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Techno Collaboration

A few years ago I met a fellow named Stashuk (Stan Shatkin) by answering his ad in Craigslist for a singer to sing on some of his techno tracks. Well if you know my music at all you might have noticed that I create some eclectic tunes and so working on an electronic project was perfect.

So I met with Stan and his partner Travis Lemmons in New York City at a rehearsal room one night. They are real cool guys that are serious about music. They have a Website essentialwave.com where you can see that they team up with a bunch of other djs to create tunes and jam out parties.

Creation of the Song “Silk”

After a time Stan and Travis gave me a CD of a song they called “Digital Illusion” and asked if I would make up some lyrics and sing over them, as well as play some guitar.  Well, my daughter had just written her first poem about the ocean and I loved it so I added and adjusted it a bit and used it as lyrics.

Then we did a recording session and what came out of it was a track called “Silk”!  If you have not already you can download the song at my home page.  Stan also released the instrumental version, still called Digital Illusion, on his CD you can check out at CD Baby here.

Techno MP3 Music Download

Well the whole point here is to uncover a new free MP3 track that you can download.  So I got in touch with Stan to see what he was up to and if he had any good techno tunes to offer.  After going through a bunch I really liked he gave me permission to post “Sunset in Paradise”. This track has a punchy driving beat, swirling melodic theme and moody breakdowns.  I love the combination of the ethereal synth with the full pulsing beat.

Download: SunsetinParadise.MP3 (Not licensed under creative commons, for personal downloading, contact artist for more information)

Artist: Stashuk

Website: www.myspace.com/digitalsouls

Buy CD: http://cdbaby.com/cd/stashuk

You can contact Stashuk through myspace or stashuk [at] yahoo.com if you want to put his song in a podcast, video, or any kind of commercial project.  I hope you enjoy it.

Peace, Dan

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This week I’m working on some new tracks and since I have no new MP3s of my own so I’d like to feature some free jazz mp3 downloads. I actually majored in Jazz at the The Hartford Conservatory and the Hartt School of Music but if you have downloaded or listened to my music, you’ll know that’s not one of the styles I write in. However, I have a huge appreciation for Jazz and the knowledge I gained from the study of it has helped me understand the underlying theory behind whatever pop rock songs or even techno rhythms I write.

How to Search for Free Jazz Music

The first thing I learned about finding free Jazz music online is to do a Google search like this “Index of Jazz MP3″ and this will take you right to the actual directories where the MP3 files of hundreds of artists exist. By the way, the same thing applies to any style like “Index of Techno MP3″. Now the legality of what you find is at your own risk, but still pretty cool!

Larry Corban - Jazz Guitarist and Composer

Website: LarryCorban.com (go to “More MP3s” section for lots of music)

I met Larry at the Peddie School where we were supposed to be attending high school but basically just jammed all the time. He is originally from Middletown, NJ. When he heard Wes Montgomery and Pat Martino he was taken with jazz guitar and ended up going to Ithaca College of Music.

Since then he has had all kinds of interesting gigs while living in New York City. These include cruise ships, Broadway shows and sitting on all kinds of cool sessions, like the one we went to at Corio Lounge in Manhattan a few weeks ago.

After studying with greats like Pat Martino and Mick Goodrick he now teaches guitar. He has a unique chording style that he combines with crisp well-versed lines and a repertoire of standards, bebop, not to mention kickin fusion that you can check out on his site.

Free MP3 Download: On The Fly.MP3 (with permission for personal use from artist)

He gave me this MP3 you can download called “On The Fly”. Its a poppin, gritty instrumental piece with swinging horns belting out solid improvisation and melody. Larry’s guitar has a nice natural tone that highlights chord comping he pushes to the edge.

Jazztimes.com Free MP3 Section

The magazine JazzTimes has a long reputable history and it actually started as a small newsletter in a record store. Now its one of the biggest online purveyors of Jazz and they have a great free mp3 section here at the Jazztimes Website. You’ll have to register to get at the files but then they promise there are “no strings attached”.

AllAboutJazz.com Song Downloads

This is a fan-based site oriented to the world-wide scene of Jazz. It’s amazing how the style has promulgated internationally, even before the help of the Internet. Well AllAboutJazz.com aims to bring on all the jazz global news and research you can possibly take in. I get the sense that the site is run by people truly passionate about the genre and all the interactive features there make it well worth signing up to get to the All About Jazz downloads section.

I ran across allot of other sources for Jazz music, like the Internet Archive for instance, but these are probably more than enough to keep busy for a while!

Thanks for reading. Peace, Dan

I came across some interesting new Websites and blogs this week that have free mp3 downloads sections you may not find too easily.  Here are some links directly to the pages with the download-able files.

• KEXP 90.3 FM in Seattle has top pick MP3 song of the day you can subscribe to as a podcast or just download files directly from their blog.
• If you’re not sure how to use the iPod for free podcasts you can read this tutorial “How to download free music, video and podcast to iPod“.
• If you like Irish music you can get Celtic music artitsts‘ MP3s from Celtic MP3s Music Magazine.
• You can also check out the Christian music downloads section of the Beliefnet.com blog for all the latest music they post in one location.
• Urban Outfitters is also offering free mp3 downloads.  The 21 songs are downloadable in a zip file right from their site.

Happy new year and I hope this helps to fill up your iPod this week!  For those of you in the Northeast USA I will be doing a set with singer songwriter Bovane at 2 Alices in NY on February 21st, 2009 and performing my new song “The World Will Break Apart“.