You probably know a self-anointed music guru who fancies himself a connoisseur of the recorded arts. This person looks upon himself as nothing less than a walking encyclopedia with incomparable taste.
Take my wife. She’s married to a know-it-all like that. And I thought I’d heard it all until she introduced me to a website a few weeks back.
It’s called Pandora.com, and it has me thinking that I don’t know as much as I was sure I knew.
Here’s how it works: You go to the website and enter the name of an artist. I entered Ben Webster. In a few seconds, I was listening to a personalized Web radio station that played not only well-selected, gentle cuts from the catalog of the tenor saxophonist, but a stream of performances from like-minded artists. Out poured vulnerable ballads from Coleman Hawkins, Don Byas and Georgie Auld, whom I’d never actually heard before Pandora’s intelligently designed database sent his music to my computer.
So I’ve spent any available free time the past three weeks trying to “stump” Pandora by entering names of esoteric jazz artists. Henry Threadgill, Anthony Braxton, Muhal Richard Abrams. Pandora delivered with frankly terrific cuts from all of them and didn’t disappoint when it came to providing comparable artists.
To put it bluntly, Pandora “knows” more than a mere mortal could possibly know. I was chess master Gary Kasparov to Pandora’s Deep Blue. But Kasparov was never serenaded, as far as I know, by a jubilant Sonny Rollins blowout, compliments of a triumphant computer program like I was, so there’s that.
The technology that’s made available for free from Pandora.com is more than a clever technological trick to show off to your friends. Created by the people who put together something called the Music Genome Project in 2000, the work of musicians is broken down into various attributes that characterizes them, and put into a “very large Music Genome,” according to the website.
Pandora draws musical selections from an ever-growing database when you enter an artist’s name, giving you the opportunity to discover artists with similar characteristics. Hey, if you like Stan Getz, Pandora is assuming you’ll like Joe Lovano and Pepper Adams too. And chances are that Pandora will be right.
This could be the beginning of a revolution in the way consumers buy and enjoy music, and, at the least, a great way to enter the daunting world of jazz. And eventually, everyone could become a know-it-all. In the meantime, I’m going to continue to try to convince myself that I’m not on the verge of becoming obsolete.
Set list
Pianist Neil Bridge resumes his Sunday night gig at Shakespeare’s tonight … the smart local group Convergence is scheduled for Friday at Dazzle … Swinging Jazz Concerts return to the Donald Seawell Ballroom in the Denver Performing Arts Complex on Friday and Saturday. The lineup includes cornetist Warren Vache and guitarist Howard Alden … saxophonist Branford Marsalis brings his quartet in support of his fine new “Braggtown” CD to Cervantes Masterpiece Ballroom Feb. 8 … that same night, the “Godfathers of Groove” play the Mount Vernon Country Club with organist Reuben Wilson, drummer Bernard Purdie and guitarist Grant Green Jr. … Bela Fleck and the Flecktones hit the Paramount Feb. 10.
Bret Saunders’ column on jazz appears every other Sunday in A&E. Saunders is host of the “KBCO Morning Show,” 5:30-10 a.m. weekdays at 97.3-FM. His e-mail address is bret_saunders@hotmail.com.
