Three hundred fourteen items. Eight point three days. Seven point four gigebytes. According to the iTunes program on my main computer, that's how much free and legal audio I have gotten from podcasts. In case you don't know, podcasts are free downloads that usually include music, though they can include other audio or video files. If you have iTunes, downloaded free here, you can subscribe to a podcast. Then iTunes will look for and automatically download the most recent version of that podcast. But you don't need an iPod or iTunes to dowload or listen to the files. If you have audio at all on your computer you can listen to it that way, or you can burn the files onto a cd. If you do have an iPod, which I strongly recommend, you can download the podcasts as well as all other audio files on your computer and listen that way. Podcasts are legal because they operate in much the same way as a radio station, and many are in fact radio stations. Much of the music from the venues linked below is from classic cd's with labels, but a lot of it is produced by independent muscians. In each case the music is available in the hopes that listening will be a step toward buying. But it allows me to expand my permanent collection of jazz much faster than I could afford to do otherwise.
Since I bought my pod I have been listening both to a lot of music that sat buried in my cd cabinet for ages, as well as a lot of new music. iTunes is very good at organizing the music files by song title, artist, album, and genre.
Anyway, I thought it is only fitting that I return the favor of the radio stations and other parties who podcast music by mentioning their sites. Following are my favorite Jazz podcasts. I will devote future posts to other genres.
My heads above all favorite is In the Groove, Jazz and Beyond. DJ Ken Laster at WHUS (Radio for the People! Man.) spins a lot of classical and contemporary jazz, with a special fondness for Cannon Ball Aderley. You can get downloads at the website that don't come by way of the podcast, and you can download from there without using iTunes if you want to.
Straight No Chaser is another marvelous jazz show that focuses on themes. One of my favorite shows consisted on nothing but different versions of Charlie Mingus's great number, "Goodbye, Pork Pie Hat."
Another nice site, but much less frequently updated, is Red Jazz, which is tilted more toward smooth jazz.
Finally, Legends of Jazz has a series of interviews with muscians. The podcast belongs to the TV show of that name, hosted by Ramsey Lewis. The interview with Dave Brubeck would be worth $15 on its own, if it weren't free.
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