sonnymax Posted July 29, 2011 Report Share Posted July 29, 2011 I've been dismayed by the deluge of dubious reissues by face-less labels like Master Classics, Unique Jazz, Home Of The Stars, etc. I have to admit it brought a smile to my face to see the cover art for this recent drop from Jazz Co: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Storer Posted July 29, 2011 Report Share Posted July 29, 2011 I stumbled across a very cool French-Canadian drummer/composer on the improv/musique contemporaine side of things: Isaiah Ceccarelli (no relation to the swinging French drummer André Ceccarelli). I got both of his CDs available on eMusic and recommend them both: Bréviaires d'Epuisement has vocalists and clarinettists and Ceccarelli's percussion; the vocal pieces are sometimes reminiscent of early church vocal music, and the overall atmosphere is one of calm reflection despite the (comparatively) unorthodox sounds and textures that also appear. Here's a pretty good review of it: http://www.squidsear.com/cgi-bin/news/newsView.cgi?newsID=1296 His other CD on eMusic is called Lieux-Dits, featuring two reeds, guitar, bass and drums. There's a bit more "jazzy" feel to parts of this but many other things as well. Eclectic, fun, serious. Lieux-Dits is from 2006, Bréviaire d'Epuisement is from this year. Both on the Ambiances Magnétiques label. Poking around on Google, I see there is a strong avant-jazz scene in Montreal. Further investigation is in order. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chicago Expat Posted July 29, 2011 Report Share Posted July 29, 2011 I stumbled across a very cool French-Canadian drummer/composer on the improv/musique contemporaine side of things: Isaiah Ceccarelli (no relation to the swinging French drummer André Ceccarelli). I got both of his CDs available on eMusic and recommend them both: Bréviaires d'Epuisement has vocalists and clarinettists and Ceccarelli's percussion; the vocal pieces are sometimes reminiscent of early church vocal music, and the overall atmosphere is one of calm reflection despite the (comparatively) unorthodox sounds and textures that also appear. Here's a pretty good review of it: http://www.squidsear.com/cgi-bin/news/newsView.cgi?newsID=1296 His other CD on eMusic is called Lieux-Dits, featuring two reeds, guitar, bass and drums. There's a bit more "jazzy" feel to parts of this but many other things as well. Eclectic, fun, serious. Lieux-Dits is from 2006, Bréviaire d'Epuisement is from this year. Both on the Ambiances Magnétiques label. Poking around on Google, I see there is a strong avant-jazz scene in Montreal. Further investigation is in order. I noticed Breviarie as well. Ceccarilli is on my to-explore-further list. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colinmce Posted August 4, 2011 Report Share Posted August 4, 2011 So perhaps a stupid question, but I'm considering joining the site and would like to know how exactly it works. So you have your monthly plan for say, 40 songs or whatever. Does that mean your monthly fee covers that many songs and after you exceed that number you pay on a track by track or album by album basis? I found the site very unhelpful as far as explaining how it works. In short: if you have a 40 song plan, you don't pay for 40 songs per month beyond your monthly fee? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noj Posted August 4, 2011 Report Share Posted August 4, 2011 The plans are dollar amounts now, colinmce. I'm canceling, since I can order virtually as many physical CDs as my ration of downloads will afford at this point. It was fun while it lasted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chicago Expat Posted August 4, 2011 Report Share Posted August 4, 2011 So perhaps a stupid question, but I'm considering joining the site and would like to know how exactly it works. So you have your monthly plan for say, 40 songs or whatever. Does that mean your monthly fee covers that many songs and after you exceed that number you pay on a track by track or album by album basis? I found the site very unhelpful as far as explaining how it works. In short: if you have a 40 song plan, you don't pay for 40 songs per month beyond your monthly fee? Things have changed quite a bit over the last year. Basically, you choose an account which will cost you the same each month. If you choose one of the pricier plans, you get "bonus dollars", which means if you pay in twenty bucks a month, you actually get 22 bucks to spend (or something like that). From there, you just buy music. They no longer do credits or purchase-by-the-download. It's really no different than Amazon or iTunes anymore, except that you have a subscription amount (which you need to use within the month or you lose your money) and some albums are cheaper than if you buy them at Amazon or iTunes. Quite frankly, it's not the bargain it used to be, though there are some deals to be had. Keep in mind, the sound quality of emusic tracks doesn't always stack up to Amazon or iTunes, and the emusic downloader is for crap. However, emusic's new releases listings is far superior to that of amazon or itunes; it's more