Jul 18 2012
In case you didn’t notice the addition of the new Page tab at the top of the screen (just beneath the banner), then consider this post your notification of my Best of 2012 (thus far) list, found HERE.
Cheers.
-Dave
Jun 25 2012
I’m going to begin putting the spotlight on some artists who have their albums set to NYOP (Name Your Own Price), which is exactly as it implies… you can purchase the album at any price you desire, including free. Pay whatever you like. And even if you choose Free, if down the road you decide that the album was more enjoyable than you first assumed, there is an option to go back and pay after the fact, again, at any price you choose.
It’s an interesting model, especially for artists who are unknown and just starting out, but also for artists who own the copyright to their music and want to rekindle interest in their older albums.
Most of the albums will be on the artists’ Bandcamp pages. If you’re unfamiliar with Bandcamp, it’s a music retail site like Amazon or iTunes. However, on Bandcamp, artists have control over their own “page” and, reportedly, Bandcamp takes less of a middleman cut than Amazon and iTunes, thus the artist makes more money from each sale. Also, the Bandcamp site offers a variety of downloadable file formats; so you can download in the normal MP3 format like you would anywhere else, but you can also download in lossless formats, which means larger file sizes but better sound quality. The price is the same no matter which file type you choose. And if you prefer CDs or Vinyl, many artists sell those mediums on their Bandcamp page, too. There will be occasions when the album will, instead, be streamable on the artist Soundcloud or Artist Site, but most will likely be a Bandcamp thing.
Anyways, I’m gonna do an occasional series of these NYOP Editions of Reviews & Tiny Reviews. Some I’ll post here, and some I’ll post over on the Music Is Good site. Worth noting that MiG also has posts of a similar nature for non-jazz albums.
Some reviews will be more comprehensive than others. There will be times that I give the album one listen and perform a brief write-up from that. The goal of this series is to get the spotlight on interesting music, rather than an analysis of what’s there.
If you are an artist and have an NYOP album that you want me to give a listen to, go ahead and drop a request in this post’s Comments section. That’s where I’ll respond yes or no.
Requirements to participate:
1. The album has to be set to Name Your Own Price (or Free, but with an option for fans to donate/pay as thanks for the music).
2. I must be able to stream the entire album online. It doesn’t have to be on a Bandcamp page; Soundcloud and Artist Sites are good. I only mentioned Bandcamp initially because that’s where I initially became familiar with the NYOP model. I don’t want to download the album, nor do I want physical copies sent to me. My computer is stuffed to the gills with music files, and I want you to be able to sell the physical albums at shows or to people who want to buy it that way online.
3. One request per artist. If I run out of material, I’ll send out some notices on Twitter saying that I’m open for multiple submissions. If you don’t follow me on Twitter, you really should. Not only do I disseminate important information, but I’m also fucking hilarious (or so I’ve told myself on numerous occasions). My Twitter handle is @BirdIsTheWorm.
4. Please be genuinely committed to the NYOP strategy. It doesn’t have to be for all of an artist’s albums. For instance, I’ll be doing a Tiny Review of an album for an artist who has one class of recordings as NYOP, but his “major” recordings at a normal retail price. I’m totally cool with that. I’m just asking that an artist not temporarily put their album at NYOP in order to get some print here, then switch it back to normal retail model after I publish the review. The NYOP model might not work for everyone, and it might not be an enduring good idea, but I want to add a little momentum to artists who are experimenting with new music retail strategies, because god knows, the music industry needs some.
I think that’s all I’ve got. We’ll see how this goes. I think this upcoming week will be dominated by the NYOP series, then I’ll start spreading them out a bit.
I’ll be posting the first article in the NYOP series momentarily, a review of Jason Parker Quartet‘s Five Leaves Left: A Tribute to Nick Drake.
