Marc Myers, a New York journalist and historian and the writer of the great jazz blog JazzWax, in a fit of nostalgia for earlier days, started thinking about Top 40 hits that could also be classified as jazz. He went through the Billboard charts and over two posts has pulled together a list of jazz artists who had Top 40 hits from 1955 on, according to the following criteria: they had to be jazz-flavored singles by well-known jazz musicians that had a big influence on jazz and pop music. He features the top ten in the first post and another set of 10 in a second post. I have some favorites on there, including Getz/Gilberto's The Girl from Ipanema and Mongo Santamaria's Watermelon Man (although my recording of it is by Herbie Hancock).  You'll notice that there are not many on there from the last 20 years (actually none at all...). 

I was at the Future of Music Coalition presentation this evening and was reminded of something that I've meant to do for a long time—find out more about a local jazz media institution that I've known about for awhile but have yet to connect to.  JazzWeek is a weekly report of the top fifty Jazz and Smooth Jazz recordings played on radio stations across the United States and Canada and is located right here in Rochester.  After some financial issues that resulted in missing 2007, they've recently regrouped and are retooling and again will be holding a JazzWeek Summit here in Rochester at the end of the Rochester International Jazz Festival from June 19-21st at the Clarion Riverside Hotel.

One of JazzWeek’s missions is to provide a conduit for radio, retail, and the rest of the industry to work together.  Part of that effort is the Summit, which is intended for radio station program and music directors, representatives of major and independent music labels, jazz artists, and journalists. They try to get all of these disparate groups together to discuss the issues facing them in promoting jazz and smooth jazz music. One of the things I learned at the FMC event tonight is how much people can learn from each other when they get together to explore something they're passionate about (heck, I learned about some things tonight that surprised me and, most importantly, learned something about what musicians—on whom the FMC event was focused—are seeking to learn).

Check out the JazzWeek website for the Summit and, if you're interested in promoting jazz or yourself as a jazz artist, think about attending the conference.

Ron Netsky and Frank De Blase over at City Newspaper must have received advanced notice of the lineup for the 2008 Rochester International Jazz Festival as City published its 2008 Jazz Fest Guide on the same day the lineup was issued as they've prepared a boatload of special content to help guide you through the RIJF. Each day of the festival gets a special page with the schedule and short pieces about each of the artists written by Frank or Ron (here's the one for June 13th, the first day), with links to their website if available.  There is also a master list of the artist biographies in one place.  They're even helping out-of-towners find us and get information on where to stay and eat.  This is in addition to the fine work that the RIJF does in linking to information on their site.

Since Jazz@Rochester is not my job and only one of my blogs (although it's a lot more than a hobby now), I appreciate that the more mainstream media is providing such comprehensive content to help people organize their festival and know more about the artists. We out here in the blogosphere can concentrate on going into more depth or providing some additional perspective.  Thanks guys....

In honor of April, which is Jazz Appreciation Month , LRSmedia is debuting starting today the television show Legends of Jazz Presents the 2007 NEA Jazz Masters as a special webcast premiere in conjunction with the entire online jazz community. This one-hour television special, soon to come to your local PBS station hosted by 2007 NEA Jazz Master Ramsey Lewis on his Legends of Jazz program, will feature conversation and musical performances by bandleader and pianist Toshiko Akiyoshi, trombonist Curtis Fuller, vocalist Jimmy Scott, flutist Frank Wess, and saxophonist Phil Woods. Special guest and co-host Nancy Wilson will interview Ramsey Lewis about his music, 50-year career and his selection as an NEA Jazz Master. The special is co-produced by LRSmedia and Chicago's WTTW National Productions. It is filmed in state-of-the-art high definition.

The NEA Jazz Masters Awards are the highest honors that the U.S. government bestows upon jazz musicians and are given in recognition of the jazz—one of America's greatest gifts to the world. As Lewis says, "This special 2007 NEA Jazz Masters program, like the others in our Legends of Jazz series, provides not only exciting performances, but showcases that unique energy sparked when great artists respond to each other in conversation and through music."

In conjunction with Jazz Appreciation Month, LRSmedia is making the program available to websites around the world. More than 50 websites will participate in this amazing online event by embedding a video player on their website. Unfortunately, the embedded player requires too wide a berth to host on my site, so you'll have to travel to the Legends of Jazz site to watch the show by clicking on the image below.  Or you can wait until it's on television...its up to you.

