WOSU@COSI – A National Model

 

It has been a few months since WOSU Public Media opened the doors of its new digital media center – WOSU@COSI. The design and functionality of the space has received high marks from community and corporate leadership. We’ve been very excited about the many diverse projects recently at WOSU@COSI reflecting our mission of local programming, outreach, and education.

The national buzz about this project has been gratifying as well:

 

- A cover story and extensive piece in Government Video Magazine, a national publication for the video industry and additional stories in TV Technology and Broadcast Engineering magazines;

- Feature splashes on the front page of several national public broadcast websites including America’s Public Television Stations and National Educational Telecommunications Association;

- A presentation on WOSU@COSI for the national PBS conference in Norfolk, Virginia about the partnership with COSI and community impact of the project.

 

 

In fact, The Ohio State University posted a video feature with a tour of our facility on the front page of their web page, www.osu.edu, when we opened our doors, and it received the most attention of any video feature in 2006 with over 6,500 views of the video stream.

 

We invite you to take part in any of the many events at WOSU@COSI—from “live” performance and talk show productions to our special “Share-a-Story” events for children. Members receive special notification of those events and activities, so if you want to help us continue our commitment to serve the Columbus area, please join 22,000 others who support public broadcasting and WOSU by clicking through to http://wosu.org/give/pledge/.

The WOSU@COSI project has a special need until March 1, 2007 as we attempt to meet a challenge from the Kresge Foundation. If we can raise funding from a broad swath of supporters for the WOSU@COSI project, Kresge will contribute $500,000 to the project. We have a goal to meet. Please consider joining over 1,500 individuals who have answered the Kresge challenge and do so by March 1!

Thank you
Tom Rieland, General Manager, WOSU Public Media

Anchoring the Flagships

Anchoring the Flagships

Talking with Marilyn Smith and Christina Morgan

 Marilyn Smith has been hosting Morning Edition, and Christina Morgan has hosted All Things Considered, for the past two and a half years. But both women started working at WOSU over two decades ago, as graduate students at Ohio State. Their WOSU careers since have included reporting, producing, hosting morning news and afternoon call-in talk shows, even serving as News Director. But, “I love anchoring,” says Marilyn, and Christina agrees. “You really feel like you’re connecting with the audience one-on-one.”

 
“Anchoring almost has a relaxing effect,” says Christina. “If I’m having a bad day it doesn’t matter, it’s not the audience’s problem. All they want is the information.” Marilyn adds, “It’s not about you. You are just the conduit. It helps you keep things in perspective.”

 
Both women admit that a challenge to hosting newsmagazines is the writing. It might sound like they’re talking off-the-cuff, but every news story is scripted. The trick is writing the script to sound like everyday conversation. And of course, not getting caught up in mistakes. “The joy of radio is that you can fall, recover, and move on,” says Marilyn. “You have to shake it off.” She remembers with laughter a time when Jo Ingles, now with the Statehouse News Bureau, used to work at WOSU. Marilyn handed off to Jo for the traffic report, “and all you heard was three breaths in, a huge sneeze, and then nothing. It sounded like Jo blew herself out of her seat!”

 
“It’s times like those that show the audience we’re human,” says Christina. And serving the audience is the hosts’ priority. “We wouldn’t be here without them,” Christina adds, “so we always keep the audience in mind, and always try to show respect for them. Our audience is so intelligent, it makes our work challenging – and fun.”

You Go Digital

On February 17, 2009 the analog portion of the broadcast spectrum will be officially shut down as per Congressional mandate. What does that mean to your TV reception? What does it mean to stations like WOSU?

 

St. Claire of Assisi and You Go Digital

By Tom Rieland

I have a small statue on my desk of a St. Clare of Assisi.  Something I found in a voodoo shop in New Orleans many years ago. It was only recently that I learned her story.

 

At 18, she was inspired by a sermon by St. Francis of Assisi and during the night escaped her wealthy family to live a life without any worldly possessions. With the support of St. Francis, she established the Order of Poor Clares and led it for forty years. Toward the end of her life in the 1250s, she was too ill to attend Mass, but miraculously was able to see and hear the service on the wall of her monastery cell. It was on this basis that on February 17, 1958, Pope Pius XII designated St. Clare of Assisi as the patron saint of television.

 

What does this have to do with analog or digital TV?  Well, it will be that date, but 51 years later, February 17, 2009, that will mark the end of all analog television broadcasts in America.  An aide in a congressional office somewhere must have known the story of St. Claire of Assisi.

