JazzBai: DeBilbao to the Jazz world
Jun 24, 2014 at 3:14 AM Thread Starter Post #1 of 5

DeBilbao

100+ Head-Fier
Joined
May 20, 2003
Posts
149
Likes
185
Although I'm not a frequent participant of Head-Fi, I would like to share with you my project JazzBai. I've thought that maybe you'll find some good music to enjoy with your audio gear.

DeBilbao: The Author

DeBilbao has always been my nickname because it talks about my hometown, Bilbao, located in the Basque Country in the north of Spain. It literally means "from Bilbao" and I've been proudly using it for years in many online communities like this one, sharing with people from all around the world many kind of hobbies: from technology to photography, from cinema to music.

I can not imagine life without music, and though I like all genres, I've evolved with Jazz into a more intimate relationship with music through the magic of improvisation, this key characteristic of Jazz that gives absolute freedom to the interpreters while keeping the coherence of the whole. It fascinates me.

JazzBai: The Project

JazzBai is the name of a personal project that I've recently launched with only one goal in mind: sharing with others my thoughts and feelings after listening to those wonderful Jazz music records that I love, giving users a tool to listen to them online using the Spotify miniplayer. For music lovers, Spotify has been just a dream come true and I've been enjoying it since their very beginning.

JazzBai arises from the union of two words: Jazz from the music genre and Bai from the word we use to say yes in euskara, an ancient language spoken in the Basque Country. So you can think of JazzBai as a form of affirmation, saying yes to Jazz while giving a hint of my homeland.
 
http://www.jazzbai.com/​
 ​
 
Although I love euskara, I speak in spanish and that's the language JazzBai is written in. I have considered translating my reviews into english, but I haven't done it yet and to be honest, I doubt I will in the near future. If I publish this in english is because I think that anyone can enjoy my record selection and listen to them, but it would be a hard work to rewrite everything.

JazzBai can be easily translated using Google Translate. Just click on the following URL and you will get a fully functional website. And the translation is quite good.
 
 
 
 
I've highlighted the word sharing because I sincerely believe that sharing, for the sole purpose of doing it, is really rewarding. You give a little and you'll get a lot in return. It has always been this way for me, and I feel we're loosing the concept because all of these new social stuff tend to promote a faster consumption of music. It has almost loose its name as now people call music just media. And I hate this.

I love writing too, and when I write a review about a record listening session, I like to approach myself to the historical moment of the recording and the personal circumstances of the artists. Jazz is full of stories, some joyful and many other sad, but all have something in common: intensity. Many of them lived dangerously, but almost all of them lived intensely.

Jazz won't let you indifferent: you'll love it or you will hate it. It isn't a genre for large audiences, but being so large I'm convinced there's some kind of Jazz for each of us, waiting to be discovered and it takes only some time and a some willing to find it. And if JazzBai helps you discovering it I'll feel great, because once you discover it, it will go to the bottom of your soul and you'll notice that something magic just happened.

This day, if you get it, will be the first day of your new life with music.

Don't expect from JazzBai any kind of negative opinions. I only publish reviews about the albums that I've liked, so if I write about it, I've really enjoyed it.

JazzBai doesn't begin with a blank page and a few posts. I've waited until having something I consider interesting and you'll get more than a hundred selected albums that will show up my music taste for sure. I like saying that my style is like the famous Duke's Ellington In a Mellow Tone, a really mellow, soft and gentle tone. Far away from the free, electronic or avant-garde sounds that can be fascinating to others, but not for me.

You can definately call me a classic Jazz fan. I especially like the period that goes from mid-50's to the mid-60's when the Hard Bop flourished, but I also like the early Jazz years or the contemporary Jazz. There's a lot of good stuff cookin' in now and I love discovering it.

I've never been a fan of compilations, greatest hits albums or playlists. In my opinion a record is some kind of art that must be listened in the way the artist thought about it, so I always listen to the whole album with the original tracklist order.

I've also categorized each review and you will find them as options in the menu bar. So you can easily search for Classical Jazz > Hard Bop reviews, or get some Cool Jazz records with some West-Coast style, or look for sime Contemporary Jazz or Vocal Jazz, either classical or current.

