Text by Future Of Music Coalition
Hey gang, Casey from Future of Music Coalition here. I don’t always write to you personally, but I wanted to fill you in on an exciting project from FMC and our friends at CASH Music that YOU can help make happen.
It’s all about making sure you have the tools you need to do business on YOUR terms in today’s competitive music marketplace.
Text by DJ Ruby (DooBeeDoo’s New Orleans contributor)
Photo by Alex Woodward
In New Orleans the debate surrounding changes to the city’s noise ordinance continues to divide the city. The polemics surrounding the most recent set of changes to the city’s laws regarding sound began in December of 2013 when the New Orleans city council proposed restricting the decibel levels permissible in public space to their 1997 levels. The debate has made clear that the roots of this struggle run deep and has raised interesting questions about culture and preservation in the City That Care Forgot.
For bystanders the morning of January 17th might have appeared to be something of a celebration, but for those who participated, the demonstration at City Hall was an expression of complicated and layered feelings around the newest proposed sound ordinance. The collective voice of local musicians and their supporters echoed in the face of what has felt like a continuous effort to quiet them down, nevertheless progress on negotiations was stalled. On that morning City Hall was meant to accommodate a public hearing regarding the proposed changes to the noise ordinance that had undergone increasing scrutiny since its proposal in December. Musicians, residents and lawmakers were poised to present their cases in the chambers after months of discussion. But on the evening of the 16th the hearing was abruptly cancelled. The further postponement of a debate that has been affecting the cultural community for some time now felt like another rebuff and many felt that postponement was a tactic to lessen the traction gained by the musical community in the months leading up to the hearing.
Photo courtesy of Jeremy Danneman
Text by Jeremy Danneman
Dear Friends,
Rwandans and much of the rest of the world are now commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Rwandan Genocide, when nearly a million innocent people were murdered for their ethnicity or for being political dissidents. That means it’s also the fifth anniversary of the Parade of One project, when I first went to Rwanda to share my music and myself with others and to invite people to share themselves with me as well.
I would now like to share with you a tune I wrote commemorating the Rwandan Genocide. It’s titled Murambi Blues after the Murambi Genocide Memorial where thousands of innocent victims rest today. For a limited time only, this composition will be streaming on the Parade of One website. Some of you may remember me performing an unaccompanied version of this song at the United Nations Church Center for the 16th anniversary of the genocide.
I wish those friends of mine who were affected by the events twenty years ago a peaceful commemoration. Continue reading
by trichordist
Written in 1998, with the intent of protecting both copyright holders and website owners, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, quickly became a devastating problem for copyright holders. Not coincidentally, barely a year later, in 1999, Shawn Fanning launched Napster, marking the beginning of online piracy and over a decade of artist abuse.
Text by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi
Finally the Justice For Jazz Artists (J4JA) campaign’s leader John O’ Connor published the letter in Allegro (http://www.local802afm.org/2014/03/its-about-time/) which was written by seven prominent jazz musicians: Ron Carter, Jason Moran, Bob Cranshaw, Bill Frisell, Joe Lovano, Christian McBride and Jimmy Owens. The letter was sent to the owners and management teams at the Blue Note, the Jazz Standard and Birdland around November 2013 with the intention to get the owners of these clubs to the negotiation table. I can’t understand, why they didn’t send the same letter to the other jazz three clubs: the Village Vanguard, Iridium and Dizzy’s, and why it took so much time to publish it?
Apparently the club owners haven’t responded yet which proves again that this kind of communication and strategy can’t do anything good for the J4JA campaign. What is worse: after sending out the letter, Ron Carter, Joe Lovano, Bill Frisell and Christian McBride continue to play at the Blue Note which is unacceptable?! All these musicians should re-think, why they have been endorsing the J4JA campaign. Sending that letter out and yet performing at these clubs is just contra productive. This behavior makes them and jazz musicians in general look stupid and would show that jazz musicians are as greedy as the club owners. I can’t agree with John O’Conners’s comment “The letter…illustrate the commitment that musicians are making to the Justice For Jazz Artists campaign.”