In other BitW news, I’ve got two nice batches of Tiny Reviews just about ready to publish. It’ll either happen this week or next, depending on how the NYOP series goes. Also, I’ve got some reviews to pub for the ESP label by Frank Lowe, Marzette Watts, and Frank Wright; a couple are re-issues and one was never issued before. All three are very much in the free jazz school, recorded between ’66 & ’74. I don’t typically do older recordings, especially reissues, but I have a soft spot in my heart for ESP and have really been in the mood for some free jazz, so I made an exception.
Cheers, and thanks for visiting the site.
-Dave Sumner
May 17 2012
So, in addition to wanting to help get the spotlight on modern jazz, I’m also looking to begin making some headway on getting the spotlight on the jazz scene in my new home state of Kentucky.
And, as a result, I’ve begun a new site. It’s called Notes From the Holler. You may have noticed a new page tab just under the Bird is the Worm header image. I’ll be keeping a summary of Notes From the Holler posts under the tab of that name. In fact, I just added my first one. You can view it HERE.
As I said, Notes From the Holler will focus on Jazz in Kentucky. That means not just the recordings and live performances of local musicians, but also the live performances of touring musicians who make a stop in Kentucky. Due to my proximity to Cincinnati, I probably will expand my reach to that fine city. And, really, any time I go on a road trip and encounter jazz, I’ll be writing that up, too.
Upcoming posts include a preview of a Jeb Bishop – Tim Daisy show in Lexington, and a show review. A show review of the Hobgood – Watts show in Louisville a couple weeks back, and two jazz performances in Louisville over Derby weekend of the University of Louisville jazz ensemble and the Vanessa Morris – James Merenda duo. Also, I’ve been told that jazz shows are going to become a regular thing again at the Nach Bar in Louisville, so I expect to be making a few exuberant drunk posts after those shows, too.
Eventually, I hope to help the jazz scene in Kentucky grow, to give touring artists an incentive to make a stop in this beautiful state, and, further down the road, help to bring a jazz festival to these parts.
Lots of goals, lots of work, and lots of fun… even when I’m drowning in it and shouting profanities at my computer screen.
This is a work in process. I’m figuring out most of this stuff as I go along. Hopefully you’ll find it as enjoyable as I do.
If you’re a Kentucky jazz musician or making a tour stop in Kentucky, go ahead and contact me at this site’s email address (found on the About Me page). I’ll be happy to do some Get The Word Out legwork, which could manifest in an album review, show preview, show write-up, interview… really, whatever seems like a good idea at the time.
A request on some feedback from readers, a small item:
I’d like to keep my Jazz in Kentucky content strictly on Notes From The Holler, but I’m sensitive to readers getting exhausted from all the sites there are to visit, so I’m also considering just duping all my Jazz in Kentucky posts on both sites.
If you wouldn’t mind, please provide some feedback in the comments of this post, to let me know your thoughts on this subject. I’m really waffling on this subject, big time.
And, as always, I appreciate you stopping by to do a little reading.
Cheers.
Apr 29 2012
As the title says, I got a mention on NPR’s A Blog Supreme, in their weekly Around the Jazz Internet column. You can read the article HERE.
I’m flattered by the shout-out because it’s always nice to know that people are reading my site and finding something to like here, but also because A Blog Supreme is a site that I personally enjoy reading, and it’s a nifty feeling when the reader learns that he is also a readee, too. (And, yes, I’m leaving the word “readee” in place, even though my site’s spell checker and grammar adviser screamed in pain after I typed it.)
A Blog Supreme is run by Patrick Jarenwattananon. I don’t know him personally, but based on the quality of content on A Blog Supreme, from my outside perspective, he seems like one of the people helping to make Jazz a better place. Thanks, Patrick.
Here’s a link to NPR’s A Blog Supreme.
A few notes on other items in that article:
*****
For the record, I voted for the Takin’ Off version of “Watermelon Man” in Patrick’s Herbie Hancock twitter poll.
Aside from simply preferring the Takin’ Off version. that album is all wrapped up in nostalgia for me. It’s not my favorite Hancock album, but it is probably the one I have the strongest memories of.
