Who exactly is Herbie Hancock, the 67-year-old jazz pianist who was the biggest surprise winner (and nominee) at the Grammys? He won despite his Joni Mitchell tribute album, “River: The Joni Letters,” neither being a financial success a critically acclaimed.

Herbie Hancock’s win is right up there with Steely Dan’s 2001 best album win over Eminem, Beck and Radiohead or Jethro Tull’s 1989 win over Metallica for best hard rock or metal performance.

What will next year bring? Alvin and the Chipmunks winning best album?

Last.fm, a social music web site, has recently launched their own free music service. Users will be able to listen to any streamed track they offer up to three times. Last.fm has deals with the four major record companies and over 150,000 independent labels to provide music to its users. After the three initial free streams, users will be able to buy the tracks from sites such as iTunes, Amazon, etc.

Alibris Music is an online retailer of new, used and hard to find music online.
Alibris offers thousands of new and rare music titles and the web site’s advance search features make it easy to find hard to find music by genre, record label, title or musician.

Alibris Music’s product line includes CDs, vinyl, LPs, 8-tracks, tape cassettes and tape reels from thousands of independent sellers worldwide which makes Alibris one of the largest independent music retailers online. If you are looking for a rare music title, we suggest trying Alibris first.

Napster reported early this week that it will now begin selling music downloads as unprotected MP3 files in the spring. This will be in line with several other online retailers that already sell unprotected MP3 files to the public. Currently Napster offers monthly memberships to its download service that allows users to access unlimited music

Paltalk has recently launched PalTalk MusicScene, a live weekly online program that features live musical performances and live question and answer video sessions with audience members. The host of the Los Angeles based programs is Meiyee Apple Tam, who was previously on air at XM Satellite Radio and was a music reviewer for tripwire.com. New York shows will be hosted by Julie Powell, formerly of Canada’s MuchMusic channel. You try Paltalk for free and view the PalTalk MusicScene by clicking here

MP3 Musicgrams a free music promotion site featuring free MP3 music uploads and Musicgrams, is offering a new Holiday promotion to encourage music fans to send music cards online. Music fans can choose an MP3 of any artist, band or label and select a new Holiday graphic or upload a Christmas or Holiday photo of their own, add it to the MP3 audio file and send it out to 10 friends at once. This new user friendly musicgram ecard  makes music sharing the ideal holiday greeting and gift .   

Can’t find certain concert tickets? Try StubHub. StubHub is the only fan to fan ticket marketplace with the FanProtect Guarantee. I recently bought sold out concert tickets from a fan on the site for slightly above retail. The site is easy to use and has tickets for just about every upcoming concert.

This Friday, CBS will be airing “Movies Rock” that was recently recorded at the Kodak Theatre. The show will highlight the relationship between movies and music. Performances include Usher’s singing “Singin’ in the Rain”, Busta Rhymes and LL Cool J singing the theme from “Shaft”, Jennifer Hudson singing “Somewhere” from West Side Story, and Carrie Underwood’s rendition of “The Sound of Music.” We are currently polling our own subscribers to compile a list of the best movie songs to be released at the end of this month.

If you are a musician or a band looking to get your music heard, TuneCore may be the perfect service for you. TuneCore works with digital music retailers like iTunes and Rhapsody to place artists’ music in their online stores and subscription services. Best of all, you keep the money your music earns.

Thousands of artists and labels have already used Tunecore to put their music up for digital sale quickly and easily. Visit the Tunecore web site and start getting your music heard today.

Yahoo users will soon get the green light to upload videos and music clips containing content belonging to Sony BMG Music Entertainment. In exchange, Sony will receive a portion of advertising revenue generated.

This is the first such deal for Yahoo Video, while Google already has distribution deals with all four major labels, including Sony. Although YouTube (owned by Google) remains the largest video sharing site, Yahoo Video is now second, and looking to make deals to compete with YouTube.

What the competition means for music fans is still up for debate; but so far it looks like it will mean more access to more music while the portals pay the bills.