As an added bonus, I've also inclued a video section to share some of the many hidden jewels in Youtube, complete concerts, short performances or movie scenes, and also a reading section to share some books that will help us understand better Jazz music and the life of the artists that made it possible.

 ​
 
If you want to take a look to my project, go to http://www.jazzbai.com/ and if you want to follow its evolution, you'll find there direct links to my Twitter channel, the Facebook page or even the RSS feed for your favourite reader.

Thank you very much for your reading and greetings from Bilbao,

Joserra
 
Jun 24, 2014 at 10:18 AM Post #2 of 5
Ola DeBilbao,
 
I haven't figured out the translation function but just looking at the existing review covers, I'll definitely come back and explore your site.
Lot's of stuff I'm familiar with but more interestingly quite a few recordings which I don't know.
 
I came across this label located in Spain (if I'm not mistaken), you have one tab also for them:
http://www.jazzbai.com/tag/fresh-sound/
 
I am not really sure how they access the old recordings. Some CD's mention source : LP
Do you happen to know if they actually spin the vinyl record and use a 24bit A/D converter ?
Whatever they do, the reissues sound fantastic. They have a lot of stuff from your favorite time period.
 
Maybe you should post a link to your site in the "on a mission to like Jazz thread".
It would be a great starting point for folks just getting their feet wet with Jazz
wink.gif
.
 
Jun 24, 2014 at 11:01 AM Post #3 of 5
Thanks for the feedback, icebear.
 
You're right, Fresh Sounds is a record label located in Barcelona, managed Jordi Pujol (do not confuse with the politician with the same name) and he borrowed the name from the fresh sounds that came from the West-Coast.
 
I don't know the details about how they get access to the old recordings or how the remastering process goes, but I agree with you that they sound simply fabulous.
 
Thanks for the tip about the "on a mission to like Jazz" thread. I'll post a link there to my website.
 
smily_headphones1.gif

 
Jun 28, 2014 at 4:22 AM Post #4 of 5
My last album review has been dedicated to the marvelous encounter of Gerry Mulligan and Johnny Hodges in 1959. 

Ultra High Quality music in a very high quality recording, enjoyable by both audiophiles and Jazz music fans.


Yo can read it while listening to it at http://www.jazzbai.com/gerry-mulligan-johnny-hodges-gerry-mulligan-meets-johnny-hodges-1959-verve

 
 

 
 
:):):)
 
Apr 13, 2020 at 5:01 AM Post #5 of 5
After a few years without paying attention to my blog JazzBai, I've decided to bring it back to the world. The situation of confinement that we are living has made it easy to have some spare time to recover my duties.

In fact, JazzBai was not even operational. I have the domain name registered, but the blog went down because I didn't pay the last renewal of the hosting to my provider, since the price they were asking was too high for a non live blog. I started with a local provider called Red Coruña, which was later acquired by Host Europe, which was later swallowed up by the American giant GoDaddy.

During this days I've been analyzing a cheaper alternative to keep it alive and I've decided to go for a provider called Hostinger, to whom I've paid 46 EUR for 4 years of hosting, which means 0,80 EUR per month (only if you pay in advance for 48 months). The domain is still in GoDaddy for the moment, but when its renewal expires I'll move it to Hostinger as well.

This provider is very cheap, but I've been surprised by the quality of their product and service, with a very useful interface and an excellent performance. This is the cheapest plan, but it's enough for what I need: it allows a single website, 10GB of storage, 100GB of monthly transfer, 1 MySQL database, 1 email account and even includes a free SSL certificate, which I still have to configure.

I had the blog so unattended that the last backup I had was incomplete and of the 146 entries I have published, I was missing the last 30, so I had to write them again. Luckily the WebArchive project came in handy with a copy of my blog and I have been able to copy those 30 reviews easily.

I don't promise anything, but I would like to take up again the topic and at least make a weekly review of Jazz albums that I consider special and worth listening.

At the moment the blog is open again and you are invited to take a look. I haven't modified the interface and the navigation by genres is still available in the top menu, by labels in the tag cloud on the right.

It's written in spanish, but it's easy to translate into english with the help of Google https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://www.jazzbai.com

J7HQ2sw.jpg


You can listen to the albums directly from the blog using a Spotify player that goes along the text of each entry.

ltIEujm.jpg


:):):)
 
Last edited:

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top