Greetings from Chicago (I'm still here following a conference of lawyer geeks), where some of those roots may be found, but for Tom Morgan and many others, the deepest roots are of course found in New Orleans. Some of those roots were transplanted to the Windy City when King Oliver, Louis Armstrong and others came up here from NOLA. Morgan has produced sites that focus on the early years of jazz music, from 1895 to the 1920s and the foundation of this music in the culture and history of African-Americans. Morgan is a writer and radio producer, who hosts (at least at the time he did the site) the New Orleans Music Show on the legendary WWOZ-FM in New Orleans.

Morgan's Jass.com (yes, with "s", it's the spelling found in the earliest jazz history) is clearly a labor of love, providing links and explanation of the early days of jazz music, which he describes thusly:

As a musical language of communication, jazz is the first indigenous American style to affect music in the rest of the World. Brass Band From the beat of ragtime syncopation and driving brass bands to soaring gospel choirs mixed with field hollers and the deep down growl of the blues, jazz's many roots are celebrated almost everywhere in the United States.

While my tastes run to jazz recorded in the last 50 years, I can't help loving the music from this early era of jazz. Its bubbling sense of joy belies the prejudice and struggle that many who played it found in their lives. It's powerful in that way, not nostalgic. All music should be considered within its own context and time. It may not be on my turntable all the time, but from time to time, I just need that sound of jasssssss. It is the first site added to my "Jazz History" category.

I've been meaning to let you know about the blog 100 Greatest Jazz Albums for some time.  Blogger Ken Watkins brings you his choices for the best in jazz, highlights the greatest jazz albums, and selects the best of the jazz CD and mp3 new releases. The site includes the following features and links:

• The 100 Greatest Jazz Albums (an ongoing review of the 100 greatest jazz albums)
• Recently released and recommended top jazz CD albums
• Recent re-releases
• Forthcoming jazz new releases and jazz re-releases
• What's selling best on the Amazon Top 100 jazz download and jazz album charts (updated hourly)
• Links to free video and audio jazz podcasts
• Jazz news
• Jazz on DVD
• A jukebox that plays and directs you to mp3 tracks that are approved for download
• A jazz gig guide

Now you might not agree with all of Ken's choices, but he's collected a lot of stuff and it's definitely worth some exploration.

Going way back, jazz has been part of cinema, from questionable racial portrayals in movies from earlier in the 20th century to Clint Eastwood's movie Round Midnight, the smoky bar with jazz music has often been a staple of the silver screen.  To celebrate the coming of the Rochester High Falls International Film Festival (new moniker, same great films), which set to screen from April 30th through May 5th, I thought I'd share a site with you that provides links and information about the jazz music that is available on film. JazzOnFilm.com is a UK-based site is meant to be comprehensive in its listings of documentaries, shorts and TV programs, but with feature films its links and listings are more selective. The site "features films that feature musicians playing jazz or ghosting for actors and are about the jazz life are included" and "welcome[s] additions and corrections to any film mentioned".  Enjoy!

There's another great website out there for you to check out with an unlikely moniker (OK, it is the most likely and they must have paid dearly to buy the domain)--Jazz.com.  As it's "About Us" page describes, Jazz.com is:

[D]edicated to sharing our love of the jazz art form, and serving the the global jazz community. We publish reviews, interviews, historical overviews and other material of interest to our visitors, and encourage them to share their expertise and opinions on our Forums and elsewhere on the site. Our Encyclopedia of Jazz Musicians is the most comprehensive on-line reference work focused on currently active musicians, and is offered as a resource to our site visitors. Registered members also can list in our site directory, where they can promote their goods and services, or create their own web page at jazz.com. In addition to our advocacy of jazz music, we also are committed to sharing the work of visual artists who focus on the jazz idiom. These works are on display at our Visual Jazz galleries.

It's quite easy to set up a site on Jazz.com, which gives their readers another place to find your site if you're a musician, jazz educator or have a little jazz website like this one.  There's also a blog, where they have been sending regular updates from the International Association of Jazz Educators conference in Toronto.  They're just getting started, so check them out.  Let me know what you think in the comments.

Jason Crane has two interviews that were named among the Best Interviews of 2007 over at AllAboutJazz.com. Click on over to The Jazz Session to check out those interviews and the rest of his jawboning with jazz artists (over 40,000 served . . . ).  I know how difficult it is. You make it look sound easy, Jason.

From time to time, I try to share jazz sites with you that I've come across in my meanderings across the World Wide Web, including blogs about jazz. Once such site is the blog JazzWax.