 Why fool with my TV?

For 50 years, WOSU television has been a fixture at Channel 34 in Columbus. Why fool with a good thing? Follow the money. When congress became aware of digital television and how implemention of a new digital transmission process could open up wide spans of the electromagnetic spectrum for wireless companies, it looked like a slam dunk winner. We’ll just move television off that beachfront property, transition to digital and open up that spectrum for a huge auction to help the federal deficit. In fact, the sale of this valuable, scarce real estate is expected to bring in about $10 billion, maybe more. That’s real money!

When the spectrum is sold off, the companies that buy it will use it to develop new technology and services. Cheap, ubiquitous wireless broadband access is one possibility. Mobile TV or music services are others.

When the federal government set the transition’s rules in December 1996, regulators stipulated that the transition would be over and analog broadcasting would end in 2006. Back then, 2006 seemed an impossibly long time away.

The provision that sets the new dead date for analog TV was included in S.1932, a hotly contested bill that slashed federal spending by $40 billion over the next five years. The bill squeaked by the Senate four days before Christmas on a vote of 51-50, with Vice President Dick Cheney abbreviating a trip to the Middle East to return and cast the deciding vote.

The bill, ultimately named the “Work, Marriage, and Family Promotion Reconciliation Act of 2005,” also included up to $1.5 billion for the set-top converters that would allow analog-only TV sets to process digital signals.

In about two years, analog TV will be retired in order to free up portions of our scarce broadcast spectrum. Those portions will then be repurposed for public safety and emergency services or sold for new wireless offerings, among other things.  From a station standpoint, the change means we can shutoff our aging analog transmitters and save as much as $100,000 annually in electricity costs. 

What about my Analog TV?

Chances are you have at least one analog TV still in use somewhere in your home - Unfortunately, analog televisions are inherently incompatible with a Digital Television (DTV) signal. If any of your analog sets rely on an antenna for programming, their screens will go dark come February 17, 2009. On February 17, 2009 the analog portion of the broadcast spectrum will be officially shut down as per Congressional mandate. From that point forward, television broadcasters will only be permitted to transmit using the DTV format. The impending analog shutdown is nothing to panic about, but you would be wise to understand how this event will affect you and your televisions. This is especially true if you pluck your programming from the sky using a rooftop antenna or old rabbit ears on your TV.

• With the help of an external set-top box, off-air DTV signals can be converted to analog so older televisions can display the signal. According to the FCC, the government will help subsidize the purchase of two such boxes for each qualifying household beginning in 2008.
  
  
• You will not need to purchase a new antenna. The same VHF/UHF antenna that receives your analog broadcasts will work fine for DTV.
• If you’re a cable customer, you will be required to have a set-top box capable of decoding DTV.  In many cases, you might already have such a box. For example, Time Warner in Columbus has announced that all their cable boxes are essentially digital boxes now. Analog is gone.
  
  
• If you’re a satellite customer, you already have a digital-to-analog converter in your satellite receiver box.
  
  
• Your analog televisions will continue to be 100% compatible with your VCR, DVD player, camcorder, game console and any other source devices you use with them today.

If you choose to stick with your analog television and go the converter box route, just remember that it’s not a magic box. A converter will not transform your TV into a HDTV. It’s true that you will be able to watch a DTV signal, but you will still be constrained by the resolution of your analog TV - less than half of true HDTV.

Government Help

In the Columbus market, the estimate is that about 13 percent of households receive their television signals over-the-air. This means at least  120,000 homes in central and southern Ohio will face an issue of purchasing a new set-top box to continue to receive programming.
Nationally, it’s estimated that about 70 million sets will need such boxes.

Roughly 20 million of those soon-to-be-obsolete sets are in homes where people don’t subscribe to cable or satellite. The other 50 million or so are in pay TV homes, and used as second, third or fourth sets. Sets hooked up to cable or satellite services should work fine no matter what.

Of course, your representatives in Congress are aware of this little issue. To avoid a consumer revolt, Congress has set aside about $1.5 billion to smooth the transition. Owners of outmoded TV sets will be eligible for two vouchers, worth $40 each, to help buy converter boxes that will enable today’s analog TV sets to receive digital signals.

People are supposed to apply for the vouchers during a three-month window in 2008, and use them within three months. But there probably won’t be enough vouchers to go around, and no one really knows how much converter boxes will cost.