complete and you can sample the music straight from the list. Oh, hey, I don't know if they're still doing this, but they may give you some bonus dollars for joining, like 20 bucks or something. And I'm pretty sure that you're not locked into an annual subscription (unless you choose to be). Most subscription plans are month-to-month with no fee for quitting. Over time, I've come to dislike emusic and have found that the bargains to be found there aren't always worth the inconvenience of poor-sounding tracks and failed downloads and a perpetually misfunctioning site. Oh, and don't bother using the search engine. It's pretty worthless. It used to be a great place for music exploration at a cheap price. Now, not so much. But, hey, try it. You might find it worth your while. Just be sure to use your monthly allotment each month and if you don't like the service, either before or after the trial period, be sure to cancel or they'll keep charging your credit card. Cheers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colinmce Posted August 4, 2011 Report Share Posted August 4, 2011 Thanks for the info, very helpful. I basically want to use it to keep up on new jazz which is something I simply can't afford to do buying CDs. I'll have to think about it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chicago Expat Posted August 4, 2011 Report Share Posted August 4, 2011 Thanks for the info, very helpful. I basically want to use it to keep up on new jazz which is something I simply can't afford to do buying CDs. I'll have to think about it. That's what I use it to do. You just have to remember that sometimes it's a better deal (price, sound, convenience) at other sites. In the old days, you didn't have to shop around. Now, it's worth checking out prices at Amazon, itunes, bandcamp, 7digital, etc. But if you're willing to put in the commitment to search through the jazz new releases every month (and like I said, searching through new release listings at emusic is their best feature), you can find some very good deals on some very good new jazz. Cheers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Free For All Posted August 4, 2011 Report Share Posted August 4, 2011 A couple good deals.... Roland Hanna solo piano Mulligan/Baker Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjzee Posted August 4, 2011 Report Share Posted August 4, 2011 So perhaps a stupid question, but I'm considering joining the site and would like to know how exactly it works. So you have your monthly plan for say, 40 songs or whatever. Does that mean your monthly fee covers that many songs and after you exceed that number you pay on a track by track or album by album basis? I found the site very unhelpful as far as explaining how it works. In short: if you have a 40 song plan, you don't pay for 40 songs per month beyond your monthly fee? I have a basic monthly subscription: $5.99, which buys me $6.49 of music. Upon monthly renewal, I buy a $35 booster pack, which buys me $45 of music. So I've spent $40.99 and can download $51.49 of music. The advantage of this approach, as opposed to buying a larger subscription, is that I'm not locked in to spend a large monthly amount. I've found the sound quality to be comparable to Amazon or Apple downloads. And I have no problem with selection: even after all I've downloaded, I have close to 400 "saved items." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chicago Expat Posted August 5, 2011 Report Share Posted August 5, 2011 So perhaps a stupid question, but I'm considering joining the site and would like to know how exactly it works. So you have your monthly plan for say, 40 songs or whatever. Does that mean your monthly fee covers that many songs and after you exceed that number you pay on a track by track or album by album basis? I found the site very unhelpful as far as explaining how it works. In short: if you have a 40 song plan, you don't pay for 40 songs per month beyond your monthly fee? I have a basic monthly subscription: $5.99, which buys me $6.49 of music. Upon monthly renewal, I buy a $35 booster pack, which buys me $45 of music. So I've spent $40.99 and can download $51.49 of music. The advantage of this approach, as opposed to buying a larger subscription, is that I'm not locked in to spend a large monthly amount. I've found the sound quality to be comparable to Amazon or Apple downloads. And I have no problem with selection: even after all I've downloaded, I have close to 400 "saved items." That is a great point, mjzee. They often have some pretty decent offers on bonus dollars for booster packs. I've never been one to jump on those myself (mostly a financial decision), but I have friends over on another site (emusers) who really apply the strategy to those boosters and have done very well for themselves. I'm glad you brought boosters up, because it's an important element for someone new coming into emusic. Cheers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjzee Posted August 5, 2011 Report Share Posted August 5, 2011 First sighting of the Masters of Jazz label on eMusic: Dizzy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Storer