This coming Thursday, January 11th 2007, Chico Hamilton will continue to celebrate his 85th year down at Makor for a special International Association For Jazz Education (IAJE) event. More info here .

The one and only Mr. Dynamite a.k.a The Hardest Working Man In the Show Business a.k.a. James Brown died early today (Monday, December 25) at Atlanta's Emory Crawford Long Hospital of congestive heart failure at age 73. "It appears what happened is that he did die of a heart attack as a result of his pneumonia," the singer's agent Frank Copsidas told CNN Radio. JB laid the foundation for funk with truly classic songs such as "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag," "I Got You (I Feel Good)" and...

UK pop darling Lily Allen has recorded a very special holidays message for her fans that you can now view here . It's short, but as always Allen is in a jolly mood! In other news, Lily Allen is gearing up to release her debut album 'Alright, Still' in the US next month. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve seen one of her playful videos on YouTube, Yahoo or on her MySpace page, which has catapulted her...

Tru3 Magic (not a typo), Mos Def's third solo album comes out just in time for post-holiday music exchanges on December 29. Geffen’s peculiar release date will hopefully be overcome by Mos Def’s lyrical gymnastics and production by Pharrell , Minnesota , and Preservation . You can stream the first single, " Napoleon Dynamite ," here ....

Co-founder of Atlantic Records , Ahmet Ertegun died yesterday (12/14) at the Weill Cornell Medical Centre , New York City. 83 years old, the music executive fell into a coma on October 29th at a Rolling Stones Concert and never recovered. Son of a US Ambassador to Turkey, Ertegun took the entrepreneurial leap in 1947 at age 24 with a meager $10,000 borrowed from his dentist, eventually creating a legacy in music history. Atlantic pioneered a variety of groundbreaking...

Arguably the hardest working woman in techno (and all things electro), DJ, producer, designer and label head of Bpitch Control Ellen Allien presses forward into 2007 with European tour dates, two hot mix compilations and production work to boot. The latest edition of the Time Out Presents series, Ellen’s The Other Side Berlin (out March 30) showcases the gamut of Germany’s finest producers from Booka Shade to

Swedish solo artist José González unexpectedly dropped a digital download Live Session EP via iTunes today (similar to Goldfrapp’s release). Three of the five songs were taken from his Veneer album. One of the tracks, “Storm” was originally available only on import, and “Suggestions” came previously as a B-side. Keeping up with modern distribution, José will re-release another EP called...

European dance duo Goldfrapp recorded an iTunes session live in San Francisco May 2006. The selection of 4 songs from their repertoire will be released as a download only EP available exclusively (of course) through iTunes on December 19th. The group recently received Grammy nominations for Best Dance Recording ( “Ooh La La” ) and Best Electronic Dance Album ( Supernature ). EP Tracklist: Ooh La La Deer Stop Ride A White Horse...

Ever since the inception of the MP3 format, consumers have had the choice to illegally download music free of charge. The natural knee-jerk reaction by major labels was to stop the bleeding by any means necessary, fighting internet piracy through lawsuits and toppling person-2-person (P2P) file-sharing networks. However, larger corporations like Yahoo! Music , EMI and Sony BMG are finally taking note of how independent sites like Apple iTunes , eMusic ...

"I got my wish list on my last album so I made this one unattainable," Lupe Fiasco boasted to Billboard.com. "Now I want to work with Pink Floyd , or the remnants of Pink Floyd." Having set an impressive precedent with his debut album Food And Liquor , teaming up with stars Jay-Z , Kanye West and Jill Scott , Lupe can only look skyward for his forthcoming LP The Cool , which will be produced solely by talent-spotted Soundtrakk ...