"As a musical language of communication, jazz is the first indigenous American style to affect music in the rest of the World. From the beat of ragtime syncopation and driving brass bands to soaring gospel choirs mixed with field hollers and the deep down growl of the blues, jazz's many roots are celebrated almost everywhere in the United States."
My world of music - Jazz - with many great resources for listening and reviews online
The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival this year is from April 22nd to May 1st.
BBC re-launches internet radio - I love this site!
From the Top is a weekly radio show broadcast throughout the USA. It originates from Boston's New England Conservatory, but travels all over showcasing young classical musicians. The show can be heard (RealAudio) from the website, and there is an extensive library as well an archive of past shows (photos too)... the kids are very talented, and the show's hosts are great at bringing out their personalities. - (via Mefi)
Can you see the music: What Michal Levy sees when he listens to Coltrane's work -Giant Steps (via Monkeyfilter)
Jazz musician, Gilad Atzmon's new cd, Exile, is a rich and demanding blend of post-bop jazz livened with a Middle Eastern flavor, where Atzmon's soprano sax blends with the eerie keening of the gifted Palestinian singer Reem Kelani. Atzmon has a PhD in Philosophy and a Master's in Music - read an interesting article by him, titled "Zionism and Other Marginal Thoughts"
Reports and Reviews from the fourth Radio 3 world music awards. (Music available now on CD. See links at this amazon.com page for previous year's CDs too)
Music about the atom bomb (1944-58)
Great guide to World Music
622 Music Videos ( many classics)
Mondomix - Music from around the world
Songlines- World Music Magazine
CDRoots - Music from the road less travelled
A script which allows direct downloading of content from Amazon directory of free MP3 Downloads. Requires Firefox with Greasemonkey extension.
Music from 15 seasons of The Simpsons in mp3 format for download.
Location location location [mp3s] The Phonography Archives, field recordings from around the world. Also, DeadSCSI, a global collaborative remix/collage/reremix project of tracks all generated from a single original sound file of a SCSI drive breaking down. These and other music/art projects are on Radiant Slab. - (via Mefi)
funky do morro From the ghettos of brazil comes this funky and fun music that recalls the energy and optimism of early 80's hip hop. Think Afrika Bambaataa and Malcolm McLaren. Before rap crossed over to the dark side.
Music Unleashes Rainbows of Color - A rare dysfunction - but seeing music sounds like a hallucigenic kind of effect - not sure I'd like to endure it everytime I heard something. Imagine what heavy metal would do to your brain!
For many years, tje South by Southwest music festival has provided on its website a library of free MP3s of bands participating in the conference. This year, the festival is making it even easier to listen by providing a huge BitTorrent file (2.6 GB) of more than 750 songs. The songs can be downloaded for free using the BitTorrent peer-to-peer file-sharing application.
From High Opera to Humble Folk Songs: The Best of Britten
Listen to tracks and watch videos from the recent Glastonbury festival
Over 30,000 records online, LP albums, 45's and 78's - many rare and unusual. You can Search the record catalog online or download it and browse offline.
MusicWiki is a free content music related encyclopedia/database
BBC Radio 3 has broadcast almost the entire surviving body of Bach's work by playing Bach 24 hours a day for 2 weeks before Xmas. This is available online for a full week via the BBC3 online radioplayer.
Heard
If u can listen to music while u work, webpages like Live365.com, winamp.com, or Shoutcast.com are great. I was listening to NPS output webradio via Shoutcast when I heard an interesting fusion Indian-classical music a song called Sharavana (mp3) by someone called Susheela Raman. So, I looked her up on Google.. the song is from her recent album, Music for Crocodiles ( read a couple of reviews), which has been nominated for the 2006 BBC Radio 3 Awards for World Music. This is her 3rd album after Salt Rain and Love Trap. If you are interested you can learn more about the singer or better still even listen to some of her songs with downloadable mp3s at her webpage. Looks like she's getting some great reviews...with a review in the Guardian saying, 'If Susheela Raman didn't exist, it would be necessary for a world-music focus group to invent her.' and another saying, ' Susheela Raman is that rarity: a genuine innovator.' and she's in a class of her own.'
Also nominated in the 2006 Radio 3 Music Awards in the Culture-Crossing Category is the legendary 'Golden voice of Bollywood', Asha Bhosle! In fact, more recently, theKronos Quartet and Asha Bhosle collaboration album, You've Stolen My Heart: Songs from R.D. Burman's Bollywood, has received a nomination for Best Contemporary World Music Album at the 48th Annual GRAMMY Awards. The awards ceremony will be held on Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2006, at Staples Center in Los Angeles. You can also listen to Asha Bhosle and David Harrington of the Kronos Quartet talk on NPR about their collaboration or listen to an interview with Asha Bhosle from Oct 2002 on Radio 4's Woman's Hour.
Also nominated is Algerian-born DJ, Cheb I Sabbah, who (excerpt from nomination link) ....
'mixes up heady Arabic and Indian sounds into a sitar, tabla and oud tinged groove that is proving popular across Europe and the USA. Sabbah avoids adding the hi-energy house music beats that so many contemporary DJs believe are necessary to make non-Western music forms palatable. Instead, he concentrates on creating a 'trance' groove that is in keeping with much of the music's original spiritual creation. Although Sabbah designs his music for Western dancers his sonic creations are supposed to evoke in the listeners a sense of oneness with the universe rather than simply the soundtrack to designer clubs and expensive restaurants.'
....
'Sabbah came to wider prominence with his recent CDs Shri Durga and Maha Maya on the Six Degrees label. Maha Maya is a remixed version of Shri Durga - the remixes were created by Sabbah and leading players in London 's Asian Underground scene (Trans-Global Underground, FunDaMental, etc.) The musicians he has assembled for his recent recordings include violinist K.Shivakumar and his niece, singer Radhika Rajiv. There's vedic chanting from P.T.Vijayaraghavan and zither playing by Pandit Ulhas Bapat ("Tum Bim Shyam"). Fusion maestro Bill Laswell plays bass. And ruling over it all is DJ Cheb I Sabbah, master mixer of cosmic Arabic-Indian sounds.'