JazzWax's Marc Myers writes almost daily about jazz and jazz recordings. He is a NYC journalist, historian and corporate media consultant—and a jazzhead of major proportions. Typical JazzWax posts (for example Teddy Wilson in Denmark on December 16th or Boy With Lots of Brass about Maynard Ferguson on October 24th) will explore their topics in depth and include links on where to find available tracks and video. The JazzWax blog also includes interviews of jazz artists and people in jazz. Myers also collects jazz video. Check it out!

For those of you who haven't checked out local jazz guy Jason Crane's The Jazz Session podcast and blog, Jason has just passed 15,000 downloads of The Jazz Session podcast. I count myself as one of those listeners through iTunes. 

Jason's a great interviewer and has a lot of insight into what's happening in jazz here and elsewhere.  We had a great time hanging with Jason during this year's RIJF (and thanks to a loan . . . I know, I know you want them back). Check him out and add yourself to the ever-growing fans of The Jazz Session.

As you can see by the number, I don't add jazz blogs to my links willy-nilly. While there are a lot of them out there, the good ones are harder to come by.  Another one of the Arts Journal weblogs has caught my eye. I have been reading Doug Ramsey's RiffTides for awhile. A little closer to home (in N.Y.C. and written by Howard Mandel, a Chicago-born and New York-based writer, editor, author, arts producer for National Public Radio as well as president of the Jazz Journalists Association.), I've added Jazz Beyond Jazz to my feed reader.  His first post, excerpted below, tells you a lot about where he's heading and why I'm adding him:

What if there's more to jazz than you suppose? What if jazz demolishes suppositions and breaks all bounds? What if jazz - and the jazz beyond, behind, under and around jazz - could enrich your life?

What if jazz is the subtle, insightful, stylish, soulful, substantive guide to successful navigation of today's big and little challenges? What if jazz is more than a tune in the background, the cult of the cool, an old hipster cliché - but rather a window on and mirror reflecting society as understood by artists who regard individuality, originality, innovation, integrity, virtuosity, collaborative skills and community concerns as essentials, fundamentals? What if jazz is an infallible bs. detector and transmitter, as immediate as the Internet, of beauty and truth?

Jazz Beyond Jazz is of the mind that jazz as we know it is fine, but what's happening right now - and escaping most notice -- is jazz beyond jazz.

So far, the twelve posts he's done reflect the catchline of the blog—they are a "freelance urban improvisation" ranging from selected his thoughts on the recently released box set of Miles Davis's The Complete On the Corner Sessions, to a much deserved dig at Keith Jarrett's recent meltdown at the Umbria Jazz Festival in Italy. I'm happy to see another jazz journalist join the blogosphere.  Let's see where Mandel's further explorations take him....

I love finding stuff that tries to visualize something else and have been trying to share them with you over the past few years.  Here are a couple of other things that visualize jazz music in different ways that I've recently run across out there:

• A way cool visualization (again) of Coltrane's Giant Steps, although this time you get to follow the musical notation in real time (from Thought Bucket).
• A  History of Jazz Albums in a timeline form.  Still a work in progress, but the site is pretty cool. Hey start your own timeline (perhaps history of Rochester Jazz?).

Hope you like them.

Lori over at ClickForLessons.com, a new online community for music professionals and other creative people sent me an email with the company's press release on the partnership they have made with the International Association of Jazz Education (IAJE), which negotiated a deal with them so that its members will have free access to ClickForLesson's suite of web services.  Given the musical character of this town what with Eastman, Hochstein and the great music education programs in many of the area's high schools, I clearly thought I should pass this information on to my readers.  ClickForLessons services help independent musicians and instructors connect with each other and with students to grow their music business. Steven Cox, www.clickforlessons.com CEO and founder, describes the company's role in the partnership as:

Helping IAJE members find new local students, exhibit their musical art, gain coveted business references, and network with a community of over 250,000 like-minded people. By harnessing the power of the internet, we've been able to help instructors increase their income by as much as 67% per year.

IAJE members can access the partnership login from a special portal on the IAJE website. Through this special partnership, IAJE and Click for Lessons expect that members may increase business and their independence as instructors and working artists.

The website and its services are not limited to music instruction, but include dance, voice, acting, language, educational tutoring. There are over 82,000 member instructors at this time.  The site also maintains a blog for announcements about the site and other information of value to its members.

