Monthly Archives: November 2009

Free streaming music at Wolfgang’s Vault

I recently discovered an interesting music website, Wolfgang’s Vault. “The World’s Greatest Collection of Vintage Concert Recordings” has just acquired recordings from the  Newport Jazz and Folk Festival.
Wolfgang’s Vault now offers concert recordings by artists like Ahmad Jamal Trio, Dizzy Gillespie, The Four Freshman, Gene Krupa Quartet, George Shearing, Herbie Mann Sextet, Horace Silver Quintet, Jimmy Smith Trio, The Mastersounds, Oscar Peterson Trio, Maynard Ferguson, Stan Kenton Orchestra, Thelonious Monk and others as a MP3 download, or free music stream.

Double bass bike

Today, Jesper Bodilsen from Danmark stopped by to try out the Eminence and the Chrisopher RN. He is currently on tour with guitarist Ulf Wakenius, and while talking about travelling with the bass and double bass transportation in general, he told me that at his hometown Copenhagen, almost every bass player owns a Christiania bike. These bikes have two front wheels and a luggage space for up to 100 kgs. You can easily put a full size double bass and a small amplifier into the compartment. As I like riding a bike more than driving a car, I lik the idea of the Christiania bike. But a drawback is that you probably can’t go staircases with the Christiania. I keep my bikes stored at the basement (10 steps or something like that), and my local train station has maybe 30 steps and no elevator. Seems to be an insurmountable obstacle …

Updated: iRealBook Editor

Massimo Biolcati, double bassist from NYC and developper of the iRealBook iPhone-App has updated his iRealBook Editor software for Mac. Even if you don’t own a iPhone (or iPod touch), the iRealBookEditor is a really useful piece of software. You can put together leadsheets very fast, transpose the changes, and print them out or send as PDF. Besides this, Massimo has also launched a Forum – you can now send your tunes to the iRealBook Forum, and discuss and share your transcribed changes with other musicians. You can also find and download a couple of alternate versions and new tunes there, that don’t come with the iPhone app (yet). Massimo has solved this integration very simple, but elegant.