Thursday, February 5, 2009

Free Concerts on yr Computer

Wolfgang's Vault is on online service that provides, like many other online services, music and music-related merchandise (posters, t-shirts). But they have something that few if any of the others have: access to a deep well -- or vault, if you will -- of concert recordings dating back over forty years. The "Wolfgang" in the name is a hint to the source of those recordings, since Wolfgang Grajonca was the birth name of Bill Graham, legendary San Francisco-based concert promoter. So there are many rarely heard concerts from the classic era of late sixties music, available for your listening pleasure. But wait, there's more! Every week a few of those concerts are available for free streaming at your computer. Last night I listened to a Miles Davis show from March 1970, which means the band was most likely Wayne Shorter, Tony Williams, Chick Corea, Dave Holland, and Airto Moreira. Pret-ty cool.

You do have to register with the site, which means you get e-mails once or twice a week, but that's a small price to pay for access to great music, some of it free. Haven't bought any of the other stuff yet, but some of it looks good too.

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