Performances from the Walker’s 2010 mini-festival of music by Minneapolis drummer Dave King (The Bad Plus, Happy Apple, and others) makes up the backbone of a new documentary screening February 24 at Missoula’s Big Sky Documentary Film Festival.

Never heard of a Harpejji, Tenori-on, or Eigenharp? That’s likely because established rock musicians seem “more inclined to try just about any instrument other than a new one.” Why? One inventor blames the “music industrial complex.”

Neil Young’s concern about digital music isn’t filesharing—”Piracy is the new radio. That’s how music gets around”—but the sound quality of MP3s, which he says contain only 5 percent of the audio from the original recording.

Legendary singer Etta James—known for a remarkable vocal range and a versatility that earned her a place in both the Blues and Rock and Roll halls of fame—died from complications of leukemia Friday morning. She was 73.

“In a beautiful and kind of poetic way, for much of human history, it was thought that the universe was guided by music,” Talking Heads frontman David Byrne says in a discussion of his forthcoming book, How Music Works. “Maybe we should rethink that idea.”

Among the tens of thousands of Nigerians protesting subsidy cuts that have brought a doubling of gas prices is Seun Kuti, son of afropop legend Fela Kuti. “If we don’t take a stand for corruption in Nigeria now, then we too have lost,” he says.

“The main thing that attracts me to Buddhism is probably what attracts every artist to being an artist—that it’s a godlike thing,” says Laurie Anderson. “You are the ultimate authority. There is no other ultimate authority.”

“The revolution brought everybody’s talents into light. People started to talk from their hearts,’ says Egyptian musician Shaimaa Shaalan in a forthcoming documentary about the post-revolution arts boom. (Via Rhizome.org.)

Entrepreneur wannabes should look to Miles Davis and Art Blakey, according to the authors of “Leading Entrepreneurial Teams: Insights from Jazz,” which won best paper at the Institute for Small Businesses and Entrepreneurship conference in November.