For the latest information about the digital transition that might impact your television set checkout:

http://www.dtv.gov/  (look for the time clock countdown to digital transition)

http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/digitaltv.html

Digital radio

Will Digital Radio Boom in U.S.?

By Dave Demerjian | Also by this reporter
02:00 AM Jan, 18, 2007

U.S. radio broadcasters are banking on HD Radio — which transmits digital signals over normal AM and FM bands — as a crucial weapon in their battle with satellite broadcasters. But so far the response from listeners has been lukewarm.

Not so in the United Kingdom, where similar technology — known simply as “digital radio” — has become hugely popular. With radio giant Clear Channel recently launching a new digital partnership with Microsoft, is this the year that HD Radio will take off in the United States?

Because the U.S. radio spectrum is crowded and certain parts of it are reserved for the military, HD Radio piggybacks digital signals onto existing analog AM or FM signals rather than transmitting them over a different part of the spectrum, as is the case in the United Kingdom. But in both countries, digital radio technology delivers better sound quality than analog radio, and offers more variety and a host of special features. And, unlike satellite radio, there are no subscription fees, only the cost of buying a digital receiver.

In the United Kingdom, more than 4.7 million digital radios have been sold since 1999. Listeners browse station listings in an electronic program guide, pause and rewind content as it’s broadcast, bookmark specific programs or songs, and record them using postage-stamp-size memory cards. And starting in May, they can buy songs as they hear them on the radio, downloading them to computers, digital receivers or cell phones.

“Consumers are no longer interested in a box that spits out content on a certain schedule,” says Simon Cole, CEO of UBC Media, a U.K. company that provides technology services to radio stations. “Digital radio is delivering features that excite listeners.”

But in the United States? Not so much. Slightly more than 1,000 U.S. stations now broadcast in HD Radio, according to iBiquity Digital, the company that created the technology behind digital radio in the United States. But none yet offer the features available in the United Kingdom. Instead, they use the additional frequencies HD Radio technology provides to offer new channels of content called “multicasts.” Top 40 station WNKS, for example, simulcasts its main analog signal on one of its HD Radio frequencies, and multicasts a Christian format on the other.

“Multicasting is HD Radio’s initial value proposition, but it’s just a first step,” says iBiquity CEO Bob Struble.

Struble envisions HD Radio eventually delivering scrolling-text news and traffic updates, integrating with car navigation systems, and offering on-demand song downloads. And the new partnership between Clear Channel and Microsoft will create a national data service called MSN Direct HD that delivers localized, personalized content to home and car HD Radio receivers.

HD Radio receiver sales reached the “low hundred thousands” in 2006, a significant jump from 2005, but miniscule next to XM’s and Sirius‘ more than 13.5 million satellite radio subscribers.

Part of the reason is political. While the U.K. government — which controls much of the country’s broadcasting industry — was able to influence a national shift to digital, for-profit U.S. broadcasters were hesitant to embrace the unproven and expensive technology until satellite radio emerged as a competitive threat. (IBiquity estimates it costs $80,000 to $100,000 to upgrade a radio station to HD Radio.)

Awareness of the technology is another challenge. Two clerks at a Best Buy in Boston responded with blank stares when asked about HD radio, and the store had no home receivers in stock (though a handful of car receivers were available). And in an admittedly unscientific survey by Wired News of 15 urban professionals between the ages of 24 and 40, only two could properly identify HD Radio.

IBiquity says that the HD Digital Radio Alliance, a consortium of U.S. broadcasting chains, will commit nearly $250 million in air time to promote the format in 2007. And UBC Media’s Simon Cole says that satellite’s head start in the United States might actually be good news for HD Radio. “Satellite is softening up the market,” he says. “It’s waking U.S. consumers up to what digital can deliver.”

Cole has watched digital radio take off in the United Kingdom, and believes it’s only a matter of time before the same thing happens in the United States. “Three years ago I walked into (London department store) John Lewis and watched consumers completely ignore the tiny selection of digital radios for sale,” he recalls. “This year I walked in, and couldn’t find an analog radio. Digital was all they offered.”

PBS Debuts ‘NEWS FLASH FIVE’

PASADENA, Calif., Jan. 15 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — 2007 PBS Press Tour – - PBS today announced the launch of NEWS FLASH FIVE (http://www.pbskids.org/newsflashfive), a pioneering Web site to encourage 8- 11 year olds to learn about current events, and bring them a fresh way of receiving — and reporting — news online. The announcement was made at the Television Critics Association Press Tour.