I'm a wannabe musician who played and took piano lessons when I was a kid, but was not too disciplined in the practice area.  I bought a mandolin on a whim a couple of years ago and it, sadly, sits in a corner of the living room calling out "play me . . . play me" in its sweet, dulcet tones.  I put my zip code into a search for mandolin lessons on ClickForLessons.com and found quite a few possible local teachers who I may be able to take lessons from. I may be following up with before I forget the stuff I've already learned (OK, I only have one tune that I could play in any recognizable way. . . Yankee Doodle).  The site is simple and it works (OK you'll believe me when I actually make the call . . . .).

Because of the focus of Jazz@Rochester, I'm often asked whether I'm a musician.  I wish. . . .  I have dabbled around its edges.  I took piano lessons as a child, played trombone and drums in junior high band, and in the past year have bought a mandolin, which alas sits in its gig bag in a corner of the room for the time being. I may want to check out Jazz Licks to get some licks to play when the time comes that I actually want to use my limited ability to read music and play an instrument.  The blog is being used by its writer to try to collect jazz licks for publishing in a book later.  While compiling, "he" (I'm assuming by the "Big Buzzard" moniker, but who knows?) is publishing them on his blog.  As he writes:

Like all jazz musicians, over the years I've learned from those who have gone before, by listening to recordings, and transcribing improvised solos. It's a great way to keep your brain in tune, and to improve your listening and playing skills. Last week I was approached by a music publisher and asked if I would be interested in compiling a set of 50 'Jazz Licks' to be published as a set of cards. It was obvious immediately that this was far too big a task for one person, if there's to be any hope of some kind of comprehensive coverage of the whole of jazz. So, I'm opening this appeal to jazz musicians everywhere to 'send me your favourite licks'.

The writer is interpreting a "lick" as a short phrase, up to 4 bars in length, played as part of an improvised solo or accompaniment. He's got 21 posted so far (as of this post), with music notations and an mp3, ranging from Dizzy Gillespie's Salt Peanuts to Pat Metheny's Third Wind.

For several years I have tried to shake off the post Rochester Jazz Festival fatigue and head over to Syracuse for the M&T Syracuse Jazz Festival. This year was no exception, but alas "woulda, shoulda, coulda" is not enough.  Bill Milkowski over at JazzTimes.com, the online version of Jazz Times magazine (which has now been added to my jazz media links), recently wrote:

For 25 years, Syracuse Jazz Fest has been sustained by the sheer over-the-top enthusiasm of its colorful and endlessly energetic leader, festival organizer Frank Malfitano. From its humble origins in 1982 at the intimate Oliver’s nightclub on Erie Boulevard East, this free event has been embraced by the locals and revisited year after year by music lovers from all over New York State. With financial support coming from M&T Bank, Syracuse Jazz Fest has now become a major event on the summer festival circuit, providing music lovers with three full days of jazz, with a little bit of R&B, funk and blues on the side. Read more of the JazzTimes review....

Sounds like a good time and, like I said before, it's FREE...Maybe next year?

I just discovered through pure happenstance that there is a "blog" over at the Democrat & Chronicle this year chronicling the Rochester International Jazz Festival.  Hell, I'm LOOKING for stuff about this year's festival and hadn't found them yet (although, to be fair, I haven't been looking much on the D&C festival site for the past few days as I've been too busy listening to jazz).  Written by a team including Anna Reguero and Jann Nyffeler (Jeff Spevak and Jack Garner, who are listed on the masthead have yet to make an appearance), it is blog-like in that it is written in the reverse chronological and, props to them, allows comments and trackbacks.  The writing is personal and contributes to the conversation out there about the RIJF. While I think they're still missing the "social" in the social media of blogs, I'm glad to have yet another voice out there promoting what we're all pulling for—luring people out of their cocoons to see live jazz and other music here in the Rochester area, both during the festival and, more importantly for Jazz@Rochester, throughout the year.  Keep at it!

Despite knowing of its existence for several years and the great pictures and commentary that are put up during the Rochester jazz fest, I've been remiss in reminding you to check out local website The Refrigerator.net, the "coolest spot in virtual Rochester" and their coverage of the RIJF.  It's always a great source to get a flavor of this festival.

Gap Mangione sent over a link to bassist Tony Levin's site with some great pictures of the Friends in Love concert that was re-created at Eastman Theater May 25-27 with the original band members Don Potter, Gap Mangione, Gerry Niewood, Tony Levin, Steve Gadd, Lew Soloff, Bat McGrath and the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. For the many of us who were not able to get tickets or couldn't attend, it's a behind the scenes look at the restaging of a legendary concert from 1970 here in Rochester.  Levin says that he'll be adding more pictures as they are available.

