Online Radio - Last.fm

I fell in love last weekend - a strange thing to happen at my stage in life. And I'm still in the first flush of its impact on me. Last.fm offers an amazing cornucopia of music - almost all free. It's a site which proves the new web economics notion that the best way to sell things is to give stuff away. I put the system to a fairly severe test by typing in one of my favourite pianists - Michel Petrucciani - who is hardly a household name. But it came up immediately with a biography, pictures, details of all his CDs, video clips, and enough freely playable tracks to keep me distracted the whole of a late January afternoon. The interface offers you the chance to assemble tagged playlists, create your own radio station, and join groups. You can also remove advertising and get all sorts of extra priviledges for the ridiculously small fee of two and a half Euros a month. And whilst we're on the subject of music, I just spotted the new search facility at Musgle. This one I gave an even harder test. Find me (one of my favourite jazz tunes) Nothing Personal (which I used to think was a Joey Alexander composition, but which might be by Don Grolnick). Bam! It came up with two downloadable MP3 files instantly. Good work guys. Keep it up.

Jazz on radio - an update

After our brief honeymoon period I'm afraid my relationship with the new programme at www.theJazz.com may be coming to an end. They have introduced adverts - which is fair enough, since they have to make money sonehow. But they've also started using announcers as well, which we don't need, since the tracks currently playing are supposed to be listed on the DAB visual display. These presenters have (with the honourable exception of Mike Chadwick) one thing in common - they clearly know almost nothing about jazz. Then there's the notion that we need themed proramming according to time of day - the logic of which escapes me. And finally, if I hear crap such as Frank Sinatra singing "Fly me to the Moon" or Ella Fitzgerald grinding her way through "Mac the Knife" once more, I'll be throwing the radio through the nearest window. If this is their idea of jazz, it makes me feel like reaching for my gun. Yours sincerely, Victor Meldrew.