A recent survey of pbskidsgo.org users and children of pbs.org and pbsparents.org users revealed a high level of interest in the news. The survey showed almost four in five kids described themselves as interested or very interested in the news, but only one in four thought most news stories are “very easy” to understand.

At the heart of NEWS FLASH FIVE is an original, age-appropriate weekly newscast presented online by five animated kids covering five beats: national news, world, sports, entertainment & technology, and weather & science.

In addition, the site will feature educational games associated with each newscast — “Just the Facts” (a news quiz), “Pin Point” (locate places in the news on a map) and “Match It,” (matching photos and names of news makers). A larger activity — “Get the Scoop ” — is a guided news gathering and writing activity. There will also be opportunities for users to submit their own stories that can be used on the site.

NEWS FLASH FIVE will also offer comprehensive guides showing how the site can be used by both parents and teachers. These guides include:     News & Current Affairs Primer     Featuring activities for the home and school, tips for talking to kids about the news, how to make news relevant to kids, and how to watch the news with a critical eye.

Current Events Lesson Plan:     Here, students will analyze the role current events play in their lives.
Making News Lesson Plan:     In this activity, students critique news reports and compare the different media that are used to report the news.
Get the Scoop Lesson Plan:     In this lesson, students will practice and perfect the skills necessary for reporting a news story.

NEWS FLASH FIVE is produced by Thirteen/WNET New York, in consultation with the Online NewsHour, and is funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

About PBS KIDS     PBS KIDS, for preschoolers, and PBS KIDS GO!, for early elementary school kids, are committed to providing the highest quality non-commercial content and learning environment for children across the country. Providing age- appropriate, diverse programming for kids, PBS KIDS and PBS KIDS GO! programs consistently earn more prestigious awards than any other broadcast or cable network. Only PBS KIDS and PBS KIDS GO! have earned the unanimous endorsement of parents, children, industry leaders and teachers. With additional PBS resources to complement its programming, including PBS KIDS online (http://www.pbskids.org), PBS KIDS GO! online (http://www.pbskidsgo.org), PBS Parents (http://www.pbsparents.org), PBS TeacherSource ( http://www.pbsteachersource.org), PBS Ready To Learn services and literacy events across the country, PBS is providing the tools necessary for positive child development. PBS is a nonprofit media enterprise owned and operated by the nation’s 354 public television stations, serving nearly 90 million people each week and reaching 99% of American homes.

BILL MOYERS JOURNAL Returns to PBS Line-Up in April

PASADENA, Calif., Jan. 15 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Veteran journalist Bill Moyers returns to PBS in April with a weekly public affairs series entitled BILL MOYERS JOURNAL — the name of his first important series on public television 35 years ago.

Moyers is re-inventing the broadcast for the 21st century, as viewers will see when they tune in for the premiere on Wednesday, April 25 at 9 p.m. for his documentary report: “Buying the War” about the role of the press in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. The series will then air in its regular timeslot: Fridays at 9 p.m. (check local listings) on PBS.

Moyers, who recently received the Lifetime Achievement Emmy Award, said in a statement, “When I retired from NOW WITH BILL MOYERS two years ago, I said that I wasn’t retiring from television. Sure enough, we produced two gratifying series in 2006 — FAITH & REASON and MOYERS ON AMERICA — and the response to those broadcasts, and the work itself, simply whetted my appetite for more. People keep writing or stopping me on the street to suggest stories that are not being reported and voices that are not being heard. A lot of Americans long for more than conventional wisdom, celebrity pundits, predictable opinions and safe analysis of the obvious. There’s a vacuum across the media spectrum, and several funders have stepped forward to say they would support us in our effort to fill it with independent journalism on the arts and letters, science, religion, business, foreign policy and the media. I’m as eager and charged as I was over 30 years ago when I entered this game. Ponce de Leon would still be around today if he had given up his search for the fountain of youth and just entered journalism.”

“We are excited to have Bill’s voice back in the public affairs line-up,” says PBS Chief Content Officer John Boland. “As I have traveled the country in recent months, I have heard friends of public television everywhere acclaiming his two series of 2006. We are proud to be bringing his journalistic instincts to our audience each week.”

The premiere of BILL MOYERS JOURNAL, “Buying the War,” explores the role of the press in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq, including how the government’s claims about weapons of mass destruction and terrorist ties to Saddam Hussein were largely accepted at face value by the mainstream media and cheer-leaded by the “partisan press.”