Posted August 5, 2011 Report Share Posted August 5, 2011 Over time, I've come to dislike emusic and have found that the bargains to be found there aren't always worth the inconvenience of poor-sounding tracks and failed downloads and a perpetually misfunctioning site. Oh, and don't bother using the search engine. It's pretty worthless. I was having trouble with downloads but it turned out I was using an older version of their downloader. I got the most recent version and now it's working fine. I don't know what problem you have with the search engine... I find it very useful. You can search by artist, label, album title, song title... The results include both exact matches and fuzzy matches. It's a perfectly good search engine IMHO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chicago Expat Posted August 5, 2011 Report Share Posted August 5, 2011 (edited) Over time, I've come to dislike emusic and have found that the bargains to be found there aren't always worth the inconvenience of poor-sounding tracks and failed downloads and a perpetually misfunctioning site. Oh, and don't bother using the search engine. It's pretty worthless. I was having trouble with downloads but it turned out I was using an older version of their downloader. I got the most recent version and now it's working fine. I don't know what problem you have with the search engine... I find it very useful. You can search by artist, label, album title, song title... The results include both exact matches and fuzzy matches. It's a perfectly good search engine IMHO. Downloaders have been inconsistent for years. New versions create new problems, the type of thing I've never experienced with Amazon's downloader. The best emusic downloader is emusic/j, which isn't even an emu product; it was written by a crafty emu customer and distributed for free. The search engine on emusic is awful. I've lost track of the number of times I've typed in a name and it gave me results based on the first or second name in the engine, with the name I really wanted further down the first page of search results or even on the second page. Also, search results, if it does come back with the right name, are littered with permutations of each name which have to be searched because all the albums are split between them. Cannonball Adderley was a great example of this. It's been recently cleaned up, but searching for that name returned about twenty different results of which you'd have to go into and search under each permutation for the albums listed under there (including mis-spellings of his name). If I search for Cannonball on Amazon, it gives me one list of all his album. Not twenty different lists to search through. EDIT: Okay, it looks like maybe emu has done some improvements on this over the last few months. I know they did some site changes a couple months ago where the appearance is different, but it also looks like they did some clean-up of artist name mis-spellings but also it looks like they've solved their name permutation problem by tweaking the "Albums" results section, so maybe not as bad as it was before. That's a good thing, because for years that search engine was pretty worthless. Still not sure why they didn't just buy into the same smart technology search program like pretty much every major online retailer has. Miles Davis was another good one for showing the mess it made of things, but that "Albums" section seems to be their catch-all. 74 albums might be all they have on the site. Edited August 5, 2011 by Chicago Expat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alankin Posted August 5, 2011 Report Share Posted August 5, 2011 Does emusic include personnel or recording information or liner notes? The lack of these is one of the biggest annoyances with downloads. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chicago Expat Posted August 5, 2011 Report Share Posted August 5, 2011 Does emusic include personnel or recording information or liner notes? The lack of these is one of the biggest annoyances with downloads. No. Information tagging isn't really there. The classical music listeners rage about this a lot on the emu forums. I will add, however, that this wasn't as big of an annoyance as i thought it would be when I first joined. I don't mind filling in the blanks in my itunes library and it hasn't lessened the joy I experience of being able to discover and listen to new indie jazz. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RDK Posted August 5, 2011 Report Share Posted August 5, 2011 I had absolutely terrific experiences with emusic for the decade I was a member there. Found the downloader fast and easy (though I preferred their earliest and simplest one, without the bells and whistles) and found their search engine to be more than adequate. I canceled only recently after the price increases and revised business model, but mostly because my buying habits changed. It's unfortunate what it's become as I much preferred it when it was indie-only. