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eMusic Song/Album recomendations

Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2003 11:38 am
by Nate Dogg
I just noticed that the UMG stuff was pulled off eMusic. The short term contract had expired. No more Verve. Oh well, there is still a lot of other good music on the site and supposedly on much longer term contracts.

I thought I would start a thread about songs/albums found on eMusic. Since, it one of the few downloading sites that is legal and has a decent selection of music suitable for DJing at swing dance events.

Here are a few to start with, some old standbys that everybody probably has already:

Bluella: Ella Fitzgerald Sings The Blues - Fantasy / Pablo
Count Basie and Oscar Peterson - Satch And Josh - Fantasy / Pablo
Count Basie and Oscar Peterson - Satch And Josh...Again - Fantasy / Pablo
Count Basie and Oscar Peterson - Night Rider - Fantasy / Pablo
Count Basie and Oscar Peterson - The Timekeepers - Fantasy / Pablo
Count Basie and Oscar Peterson - Yessir, That's My Baby (Note: Listed under Count Basie, not Count Basie and Oscar Peterson)

I could list tons of other albums and songs, but this should kick start the thread, I hope. I hope this thread saves folks some time in filtering through the site.

Also, I hope this does not turn into one of those "eMusic sucks because it of the sound quality" threads. All I can say there is that there is no rule saying you can't also buy these albums in CD form.

Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2003 8:06 pm
by LindyChef
Hey, you can download 2,000 tracks a month from them ... I had a big back and forth with them about this when they sent me a nastygram about the fact that I was downloadning too much music and they specifically advertised unlimited music ...

In about 4 months I've already downloaded every album in the Jazz section labeled Swing and Big Band and have made some good headway in Blues ...

And if anyone is wondering what I actually do with all this music, I have a hard drive mp3 player in my car ... with the unbearably long commutes in Houston, I get great mileage out it ...

Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2003 11:41 am
by szarka
A few artists with good stuff on there that I see in my downloads directory are Bill Elliott, Carmen McRae, Basie, Dave Frishberg, Ella, Ellington, Fats Waller, Fletcher Henderson, Helen Humes, Irene Reid, Jimmy Rushing, Jimmy Scott, Joe Williams, Junior Mance, Ken Peplowski, Kenny Burrell, Hamp, Louis Jordan, Maxine Sullivan, Ray Bryant, and Sarah Vaughan. Often searching for artists is more productive than searching for albums, since there's some good stuff buried on compilations. A couple I've found about about in the first place because of emusic are Carol Sloane and Bill Berry's LA Big Band--neither of whom knock my socks off, but they're both good enough to spin once in a blue moon.

On compilation that I ran across on there recently is called Jazz For Dads. Has a few nice tracks, including one with Gene Harris.

Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2003 12:01 pm
by Nate Dogg
Peter Cincotti

A CD that just hit eMusic, in the vein of Diana Krall, Harry Connick, Jr. There are a couple of danceable songs on it. Still listening to it, I have not tested any for an audience yet. In any case, it is brand new release from Concord, the AMG write up for the artist is below...

Peter Cincotti
Born in New York, NY
Years Active
Genres Jazz
Styles Vocal Jazz
Instruments Vocals, Piano

Pop/jazz pianist and singer Peter Cincotti was born in the Park Avenue apartment of his parents. He displayed a talent for music after being given a toy piano by his grandmother at age three, and when he was four he began taking piano lessons. At seven, he attracted the attention of Harry Connick Jr., who had him sit in at a show at Bally's Grand in Atlantic City, NJ. He studied classical piano at the Manhattan School of Music and studied jazz piano privately with Ellis Marsalis, among other teachers. At 12, he turned professional and began playing in clubs in New York. He began singing to his own accompaniment in 1999. That summer, he toured with Connick Jr.. In 2000, he appeared at the Montreux Jazz Festival, winning a prize in a piano competition. In 2001, he performed in the off-Broadway production of Our Sinatra. That year, he graduated from the Horace Mann School and, in the fall, enrolled as a freshman at Columbia University. In February 2002, at 18, he became the youngest performer to headline at the prestigious Oak Room of the Algonquin Hotel in New York. He was signed to Concord Records, and his self-titled debut album, produced by Phil Ramone, was released in March 2003. — William Ruhlmann

Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2003 12:51 pm
by szarka
Weird. Can't find it when you search for his name under artist, but it does turn up when you search for "Peter Cincotti" as the album title..

It's a shame that his version of "Rainbow Connection" isn't really good for dancing. :( I like "Are You the One?", though.

Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2003 11:48 am
by Nate Dogg
Three more albums for the thread...