The marketing of the war has been much examined, but BILL MOYERS JOURNAL looks at how key elements of the media bought into the propaganda. “Buying the War” features interviews with Dan Rather, formerly of CBS; Tim Russert of “Meet the Press”; Bob Simon of “60 Minutes”; Walter Pincus of the Washington Post; Walter Isaacson, then president of CNN; editor at large of The New Republic and author Peter Beinart; talk show host Phil Donahue; and James Wolcott, Jonathan Landay and Warren Strobel of Knight Ridder, which was acquired by the McClatchy Company in 2006. Virtually alone, Knight Ridder asked for the hard evidence to back up the president’s justification of the war.

“We’re sending young men and women, and nowadays not so young men and women, to risk their lives. And everyone wants to be behind them. And everyone should be behind them,” says James Walcott, Washington bureau chief of Knight Ridder. “The question for us in journalism is, are we really behind them when we fail to do our jobs?”

BILL MOYERS JOURNAL is supported by an extensive companion Web site at pbs.org/moyers where visitors can interact, give feedback and sign up for the Moyers podcast, which was listed in iTunes Best of 2006 People’s Choice top 100 new podcasts. After the broadcast, each episode will be available in its entirety for viewing online.     BILL MOYERS JOURNAL is funded by the Partridge Foundation, the Park Foundation, The Herb Alpert Foundation and sole corporate funder Mutual of America Life Insurance Company.

Web Sites making music

Web Sites Making Music for Your Ears

by Melody Joy Kramer

Free, personalized internet radio stations find new music that you’ll probably like.

NPR.org, January 8, 2007 · Sure, you can put your ear against the bedroom wall and listen to your neighbor’s new Sufjan Stevens album. My dad would call that music-sharing, and while it’s definitely legit, the sound quality just isn’t so hot (especially if the walls are insulated.)

But there are all sorts of music-sharing Web sites out there — besides iTunes — that will introduce you to your cyberspace neighbors and their music. Below, a few of the best:

Pandora.com

Who’s It For: Wannabe DJs; music aficionados ready to experiment

What It Is: A personalized streaming Internet radio station that finds music you’ll probably like, based on an algorithm that analyzes music you already enjoy.

How It Works: Type in the name of an artist or song you like. The search engine finds similar tunes based on the melody, harmony, lyrics, arrangements and instrumentation of your selection and then streams the tunes. (It’s free, and the site features over 10,000 different artists, so you’ll definitely find some unknowns mixed in with singers you know.) Give the first song a thumbs-up, and Pandora will play even more similar ones; a thumbs-down will send the search engine scrambling for alternates. Best of all, you can enter more than one musician or song, making sure you’ll be introduced to all kinds of new licks. (If you can’t think of any music you like, you can check out popular streams from other users.)

Sample: Entering the artist Gnarls Barkley got me the happy-go-lucky Barkley tune “Smiley Faces,” followed by the catchy “Losing my Edge” by LCD Soundsystem, which (sort of) reminded me of Barkley. Pandora then segued into “Dreams” by Deep Dish, a duo I’d never heard of, before following up with the trance-like “Time of Our Lives” by Paul Van Dyk.

Amie Street

Who It’s For: Local-music lovers; hedge-fund managers

What It Is: A futures market for independent music fanatics, Amie Street is an iTunes-clone that features (mostly unsigned) bands from a wide variety of genres.

How It Works: Bands post their tunes. Listeners can purchase songs, but the price depends on how many times a song has already been downloaded (all songs start out free and can rise to 98 cents). Right now, the database has about 10,000 songs. Recommending a tune before it (potentially) hits the mainstream pays off. Listeners receive a limited number of song-recommendation-tokens, which can be affixed to any tune you like (whether or not you decide to purchase). If lots of folks download a recommended song, its price goes up and you receive credit to buy future songs.

Sample: I found a Philly band called Shot x Shot that had over 300 downloads but no recommendations, which meant their song “Bee Assassin” was free. Sweet. After downloading the lick, which sounded like a mix between the minimalist composer Philip Glass and an atonal jazz band, I decided to recommend it to others on the site. If people now decide to download the song based on my recommendation, I’ll receive about eight cents toward a future purchase.

Last.fm

Who It’s For: People who say “I know this great song that you just HAVE to listen to,” and their friends.