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjzee Posted August 5, 2011 Report Share Posted August 5, 2011 So perhaps a stupid question, but I'm considering joining the site and would like to know how exactly it works. So you have your monthly plan for say, 40 songs or whatever. Does that mean your monthly fee covers that many songs and after you exceed that number you pay on a track by track or album by album basis? I found the site very unhelpful as far as explaining how it works. In short: if you have a 40 song plan, you don't pay for 40 songs per month beyond your monthly fee? I have a basic monthly subscription: $5.99, which buys me $6.49 of music. Upon monthly renewal, I buy a $35 booster pack, which buys me $45 of music. So I've spent $40.99 and can download $51.49 of music. The advantage of this approach, as opposed to buying a larger subscription, is that I'm not locked in to spend a large monthly amount. I've found the sound quality to be comparable to Amazon or Apple downloads. And I have no problem with selection: even after all I've downloaded, I have close to 400 "saved items." That is a great point, mjzee. They often have some pretty decent offers on bonus dollars for booster packs. I've never been one to jump on those myself (mostly a financial decision), but I have friends over on another site (emusers) who really apply the strategy to those boosters and have done very well for themselves. I'm glad you brought boosters up, because it's an important element for someone new coming into emusic. Cheers. The Booster Packs are good, because they enable one to buy music in between renewal dates. They used to have a bizarre system where you coung not buy music once your monthly credits ran out. Anyone remember those Best Buy "crack packs"? Ah, those were the days! What is the "emusers" site? Tell, tell! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chicago Expat Posted August 6, 2011 Report Share Posted August 6, 2011 (edited) The Booster Packs are good, because they enable one to buy music in between renewal dates. They used to have a bizarre system where you coung not buy music once your monthly credits ran out. Anyone remember those Best Buy "crack packs"? Ah, those were the days! What is the "emusers" site? Tell, tell! It's a real rudimentary style bulletin board, and it was originally created as an alternative to the emusic forums, which had grown sorta nasty. Now, however, several of us on that forum either are no longer emusic members or infrequent ones, and it's no longer just about talking about music to buy on emusic, but expanded to discuss great music found on bandcamp, 7digital, ubuweb, magnatunes, internet library archives, guvera, random artist sites and net labels, etc. I've never been associated with a group of people who both individually and as a whole have a more diverse taste in music than the emusers group. Found here... emusers.org link It makes a decent supplement to your normal jazz discussion, but its richest veins of music exploration can be found in experimental, electronica, afro-beat, drone/ambient, and classical (off the top of my head). Edited August 6, 2011 by Chicago Expat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A Lark Ascending Posted August 23, 2011 Report Share Posted August 23, 2011 E-music seems to have vanished! I've been getting 'Oops! Page Not Found' for 24 hours now. Hope its just a temporary blip! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjzee Posted August 23, 2011 Report Share Posted August 23, 2011 E-music seems to have vanished! I've been getting 'Oops! Page Not Found' for 24 hours now. Hope its just a temporary blip! It's working fine here: eMusic US. On the whole, though, it is a buggy site. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A Lark Ascending Posted August 23, 2011 Report Share Posted August 23, 2011 (edited) E-music seems to have vanished! I've been getting 'Oops! Page Not Found' for 24 hours now. Hope its just a temporary blip! It's working fine here: eMusic US. On the whole, though, it is a buggy site. Strange. I get the same error message linking there. (Just tried the 'Help' button - got to that page but every link took me back to 'Oops'. It did allow me log into my account with correct details there. But links, search etc just came back to Oops. Maybe they are doing some work on the UK version.) Edit: Seems to be a Google Chrome issue. Just tried via IE and it opens fine. Edited August 23, 2011 by A Lark Ascending Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjzee Posted August 25, 2011 Report Share Posted August 25, 2011 Just noticed these two new listings on eMusic from EMI. Copyright 2011...wasn't aware they still had a reissue program. Are these MP3-only releases? Bud Shank Cannonball Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjzee Posted September 1, 2011 Report Share Posted September 1, 2011 They've started carrying some Chronogical Classics; 2 so far: eMusic Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RDK Posted September 2, 2011 Report Share Posted September 2, 2011 Still cracks me up that they spelled "chronological" wrong. But I love the fact that they never corrected it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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