition By The Numbers
Consumerist – Consumerist Is Against SOPA/PIPA And That’s All We’re Writing About Today
Stop The US Congress and Senate – Stop PIPA and SOPA
Wednesday is a protest day here in the USA because our Congress, with their heads up their asses again, are trying to pass two pieces of legislation. One seems to be shelved as of this writing (SOPA), but the other one, PIPA is very very much alive. PIPA could cause sites like Soundcloud, Tumblr, and many others (including this one) to be taken down. Educate yourself on these flawed pieces of law that our inept Congress is trying to pass. And write your Congress person.
UPDATE: Seems the SOPA bill has been moved to next month, NOT because of the public opinion about it, but because all the Senators and House Members are going on vacation again before they try to go out and get elected again. PIPA is supposedly moving ahead full steam. It is disgusting.
Bravo to Craigslist.org, and WordPress.com for participating in the blackout.
Donations
So, you noticed the little donation thing at the top and at the right? No? Well, it is there. Jazz-Sax isn’t really cheap to run. There is the reoccuring domain registration fee, and then my monthly internet bill (which is a little more due to the static IPs I have that allow for running a web server).
The Google Ads have been deferring the costs of just running stuff. It helps, and I don’t think the ads are as obtrusive as they could be. Fairly tame. However, the little Atom powered server that the site runs off of (great little Linux box by the way) could really use a SSD to replace the current Hard Drive (which is about 3 years old or so….don’t really know. 24/7/365 x 3+).
I’m hoping that either we can raise some money to get one (they are like $60 now for a 50 gig one, and that is basically what it needs) or if someone has one they want to donate. Either way. It would help to ensure a faster, more stable site. Plus the MySQL database would probably scream on a SSD compared to the current HD. The site gets way bogged down due to MySQL queries.
Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year!
MakeMusic Acquires Garritan…..still behind the competition
This was sort of a shock, but I guess it is to be expected.
Minneapolis – December 20, 2011 – MakeMusic, Inc. (NASDAQ: MMUS) today announced it has signed an agreement to acquire Garritan Corporation, the world’s leading provider of software musical instruments. Under the terms of the agreement, Garritan Corporation will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of MakeMusic. Founder Gary Garritan will be joining MakeMusic as director of instrumental sciences. Closing is subject to customary conditions and is expected to occur within the next few weeks.
Garritan was not included in the last release of Sibelius. I have used Garritan sounds in the past, and still use them. However, I think they have been eclipsed by a lot of the new libraries out. Avid includes a wealth of instruments with the latest ProTools, and Logic 9 includes excellent sounds as well. Basically, Garritan wasn’t keeping up with competition, and relying on it’s proprietary Aria player. Heck, on the product page it heralds that it works with Finale 2009/2010 (they are on 2012 now) and Microsoft Songsmith (yeah…..no one knows or cares about that).
I suppose this makes sense for MakeMusic as it has continually added Garritan sounds to each version of Finale for several years now. Now they own it, and can bundle it with Finale for a lesser cost (assuming). And MakeMusic’s other recent acquisition of Recordare, the maker of MusicXML I’m not sure exactly what they are thinking. This is more like a bandage on major wound.
Finale hasn’t lead in the music notation area for several years. I think the last time I’d consider them “leading” was when they introduced Linked Parts in Finale 2006 (I think? Or 2007?) which was much better than Sibelius’s implementation. Since then, they haven’t really broken any ground with new features, nor really improve or fix existing features. They do like to reintroduce things they fix as new features, such as last version (or was it this version) when they had the new note spacing, which was essentially a fixed version of the note spacing they introduced years ago.
What should they do? They NEED to put Finale in the Mac App store. Get themselves noticed. Lower the price as well. $199 for the full version. Sibelius is not in the App store…….yet. They should at least have Finale Notepad there. Or something. Time is ticking. As soon as Sibelius is in the Mac App store, I’d say it would be game over.
They couldn’t put SmartMusic in there because of Apple’s subscription guidelines for Apps and Subscriptions. Though that would be WAY better than the subscription system they use now for SmartMusic (which sucks ballz). The drum teacher where I teach at has frequent problems with SmartMusic forgetting it’s subscription status.
MakeMusic ALSO needs some sort of iOS app. Again, a version of Notepad for iPad. Or a viewer of Finale files sorta like what Avid Scorch. I’d love to see them do something like Notion…..but I don’t see that happening anytime soon.
I don’t know. I really wonder about MakeMusic’s future. Sibelius? Not worried. They are owned by Avid. Avid is making a lot of good stuff right now, though they need to lower the upgrade price to ProTools 10 ($499? WTF?). I wonder what happens the day MakeMusic decides to close and my 10,000+ Finale files are in limbo. I really wish Sibelius would just OPEN Finale Files. I’d switch then.
Occupy……Jazz?
Noted trumpeter Nicholas Payton wrote a great blog entry title “On Why Jazz Isn’t Cool Anymore…” which is brilliant. Bravo sir. It has sparked debate on Reddit, NPR, MetaFilter and the circle jerk…I mean SaxOnTheWeb site. Probably the best response has been by trumpeter Ian Carey titled How Not To Become A Bitter White Jazz Musician.
While a lot of these other sites have gone off on positive or negative tangents about this, the essence of what Mr. Payton says is true. Jazz has been usurped after its death in 1959. The music has moved on. It has evolved. Grouping the “Jazz” today would sort of be like grouping Mozart and John Adams together under the label of Classical Music. Wait…..they do still do that. What the…..
I personally don’t care what it is called. In fact, I HATE labeling music that is in my iTunes library. I have soundtracks, broadway musicals, jazz, smooth jazz, jazz and funk, funk, rock, classic rock, classical, choir music, NuJazz, Ska, New Orleans, Big Band…….I could be here all day listing them. Why can’t we just call it music and not worry about if it is Jazz, Rock, Classical or whatever?
Yeah……I don’t think it’s ever going to happen either……..we are screwed.
54th Annual Jazz Grammy Nominees
It’s hard to remember that the Grammy Awards actually give out Jazz awards. I mean, with people like Chris Brown getting nominated…..
So here are a few I like that were nominated….
AWARD: 54th Annual Jazz Grammy Nominees:
33. Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album
The Jazz Ballad Song Book
Randy Brecker With DR Big Band
[Half Note]
The Good Feeling
Christian McBride Big Band
[Mack Avenue Records]57. Best Instrumental Composition
“Hunting Wabbits 3 (Get Off My Lawn)”
Gordon Goodwin, composer (Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band)
Track from: That’s How We Roll
[Telarc International]
(Via All About Jazz News)
And lets hope that Chris Brown doesn’t win anything…..