What It Is: A free, personalized streaming radio that picks music based on what other users (with overlapping tastes) recommend.

How It Works: The year-old site, which has over 30,000 songs, overlaps the music that you already like with the songs that other users like. The site also lets you create a profile with the music you like, so other users with similar tastes can see exactly what you’re listening to.

Sample: I entered the folk-rock singer Beth Orton into the search engine. One of her songs began to play, followed by songs from Cat Power and Belle and Sebastian — both artists recommended by other users who like Orton.

The Hype Machine

Who It’s For: “People who like any type of music”-type people

What It Is: The site compiles all mp3s posted on various music blogs, then streams the songs.

How It Works: Search for your favorite artists, or listen to the currently-most-blogged-about songs. Because the constantly updating site samples from a wide variety of music blogs, chances are you’ll hear songs you’ve never heard of.

Sample: In 30 minutes, I heard songs by Los Lobos, Dolly Parton, Billy Bragg, James Brown, The Beatles, and The Eternals. Talk about eclectic.

Related NPR Stories

• May 7, 2006 Orchestras Search for Download Audience
• Oct. 23, 2006 User Tips: How to Reshuffle Your iPod
• Jan. 1, 2007 Year in Culture: Video’s New Ubiquity
• Dec. 28, 2006 Will 2007 Bring Another YouTube Phenomenon?

Free classical podcasts

Wikipedia provides links to many free classical pieces…

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Classical_music
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sound/list

Free classical podcasts on iTunes

No, this isn’t a “Free iTunes Tuesday” type of thing offered by Apple. There are a few podcasts available on iTunes that make recordings of classical music available free for your enjoyment. The first two podcasts are thanks to Deutsche Welle, a German international broadcasting service, and they are Beethovenfest and Classical Masterpieces.

So far, between the two, there is some Beethoven (obviously) as well as some Schumann, Brahms, Bruckner, and Strauss. The best part about the podcasts is this: each piece is offered as a separate recording. I was suspicious that I’d be downloading one giant, 4-hour-long podcast with various pieces mixed in together, but that is thankfully not the case with these.
If you don’t mind a bunch of movements or pieces stuck together into one giant file, another one to check out might be the Magnatune Vivaldi podcast. Also available are the 1stpiano free piano podcast and the Cello podcast (mmmmm cello).

I’m sure there are even more that I haven’t had a chance to hunt out yet, but those are good for a start. Free podcasts of classical music make the Cheap Jacqui™ happy.

Source: http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2007/1/5/6490

Jazz Online

Classic Jazz Online—Check It Out

by Don Mopsick

Before the recent explosion of online streaming media, fans of classic jazz had to settle for the more traditional ways of getting to “the good stuff” —CDs, DVDs, and of course the airwaves including public radio. But now, new streaming sites such as YouTube.com, Pandora.com and a host of others are creating a rapidly expanding universe of choices.

And, it’s individuals—ordinary folks who share our passsion—who are leading the way for the rest of us, not record companies and cable TV channels. This “democratizaiton of taste” currently underway is especially good news for classic jazz.

Two sites that have been providing large collecions of pre-war jazz audio recordings for quite some time now are The Red Hot Jazz Archive and Dismuke’s Virtual Talking Machine. Red Hot Jazz Archive’s creator Scott Alexander calls his site “A History of Jazz Before 1930.” In addition to Real streaming files of recordings by virtually all the great jazz artists of the 1920s, there are articles, photographs, and links to books and movies. There is also on online discussion group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RedHotJazz.

Although not as massive, Dismuke’s Virtual Talking Machine features streaming and downloads from Mr. Dismuke’s interesting personal audio record collection, in Real format. The collection ranges from the turn of the 20th century to the 1930s. “It is my hope that this site will help further the creation of a new generation of enthusiasts for an exciting, vibrant and, sadly, all- but-forgotten era of American popular culture.”

Bob Erwig is the former cornetist with the Climax Jazz Band based in Canada, a band that appeared frequently at classic jazz festivals and “jazz party” weekends worldwide. Bob amassed a huge collecion of jazz films and videos, some of which he shot himself, many others sent to him by individuals. Lately, Bob has taken to posting his collection on YouTube.com, and we are the lucky beneficiaries.

Bob writes, “At the moment I get about 10 to 12 thousand visitors a day since I started in June. I just passed the 1 millionth viewer count at Christmas. Now I have about 750 film clips and subscibers to my site have come close to the 800 mark and growing by some 10 a day.”