Roy Milton- Fantasy / Specialty

Blowin' With Roy
Roy Milton And His Solid Senders
Groovy Blues

Posted: Sat Apr 26, 2003 9:37 am
by JohnDyer
Great recommendation on the Roy Milton CDs in emusic. Have listened to most of them now - Only problem is that now I have to buy the real CDs because I want to spin them regularly. <Sigh> Broke again :) I love using emusic as an evaluation tool. Well worth $10/month.

Speaking of emusic, anyone ever download Annie Ross? She seems to have some really good songs. I've listened to the Skylark CD - some good versions of good standards.

Posted: Sat Apr 26, 2003 10:05 am
by morte100
I've been really enjoying these two, lately:
Kenny Dorham Sings And Plays: This Is The Moment
Gene Harris: Down Home Blues

On a related note - has anyone had trouble with their emusic downloads? More specifically, sometimes when I download a song, it comes out distorted and un-listenable. When I delete it and download it again, it comes out fine. Any explanations? I'd really rather not have to listen to each song the whole way through before I burn them to CD.
_david

Posted: Sat Apr 26, 2003 10:36 am
by morte100
When I was searching emusic's forums for an answer to my question above, I came across this FYI:

We are in the process of re-encoding the entire EMusic catalog at a higher bit rate. Although we have not released a formal date for this change, it is not far off and we think it will make a big difference.

Posted: Sun Apr 27, 2003 10:13 am
by JohnDyer
morte100 wrote:When I was searching emusic's forums for an answer to my question above, I came across this FYI:

We are in the process of re-encoding the entire EMusic catalog at a higher bit rate. Although we have not released a formal date for this change, it is not far off and we think it will make a big difference.

SUPER SWEET! Perhaps a high enough bitrate to spin? <fingers crossed>

Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2003 12:54 am
by Nate Dogg
JohnDyer wrote:
morte100 wrote:When I was searching emusic's forums for an answer to my question above, I came across this FYI:

We are in the process of re-encoding the entire EMusic catalog at a higher bit rate. Although we have not released a formal date for this change, it is not far off and we think it will make a big difference.

SUPER SWEET! Perhaps a high enough bitrate to spin? <fingers crossed>
The higher bit rates will be a good thing. Obviously, they realized that their customer want that.

I do have to say that I spin from CDs created with eMusic MP3s all the time and I have never had a complaint.

Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2003 10:09 am
by GemZombie
At a higher bitrate, I'll actually probably sign on to the service. Ihope they go with 192k or maybe VBR...

Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2003 6:31 am
by JohnDyer
Nate Dogg wrote:The higher bit rates will be a good thing. Obviously, they realized that their customer want that.

I do have to say that I spin from CDs created with eMusic MP3s all the time and I have never had a complaint.
I have spun from them as well, but more for cozier settings. When going to bigger venues where every bit of quality is needed to overcome accoustics or sound systems, it makes a difference - to my ears anyway.

Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2003 10:19 pm
by Zot
Maybe even AAC? Can we hope?

Posted: Thu May 01, 2003 6:50 am
by Nate Dogg
First, some more eMusic albums.
Jive Bombers - Hit The Deck It's... the Jive Bombers (a band from the mid to late 90s, back when swing bands played Austin clubs every night).
Mary Stallings - Manhattan Moods
Bill Henderson - Complete VeeJay Recordings Volume 2
Marlena Shaw - Elemental Soul (specifically "Your Mind Is On Vacation")

Second, the bit rate announcement has occured.

Dear EMusic subscriber,

I'm pleased to inform you of a number of significant
enhancements to your EMusic service.

In response to the MANY requests from subscribers, we have
increased the bit rate of our MP3s from 128 KBPS to a
high-quality Variable Bit Rate (VBR). For those of you
not familiar with the "ins and outs" of encoding, this
means that the sound quality of our tracks has improved
dramatically. I feel comfortable saying that there is no
other music subscription service offering anything close
to EMusic's sound quality.

In addition, today we are launching the EMusic Download
Manager 2.0, including new versions of the download
manager for our Mac and Linux customers. The Windows
version includes fixes to a number of issues in the
previous version. The new Macintosh and Linux versions
are functionally equivalent to the Windows version and
will dramatically improve the downloading experience for
these customers. Click below to download the new version:

http://www.emusic.com/help/download.html

* Note: you must download the EMusic Download Manager 2.0
in order to download tracks or albums from EMusic.
Previous versions of the EMusic DLM or third party
download managers will not work. Click here to read a more
detailed discussion about these recent changes at EMusic.

http://www.emusic.com/dlm2

As always, I thank you for being an EMusic subscriber and
for your ongoing support.


Best regards,

Steve Grady
General Manager
EMusic.com