I thought I'd let you know about a new blog in town.  Tracy Kroft and Don Albrecht have started up a new blog about live music in here in Rochester—Rochester Music Scene (and Heard).  While not focused entirely on jazz, Tracy is a fellow traveler on the live music scene.  You can't be much more of a true believer than this:

Music has the power to bring you joy, ease your pain, help you cry through heartache and see you to the other side. Sometimes the same moment in the same piece of music . . . can bring me to the height of heart-busting joy or bring me to a puddle of tears depending on where I am in the continuum of my emotions.

Tracy's aim is to tell you about about the musicians, music and gigs she is seeing in hopes of getting more people out to see the talented musicians that we grow right here in Rochester. We share that as well. Check her out...   Oh, and thanks for the link to Jazz@Rochester, Tracy.

I found another great site for the jazz-inclined, JazzCorner.com, brought to you by Lois Gilbert.  In addition to being the "largest portal for the official websites of more than 180 jazz musicians and organizations", the site includes a number of other resources, including video sharing where you can upload and share jazz and blues videos, a jazz jukebox, and the JazzCorner Speakeasy, the busiest bulletin board for jazz. I found that there is a thread for Upstate NY.  I'm going to try to be on there more often to find out more about what's going on in Central and Western NY.  There is also a great podcast series called Innerviews (which I've added to my podcasting links), with interviews of established and new to the scene jazz artists.

Apparently, April is Jazz Appreciation Month—who woulda thunk it?  Well, the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History did and recently contacted me as a community jazz advocate to do what I can to promote their new cultural initiative "intended to draw public attention to the glories of jazz as both an historical and a living treasure." The idea is to encourage musicians, concert halls, schools, colleges, museums, libraries, and public broadcasters to offer special programs on jazz every April.

This is the sixth annual Jazz Appreciation Month, although it's the first I've heard of it. While they contacted me (and hopefully others in the community who are advocates of jazz...say WGMC?) a bit late to affect events for this year, perhaps this would be an opportunity those of us who want to broaden the opportunities to hear jazz in Rochester to bring the music we love to more.  It would also dovetail nicely with the announcement of the lineup for the Rochester International Jazz Festival, which is in April.  [Note to other jazz advocates in Rochester:  If you didn't receive the Smithsonian's email, send one to me and I'll forward it to you.]  Anyone out there want to start working on this should contact me by the email link this site and I'll start putting you together.

Smithsonian Jazz has a Jazz Appreciation Month site with more information about the initiative, a jazz discussion board, and other goodies.  Check out the PDF availalbe here of ideas of how to celebrate Jazz Appreciation Month. Go check it out and let's start planning for next year!  I encourage you to leave a comment with your ideas.

Recently, I found out that Richard Shade Gardner over at Rochesterblog.com, an online cyberjournal about Rochester and its people, history, etc., had told my business partner that he wanted to link swap (and he has, in fact, linked to Jazz@Rochester).  I had come across Richard's blog awhile ago and had always meant to take a closer look, but hadn't.  You see, Richard writes....a lot and I've been having trouble recently doing the one thing required to follow someone like him . . . reading. But once I took the time, I found a rich source about all things Rochester. Once a week for several years he has written a long form article and published it on the blog. The articles span a gamut from a topless protest on Cobb's Hill to H.O.G. (House of Guitars for the uninitiated). 

In looking back into Rochester's past, he even touches on its history of jazz, including a wonderful article on happening upon a plaque in the Swillburg neighborhood commemorating:

In the middle of a small grassy square, encircled by Avon Place, Fountain Street, and Sycamore Street - tiny streets lined with small hundred-year-old homes - I spot a modest granite monument. I step across the grass and read the bronze plaque:

Dedicated to Cabel "Cab" Calloway the king of "Hi-De-Ho" - An internationally known band leader, singer, dancer, actor and composer. Cab, an African-American, was born in Rochester, New York on December 25, 1907 and once lived at 14 Sycamore Street.

As I've said many times before, Rochester has a rich jazz history and Cab Calloway is a big part of that history.  I really enjoyed reading and hope to find more of that history. Check out this short movie Hi-De-Ho with Cab and the band playing in a Santa Fe sleeper and at the Cotton Club (complete with fan dancers...):

Tom Pethic has built a new model of what for some of you will be a comfortable, old "shoe,"—the Artistry in Jazz radio show has returned after an over one year hiatus (an earlier version was on WGMC for 21 years) to radio on Legends 990 AM WLGZ and streaming at Legends990.com on Saturdays from 1-5 pm. While it is on AM radio, which is not known for its high fidelity, it is broadcast in "high-definition," which is touted as making AM OK for music again (if you have a high def radio that is).  I listened to the first show on Saturday.  I don't have high def radio, but the sound was OK (Jazz 90.1 doesn't come in that well here in the Park Ave area either), although the local commercials were cheesy.