I was well into my discovery of everything jazz. I was at the stage where I was adept at discovering new jazz through some of the standard avenues that most jazz fans become accustomed to… branching out by sideman, other artists on the same label from the same decade, etc etc etc. I, also, was getting pretty good at making educated guesses at what I might and might not like, but still wide-eyed to the point where there really was no such thing as a bad album choice. I was almost exclusively listening to jazz from the fifties and sixties at this point, though occasionally take a hit on new releases; Bill Frisell, certainly, Henry Threadgill, too. Javon Jackson, Omer Avital, Donald Harrison, Joshua Redman, Wayne Horvitz, some ECM titles here and there, to name a few. But mostly I was crunching through anything that was on Blue Note, Prestige, Riverside, Impulse, ESP, Columbia, Steeplechase, old-school ECM, Muse and Joel Dorn’s wonderful 32 Jazz re-issues of the Muse label, and so on and on.
I was living in Denver, up on Capitol Hill, and within walking distance of all types of great music stores. My favorite of the group was Jerry’s Record Exchange, over on Colfax. I could go on all day about that place, but I’ll save it for a future post. Also within a short walk was Wax Trax, which back in the 90s, took up almost half the block of 13th, between Washington and Pearl. Wax Trax had their main store right on the corner of 13th & Washington, then also had a used store next door, and a vinyl only store right across the street. I want to say that they also occupied another storefront along that stretch, perhaps a Jazz & Blues only store, but the memory is a bit hazy.
So one day, I’m out walking around my Capitol Hill neighborhood, just enjoying a beautiful autumn day and basking in the joy of living in a city where mountain ranges loomed over the horizon and the future was as wide as the Big Sky above me. Naturally, I said to myself, “Let’s go buy a new cd!” So I walked into Wax Trax and began flipping through the racks. I wasn’t there long. I was browsing through the Herbie Hancock section when I saw the cd of Takin’ Off.
Aside from the strong visual appeal of yet another classic Blue Note album cover, I immediately noticed Dexter Gordon‘s name appearing as a sideman. Gordon was a huge favorite of mine then (and still is, actually). I was completely hooked on Gordon’s One Flight Up, and probably owned another ten albums of his at that point, most of them as the session leader. So, one, I was intrigued to hear him in a sideman role, but waaaay more intrigued by hearing how Gordon and Hancock meshed.
I mean, right there in front of me, an opportunity to hear Dexter Gordon and Herbie Hancock, two of my favorite jazz musicians (and two of the first jazz musicians I ever heard, but that’s a story for another post), and it;s album that has been waiting for me to hear it for nearly thirty years. I grabbed that cd up, paid for it, and walked home, feeling even happier than I felt before entering the store.
It was one of those rare and wonderful days when nothing particularly momentous occurred to time stamp the day as special, but was simply filled with small observations and tiny events that were individually relatively insignificant, but their sum total was a reminder of how massively joyful life can be… the sun lighting up the Rocky Mountains, the color of autumn leaves blanketing the neighborhood, a quick stop into a favorite bar for a quick shot and word with the friendly bartender, an exchange of waves with familiar faces from the neighborhood, the act of walking into a music store on a whim and finding a gem of an album… everything. It was one of those days where the day could do no wrong.
And it didn’t. Takin’ Off was a blast to hear. I ended my afternoon sitting in my 4th floor apartment, listening to the album as I read the liner notes and looked over the session photos, my windows an unobstructed view of the Rocky Mountains and the downtown Denver skyline.
*****
And regarding that Brian McKnight – Duke Ellington Orchestra thing… that was real?! I thought that was just a running joke you and Nate Chinen and Jason Crane had going on Twitter. Guh.
*****
Jul 21 2012
The Wrap-Up: Using a liberal definition of the phrase “Bird is the Worm News”
Some miscellaneous updates on Bird is the Worm of a music nature:
I think that about wraps things up.
Cheers.
-Dave
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By davesumner • Announcement - Music, Announcement - Site & General • 0 • Tags: Emusic News, Notes From the Holler news