Listen-dot-com, Incorporated and JamBase, Incorporated have signed licensing and distribution agreements that will enable music fans to listen to a wealth of high-fidelity, live recordings of improvisational music through the Rhapsody digital music service. JamBase is the fourth distribution partner for Listen.com's Rhapsody. JamBase will offer a co-branded version of Rhapsody to its community of 250,000 live music lovers via its http://www.jambase.com/ gateway and directly at http://rhapsody.jambase.com/ . Working together, JamBase and Listen.com have also developed the "JamBase Live Archive," an extensive new catalog of live recordings from the archives of many leading improvisational bands and musicians. Rhapsody is the first music subscription service to offer consumers unique musical performances not otherwise available through traditional retail stores or other online outlets.
"The JamBase community uses the Internet every day to find and share information on their favorite bands," said Ted Kartzman, President of JamBase. "JamBase's partnership with Listen.com will help us give more to the fans who love and support improvisational music. The JamBase Live Archive will give fans access to the best live performances, selected by the artists, while ensuring they can give something back by passing support on to the people that create the music."
At launch, the "JamBase Live Archive" catalog will feature more than 250 hours of live recordings from many of the best-known jam-oriented artists, including Charlie Hunter, moe., Little Feat, Steve Kimock Band, Soulive, The Disco Biscuits, Sound Tribe Sector 9, Robert Walter's 20th Congress, Yonder Mountain String Band, Deep Banana Blackout, Jazz Mandolin Project, Garaj Mahal, The Big Wu, Netwerk: Electric, The Motet, Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey, Umphrey's McGee, Particle, The Zen Tricksters, Astral Project, The Slip, The Fareed Haque Group, ulu, Boomshanka, Tea Leaf Green, Topaz, Box Set, OM Trio, Addison Groove Project, Gnappy and Psychedelic Breakfast.
"The JamBase Live Archive gives musicians a way to build an even stronger connection with their fans by giving them easy access to the best music from their live archives," said musician Charlie Hunter. "Now, anytime they're online, fans can kick back and enjoy high-fidelity recordings that capture the experience of their favorite artists' live shows."
The "JamBase Live Archive" gives improvisational bands a new vehicle for sharing their archives of live performances with a wider audience of hundreds of thousands of music enthusiasts across the Web. Each band will initially contribute several hours of current and archived live material to the "JamBase Live Archive." Over time, the archive will grow as these bands contribute more live recordings and additional bands opt to participate. In keeping with JamBase's commitment to help the artists whose performances are the driving force for the JamBase community, bands contributing live material to the "JamBase Live Archive" will receive revenue from on-demand playback of their music. Until now, these bands have not had a way to share this music with fans while also generating a financial return on the value of their archives.
The "JamBase Live Archive" will be available as a stand-alone catalog for $7.50 a month exclusively through the JamBase Web site. Music from the "JamBase Live Archive" will also be available as part of the larger Rhapsody "All Access" catalog, to which consumers can subscribe via JamBase or Listen.com's other distribution partners for $9.95 per month. Rhapsody, which gives consumers unlimited access to one of the world's largest collections of legally available digital music, is available through Down Beat ( http://www.downbeat.com/ ), Naxos of America ( http://www.naxosusa.com/ ) and Seattle-based broadband service provider Speakeasy ( http://www.speakeasy.net/ ), in addition to the http://www.listen.com/ Web site.
"Today's announcement demonstrates that digital music services like Rhapsody can help expand the overall music marketplace by giving consumers access to a supply of unique and exciting musical performances," said Sean Ryan, Chief Executive Officer of Listen.com. "By becoming the first subscription service to offer previously unavailable live recordings, Listen has raised the bar for other services by giving consumers access to music they can't hear anywhere else."
Rhapsody is the only service to offer consumers legal access to music from four of the five major music companies, including BMG, the worldwide music division of Bertelsmann AG, EMI Recorded Music, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group. Listen.com has also signed licensing agreements with 51 independent labels, including Bar/None Records, ESL Music, KOCH Entertainment, Matador Records, Naxos of America, Razor & Tie Recordings, Ubiquity Records, and Sub Pop.
