SoundCloud is a Very Cool Site

If you like music, and you enjoy sampling cutting-edge tracks by new talent, you need to check out a great new site called SoundCloud. Regular readers may have noticed that I posted some tracks in an earlier message using the high-quality SoundCloud audio player.  The player is a very versatile utility, letting you upload a track, edit, scrunch, tweak and manipulate it all over the place. Then playback and store the new creation.

SoundCloud is also a vast community of music creators and fans which offers quick-and-easy, down-and-dirty facility for uploading and sharing sound tracks. In just a few days of poking around, I have found some interesting tracks. Here is one posted  by a young man who calls himself T-Cash. He presents it as “inspired by an old church song.” T-Cash has stepped-up the beat and pushed that melody through the electronic instrument window to create a “Funky Piano/Tech/Power-guitar” track that I think is really good. Give a listen to The Golden City RC-2:

Take a look at the Sidebar (over to the right) and you will see a button/link inviting you, or anyone you know, to send me a soundtrack via my personal “drop box” at SoundCloud. I will listen, give the sender/composer/arranger/whoever some feedback and will consider posting the best tracks on this site. Hopefully, some hard-working new talent will get a modicum of exposure. We ain’t the big-time but, heck, we are pushing toward 40,000 hits and we just came online in January of 2009. It took quite a while to get the hang of it and develop enough decent content to invite scrutiny so, actually, we have only really been “out there” about six months.

Here is what you are looking for on the Sidebar:

Send me your track

Down To The Bone – the non-band

When I am looking to get groovy, get funky. When I am in one of those moods where I want my shoulders shaking and my head bobbing, I put on a little Down To The Bone. I call them a non-band because DTTB is essentially the genius of Stuart Wade – DJ, mixer, producer – pushed through a varying mixture of musicians.

Stuart Wade

Wade never studied music, nor does he play any instrument. He is not a composer, in the traditional sense. Rather, he “creates music” by humming tunes and grooves into a Dictaphone, or face-to-face with musicians in the recording studio. Over several years he has collaborated with a sizable group of musicians in producing three very successful albums with a new one about to be released. If this sounds kind of bush-league to you, take a few minutes and listen to the two sample tracks below.

My favorite is From Manhattan To Staten, released in 1997 by nuGroove Records. This is a collection of funky beats and cool Jazz. Take a sample of the opening track, Staten Island Groove:

My favorite DTTB track, without a doubt, is Brooklyn Heights. In fact, it is one of my favorite Jazz tracks of all time. I defy you to keep still with this track going at a decent volume. I love to listen to this one through my Sennheiser headphones, getting every note from every instrument. My grandson, Evan, when he was just a wee tot, became a groovy dancer when I would put on a little Brooklyn Heights. Cutest thing ever. If you’re holding a beverage, put it down before you listen to this tune:

Manhattan to Staten cover

My buddy Dick Molvin

Dick Molvin

Welcome to Dick Molvin, a long-time friend and a real jazz aficianado.  Running a flourishing dental practice by day, Dick also hosted a night-time Jazz radio show in North Carolina. He will be around to share his musical knowledge and his first-hand memories of some of the interesting characters of Jazz & Big Band.

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