Just a quick note to let all of you jazz guitar fans know that a new music service just launched called SpiralFrog. It’s a music service like Napster, Rhapsody, and iTunes but with one BIG difference…you can download songs for FREE! and it’s legal.
It looks like they’re initially offering about 800,000 tracks and 3,500 music videos for download. Most of that content comes by way of a licensing deal with Universal Music Group. The audio and video files carry copy protection like tracks for sale at iTunes and you can’t burn directly to CD but you can download directly to dozens of digital music players.
I don’t think the service is compatible with Mac or Ipods, however. It uses the latest version of Windows Media Player. To deter piracy, the service also requires you to log on to the site at least once a month, otherwise the content locks up and can’t be played.
I just signed up and they seem to have a pretty extensive selection of jazz music and a fairly decent selection of music by jazz guitarists like:
Wes Montgomery, Kenny Burrell, Jim Hall, George Benson. Music from other greats like Grant Green and Pat Martino was not available. Hopefully, they’ll add content from these artists later. The site says they expect to add additional 800,000 songs by the end of this month.
This is a great way for those just starting out with jazz guitar to listen to and sample a wide variety of music from jazz guitarists.
From a different perspective, this music service is advertiser-supported like most of the dot-com failures. And frankly I’m not sure this business model will work long term. I personally use the Rhapsody Music Service. They have a broad selection of jazz musicians and it’s only $12.99/month for the unlimited listening plan. I will keep Rhapsody as my main music service and use SpiralFrog as a kind of a backup.
Anyway, enjoy it while you can. Check out the SpiralFrog site at www.spiralfrog.com.
Leon