Canadian jazz great Oscar Peterson dies

It is with a heavy heart that I pass on the news that legendary jazz pianist Oscar Peterson has passed away. I first encountered his work through the stellar album “Night Train” and I haven’t stopped listening to him since. He was an immensely talented musician and a gift to the worlds of jazz and blues. May he rest in peace. His music is his legacy – and what a legacy remains.

In the spirit of the season, have a listen to “An Oscar Peterson Christmas“, which is without question my favourite Christmas album of all time.

“The jazz odyssey is over for Oscar Peterson: the Canadian known globally as one of the most spectacularly talented musicians ever to play jazz piano has died at age 82.

Peterson died Sunday night at his home in Mississauga, Ont., from kidney failure, CBC News has confirmed.

“The world has lost the world’s greatest jazz player,” Hazel McCallion, mayor of Mississauga and Peterson’s friend, told CBC News Monday afternoon.

Renowned for his speed and virtuosity as a pianist, Peterson — who was born in Montreal and later made Toronto his home — made hundreds of recordings in his career, even after a stroke in 1993 disabled his left hand.

Over the years, his recording and performing partners included such stars as Charlie Parker, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Nat King Cole and Stan Getz.”

Source: cbc.ca

The Best ‘Best of’ Lists of 2007

Without further ado, here’s a quick compilation of some of the most interesting ‘Best of 2007′ lists I’ve come across during the frantic media recap of ‘What Was in 07’, before the manic, mad dash to xmas seasonal insanity, and the consequent post-holiday crash into 2008:

1. Best of 2007 Lists (the definitive meta-list by Fimoculous)
2. Master List of Online “Best of 2007” Music Lists (a meta-music list by LargeheartedBoy)
3. Updates to the Master List of Online “Best of 2007” Music Lists (updates to #2 by LargeheartedBoy)
4. 40 Best Raps of 2007 (top hip-hop tracks by CocaineBlunts)
5. 15 Best Candies of 2007 (delish sugar treats by CandyAddict)
6. 50 Best Websites of 2007 (multiple categories list by Time & – oh look – who’s a top news site?)
7. 30 Best Albums of 2007 (top rated by the critics and aggregated by Metacritic)
8. 25 Best Careers of 2007 (so choose wisely, my friends, by BizTech)
9. Most Hated Companies of 2007 (the most widely & heavily criticized, by BloggingStocks)
10. 100 Best Products of 2007 (because there can never be enough products, a list by PC World)
11. 22 Best Music Videos (some silly choices by MusicForKidsWhoCan’tReadGood)
12. 25 Best Books of the Year (fiction, non-fiction and more by Publishers Weekly)
13. 100 Best Films of 2007 (a mix of new and re-releases by TimesOnline)
14. 18 Best American Hospitals of 2007 (a incredibly paradoxical list by USNews)
15. Best Global Brands of 2007 (aka the biggest brands in the world, by Interbrand)
16. Best of NYC 2007 (best of the Big Apple, by the VillageVoice)
17. Best Biblical Books of 2007 (a “completely objective” book list by BiblicalFoundations)
18. America’s Best Restroom of 2007 (congrats to Jungle Jim’s, by ABR)
19. Best Parks of 2007 (for the adventure seekers, by National Geographic)
20. Best Industrial Design Products of 2007 (with slick imagery by RedDot)
21. Top 10 Depression Blogs of 2007 (a useful, if sombre, list by PsychCentral)
22. 2007 China Best Call Centre (the best operators ‘who will be with you shortly’ by CallCentres)
23. Top 100 Luxury Blogs of 2007 (an elite assortment by International Listings)
24. Best of What’s New in 2007 (products, inventions, and gadgetry compiled by PopularScience)
25. Top 60 Japanese Buzzwords of 2007 (vernacular awesomeness by PinkTentacle)

For additional comments and posts also check out: NowPublic.com

Beatblogging & the Success of the Network

This is very interesting…I wrote a post last week about how we should emphasize curating instead of creating – relating to user-generated content. This morning I found this: http://www.buzzmachine.com/2007/11/12/glam-the-success-of-the-network/

The post is by Jeff Jarvis who is widely respected and hugely influential technology writer/blogger & journalism professor. About 7-8 paragraphs down he writes: “So Glam is a content network. But they don’t create all the content. They curate it. So we should curate more as we create less. That’s another way to say what I’ve said other ways: Do what we do best and link to the rest. Also: We need to gather more and produce less, so we also need to encourage others to produce more so we can gather it.”

I wholeheartedly agree and wonder if next-gen UGC will move toward model of User-Generated Curating – tools that enable users to selectively cull and repurpose the good stuff they’ve found elsewhere online.

Jarvis also directed me to Jay Rosen‘s latest project: Beatblogging.org – “a collaboration between 13 news organizations from around the country and NewAssignment.Net, to figure out how journalists can use social networks to improve beat reporting”.

I think there is some real value in exploring their model: gather a group of contributors around a specific ‘beat’ (topic/channel) and leverage that network to generate targeted stories and reporting. I’m curious to see how it will work for them and to see if and how it could be applied elsewhere.