For example, here is a clip of Louis Armstrong performing “Dinah.” Bob writes, “This is part of a few tunes that were filmed in 1933 in Denmark. I believe it is one of the first sound movies with Louis’ playing and singing.”

You can explore Bob’s entire collection on his YouTube page here. Also, Bob has posted 5 clips of The Jim Cullum Jazz Band: “S.O.L. Blues,” “My Daddy Rocks Me” and “Fireworks” from a 1985 appearance on the Public TV series Austin City Limits, and “The Mooche” and “Shimmy Sha Wobble” from a party the night before a concert, organized by Jim Cullum, Chuck Huggins and Juanita Greenwood in tribute to Turk Murphy at Carnegie Hall in 1987.

Bob has also recently posted an excerpt from a 1986 JCJB performance of the Jelly Roll Morton standard, “Milenberg Joys.” Bob writes, “In 1986 our Climax Jazz Band was invited to a jazz festival in Friday Harbor, the small town on one of the San Juan Islands, just off the coast of Washington State. In one of our sets we were preceded by Jim Cullum’s Jazz Band from San Antonio, Texas. I had heard this band before but this was the first time I had a chance to enjoy the full impact of Jim and his superb band. I also had just bought one of these (then) big Sony video8 cameras and was able to record most of Jim’s set. I remember to be really taken by the band’s skills, talent, jazz feeling, a band totally honest, nothing phony, a band that just played very hot and in the idiom. These cassettes have been on the shelf for more than 20 years.”

Here is the link to Bob’s 1986 video of the “‘Milenberg Joys.” The Band personnel at that time was Jim Cullum, cornet; Allan Vaché, clarinet; Randy Reinhart, trombone; John Sheridan, piano; Howard Elkins, banjo; Jim Hunter, bass; Ed Torres, drums.

Thank you, Bob! After you experience the depth of Bob’s posted collection, you may want to thank him yourself via email or by leaving a comment on his YouTube site.

Ken McPherson, also of Canada, has posted a nice collection of jazz videos on DailyMotion.com. Here is Ken’s page on that site. Here is a sampling of his posts: Lester Young: “Jammin’ the Blues” with Sweets Edison, Red Callender, Sid Catlett, Barney Kessel, Joe Jones and Illinois Jaquet; Sister Rosetta Tharpe with Lucky Millender: “Lonesome Road;” Chick Webb Orchestra from 1929 backing up Lindy Hop dancers.

Just today I recieved from our good friend and Riverwalk Jazz guest artist, Paul Mehling, this link to a hot new video of his group, the Hot Club of San Francisco.

Both YouTube and DailyMotion feature opportunities for users to join groups, add “friend” lists, create comments and blogs, and share postings via email, etc. These features are similar to other “social engineering” sites like the enormously popular MySpace.com. The object is to allow people who share a given interest to find each other online and form a virtual community. This is not a new concept. For example, in 1995 the late Peter Lovric (yet another Canadian) founded the Dixieland Jazz Mailing List, probably the oldest established “bulletin board” discussion group for fans of older jazz. The text-only list is still going strong with about 500 worldwide members, and is moderated by Sacramento area musician Bob Ringwald. To sign up, visit the DJML home page and follow the instructions.

Grassroots community-forming also plays a big part in Pandora.com, a site that allows the user to stream single tracks from currently available CDs. Each user creates a unique playlist, or “station” according to intelligent recommendations from the site, and you can share your playlists with others via email. For example, here is a “station” that I created that includes tracks from the latest Jim Cullum Jazz Band CD. For each track that you play, you have the option of purchasinng a download from iTunes.com, or you can purchase the entire CD from Amazon.com.

Pandora recommends tracks to you based on their huge database of musical characteristics they call “The Music Genome Project.” Begun in 2000, the project has analyzed over 10,000 tracks from artists of all genres except classical music, according to hundreds of musical variables.

I’ve touched on just a few sites in this article and hope to report more to you in the future. I welcome your discoveries and suggestions, which you can share with our Riverwalk Jazz friends by emailing them to me at mophandl@landing.com. Warning: once you find media content online that speaks to your interests, you may find yourself spending more time than you intended listening, viewing, enjoying and sharing them with friends, loved ones, students, etc.

About the author: Don Mopsick plays the bass fiddle in The Jim Cullum Jazz Band and is the Editor of Jazz Me News.