I didn't hear Pethic's most recent prior version and wasn't living in Rochester for the version on WGMC.  The slightly compromised sound quality of the new incarnation of Artistry in Jazz was more than overcome by having another good jazz radio program to choose from in Rochester.  Pethic likes to focus on local artists and defines that widely to include a lot of Western New York. His thoughtful commentary is evident both on the radio and on his site (I hesitate to call it a blog, although Tom does).  As Pethic told Ron Netsky, "[t]here's a lot of history in this area and I don't want people to forget this important piece of the jazz pie." I'm looking forward to it and look forward to listening to Pethic's show next Saturday and regularly thereafter.  Good luck, Tom!

Local broadcaster (formerly with WGMC Jazz 90.1), AllAboutJazz writer, Green Party candidate, labor organizer, and podcaster Jason Crane launched a new jazz interview podcast this week. Called The Jazz Session, the podcast features conversations with musicians, writers, broadcasters, podcasters and more. Jason has been doing jazz podcasts over at The Jason Crane Show for awhile. Jason is a good interviewer who likes to bring listeners behind the scenes and into the lives of the people who play and love jazz. I've been meaning to add links to him for awhile.  May need to add a new category of links . . . jazz podcasts?

I listened to the inaugural show featuring tenor saxophonist Grant Stewart, who recently appeared here at the Strathallan with Bob Sneider, Mike Melito, et al.  I saw one of Stewart's sets at the Strath and listening to Jason's interview provided me an in depth view of the artist and his musical background. The Jazz Sessions podcast is also available on iTunes and where other fine podcast products are found.  It's going in my iPod Nano.

I've been meaning to link to Jerry Jazz Musician since I found it a few months ago, but it kept slipping off the pile.  It ain't pretty, sort of an online magazine with a wild jumble of links and content about jazz and American civilization. The site was nominated in 2006 by the Jazz Journalists Association for "Best Website Concentrating on Jazz," so they're doing something right.  Go, explore . . . . dig it!

So are you MySpacing? Like this blog, this phenomenon of social media allows one to easily set up a site that runs on creating links between people and building networks. There are also some great tools available on MySpace sites, including a way to stream an artist's latest music. Musicians of all stripes, not just the ones all the youngsters are listening to, are flocking to MySpace.  A number of jazz artists and groups are also getting in on the "Friends" action.  So far, I've managed to find the following local artists in my meanderings around MySpace (some of whom already have links in the right panel):

• Bob Sneider
• Mike Kaupa
• Paradigm Shift
• Richie Vitale
• Hard Logic
• Dubblestuff
• And my friend Jimmie Highsmith Jr.

If an artist is not in the Artists links yet, I'll be adding them soon.  If you wish to have your MySpace page added to my artist list, then let me know through the comments and I'll see if I can get them in there. I started to set up a MySpace page to see what it was all about.  Didn't get very far before realizing that I was just setting myself up for more work and, as you can see by the lean posting in the past week, I'm having enough trouble keeping up with the amount I have now in relation to this and other blogs that I post to.

Ran across a wiki called Ear of the Behearer (get it?) recently that focuses on the jazz recorded in the 70s and 80s, which has been poo-poohed for years by jazz snobs due to the fact some of it resembled the other music pablum (remember Afternoon Delight?) that was foisted on us in that era. As set out on the front page of the site:

A few months ago, a frantic series of postings in the jazz blog world ricocheted around, triggered by the realization that enough time has passed since the 70s and 80s that it's now possible to reappraise the music made in that era. Rather than wait for some yet-to-be-born musicologist to do the job, the suggestion was made that a resource be created so that the musicians and listeners most affected and influenced by this post-Vietnam music will be able to have a common place to catalog, discuss, and debate.

The creators of Behearer are trying to create a database "documenting and discussing one of the richest—most overlooked and underrated—eras." Visitors to the site are asked to check it out, fix the errors (like Wikipedia you can edit it) and fill in gaps in the information on the sites. I am always in favor of expanding the horizons of listening and using the new social media tools like wikis in a new way to do so is pretty cool. Check it out and let me know what you think.