Jamendo

Soundclick

All kinds of free music.

Tofu Hut

Free music, but I'm uncertain about the legality of their mp3s of complete works. Anyway, as they say in their disclaimer, “All MP3's are offered for a limited time and are for sampling purposes only”.

Jazz On Line

Nothing about this idiosyncratic website is very clear, including what its name is supposed to be, but if you go here you will find a list of interesting jazz mp3s. The earliest date I noticed was 1907 and the most recent was 1949. There is some suggestion that you can “subscribe” for $5 a quarter to get access to a larger list of downloads, but hitting the subscribe link brings up a display of database errors.

Cliff Bolling

There is an article about this guy in wired that describes his energetic campaign to digitize thousands of 78 rpm records and make them available as mp3s. But his webhost, Yahoo, claims that his site doesn’t exist. I hope it comes back.

Musopen puts classical recordings, scores in public domain

Amazon Promotions

Check out the music download page (the URL varies; from the Amazon home page, follow digital downloads/MP3 downloads) for free promotional tracks (usually some kind of pop music).

Folkways Archives

Amazon

The internet’s largest retailer has plenty of music in the form of mp3 files free of the DRM nonsense that encumbers music offered by Apple’s iTunes store. The URL of the music download page varies; from the Amazon home page, follow digital downloads/MP3 downloads. Look over the page for special deals.

John Coltrane

Claims to be the “official” site. Has film clips, music, etc. All in flash, but nice.

Here is an interesting flash animation of the tonal structure of Coltrane’s Giant Steps.

On an Overgrown Path

Classical music notes with useful links.