NOTE: Because of tech restrictions his post is credited to me, but was written by Rob Wetstone, our in-house jazz expert and head of content
Maynard Ferguson.
He was the iconic screamer; the bravado band leader who specialized in soaring high notes, shrieks and shakes; the guy, who, according to snickering high school legend, blew so hard [...]

(photo by SyGuildmistress
In addition to the deluge of WMG and affiliated titles on the site yesterday, I wanted to call out a few indie releases well worth your time and credits!
Vijay Iyer Trio, Historicity: Unanimously chosen as one of the best jazz records of 2009 (but, sadly, arriving on the site too late to make [...]

Today marks the 50th anniversary of Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue, aka every non-jazz listener’s favorite jazz record. You’ll see a lot of excellent essays this week about the impact of Blue and what it has meant to jazz and culture at large since. What you won’t see are many attempts to place the record [...]

When it comes to jazz, pretty much everything I know is bullshit. I traffic in half-truths and shallow assertions and hope that no one ever asks a followup (if they do, I’m all ears no mouth). If I’m completely honest with myself — and I’m doing my best to be — then I must admit [...]

Good News From Africa is a 1973 album from the South African jazz pianist Abdullah Ibrahim that I heard for the first time last week at the suggestion of Rob, head of label relations here and in-house classical and jazz nerd/savant. It was also prominent featured in Britt Robson’s User Guide to Abdullah Ibrahim. For [...]

It’s supposed to be the most depressing song in the world. It was allegedly banned in Hungary because of its devastating effects. Spurned lovers were found drowned in the Danube, the sheet music clutched in their fingers. Lonely women lay back on their beds and slipped into oblivion as the gramophone needle ground through the [...]

I love women that can sing. And I don’t mean just carry a tune, I mean chicks that can sang. The last time I was floored by a female solo performance was earlier this year at an Alice Smith concert at the Highline Ballroom. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Ms. Smith’s smoky, [...]

I love the Mercury Prize. I admit that the bands I want to win never do win (I’m so sorry British Sea Power, it’s all over for you now.) But the Mercury seems to be one of the very few awards that actually gets people talking about music, as opposed to sales figures or party [...]

Charles Mingus was clearly a man for whom feline cleanliness was important. I respect the dedication to cat training shown here – it’s kind of wonderful and all true – this is from his official website (and I do love that his cat was called Nightlife.)

The music policy in the eMusic Europe office is usually dictated by whoever gets to the stereo first (and it’s right by my chair, so I have a natural advantage here) but when we can’t agree on anything we listen to FIP.
FIP is a French radio station, based in Paris (the initials stand for [...]

Today’s new arrivals heading out of London, rather than New York, today but I promise to be fair and cover all the sites. So what have we got? Read on.

I’m a music person because of my father, a musician, and I’m an indie-minded guy because of a dude named Butch Lazorchak. I grew up outside of Blacksburg, Virginia (home to Virginia Tech), which had an amazing — and now out-of-business — indie record store called the Record Exchange. It was there that I bought [...]

We’re off and running — today begins our year-end countdown with the bottom half of our staff picks (our UK critics list is here).
Also, this week begins our series of interviews with ‘2007 Innovators’ — artists across genres who had notable years in ‘07. First up: Christian Scott.
So, any predictions for our critics’ #1?

Sometimes lost in the constant electronic and indie rock talk on 17 Dots is the awesome jazz collection that eMusic has. This week, our catalogue got a nice little injection with the arrival of the Monterey Jazz Festival imprint.

A great day for new releases, with fantastic new material from Akron/Family, Shout Out Louds, Besnard Lakes, Dirty Projectors and a host of others.

Lots and lots of great stuff came in over the weekend. Here are just some of the highlights…

Yesterday, Yancey mentioned the arrival of Supersilent’s 6 – one of the most excellent modern “jazz” albums I’ve ever heard. Why is that jazz in quotes? Well, there’s no other good way to describe what Supersilent and many other artists on Rune Grammofon do (except for a couple of notable exceptions).
We were lucky enough to [...]

Lots of excellent stuff today – let’s jump right in.

Sixteen SEVENTEEN songs, all of them great, and all of them totally free. That’s right, it’s time for the second annual Pitchfork Music Festival Sampler. Tracks by Dan Deacon, Professor Murder, Of Montreal, Menomena, William Parker, Grizzly Bear and on and on. All songs were chosen by Pitchfork and were subsequently sequenced by us (which [...]

Todd already tackled Smalltown Supersound, so allow me to discuss the decimating genius that is Smalltown Superjazzz, an incredible free-jazz/noise-rock label straight outta Norway.