iTunes Purchase

I uncreatively use Microsoft and Yahoo! for nearly everything I do. It’s not that I don’t see the superiority of Google or Macintosh it just I prefer to go with what's popular and easy for these things. I see now that when it comes to music, I’ve lost out. I totally dig the new WiMP (version 11 beta), and have bought a bit of music from MSN and MusicMatch. I even helped start a business that sells local wma files as opposed to the aac and m4p files that Macs use, but I eventually had to install iTunes and use their store to make the following purchases. So sad to see that some labels or musicians only want to sell on iTunes and not these stores or the local online route. Ah well. Since I wasn’t able to bring myself to completely switch to iTunes, I immediately burned my purchases to music-CD in order to re-rip them to mp3PRO (my preferred unlocked format). I saw the CDs in a traditional CD store for some $18 or so, but decided I rather forego the fancy artwork for the downloads (which cost less than $10). So here’s what I bought.

“People People Music Music” by Groove Collective : The sixth full CD by perhaps my favorite band of the last 10 years – ever since their release of “We the People”. The music produced by the band (which despite their name is relatively cohesive over the 6 albums – very few member changes for a group of studio-grade jazzers of NYC) continues to fly under the radar of both critic and popular acclaim. That’s too bad. ‘Tis especially a shame that jazz-fans and jazz-critics are not able to appreciate the music, but maybe now that they are on Savoy, things will change. Granted the music is fun, but it also has its complexities. This album shows the band engaging in melodic and harmonic themes extending well beyond 8 bars, and solos that are truly stirring. The album lacks some of the rhythmic complexities we heard on Dance of the Drunken Master, but all in all a rich set of new jazz material. By the way, I am completely comfortable calling this jazz even though purists will be more apt to call it funk or sugar-free jazz.

“Observing Systems” by Tied and Tickled Trio : The second album I bought from iTunes was one I’ve been pining for for years now – but well worth the wait. This is a German band that makes a darker shade of acid-jazz than Groove Collective. What’s gone is the danceable jam-band tendencies, but what replaces it is the brooding glitchy trip-hop underpinnings that reek of euro-trash sophistication. Here is finally a group which I can say is closest to what I try to do in my music. Of course, what we struggle to do with four people, they manage to pull off with 3?! My guess is that trio doesn’t translate to a three-person band in this case. At any rate, this is a hard album to find in the US – but represents (along with the Groove Collective CD) some truly innovative jazz IMHO.