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Staff Update: October 2025

Thank you all for making the last few weeks an incredible stretch for coverage—both in terms of diversity and volume. But two shakes of a lamb’s tail later, and suddenly we’re short on content again. Doh!

Over the last two days, Mike J. and Luigi stepped up with Play This! submissions—thank you, gents! If you’re looking for albums to review, check the Coverage Request Center. A good one to start with is Stand Up! by Jerome Sabbagh (Analog Tone Factory).

We’re also always looking for Liner Notes to publish, so please send those along if you have any to share.

Recruit a Writer

With a few writers on hiatus, it’s become clear we need to expand our ranks—and this time, I’d like your help.

If you know someone who would make a strong addition to the AAJ staff, please reach out and encourage them to join us. Staff referrals are ideal since we tend to attract and vet high-quality contributors.

I’m developing a new submission form that will assess areas of interest, activity levels, and availability. Once it’s ready, I’ll send you the link to share with potential writers.

Share Counter

You may have noticed the new share count next to the social buttons on article pages. Check out Kyle’s “50 Years Later: 10 Jazz Albums from 1975 That Deserve Another Spin”—with 72 shares and over 6,000 reads, it’s a great example of how social traction drives visibility.

Star Rating Decision Tree

Glenn made it super simple to determine star ratings with his new decision tree—and he did a great job. Please check out the new Star Rating page and apply it moving forward.

WYSIWYG Editor

Anna (our programmer) has been away for two weeks and will be back with us full-time next week. Once she returns, she’ll implement the WYSIWYG bar on the article submission form.

In the meantime, I’ve made a few related updates:

• Moved “Language” to the top of the form.
• Tips for uploading book and DVD covers and film posters now appear only when their respective article types are selected.
• Moved the “Publication” box below the article text box—it’s less critical, so down it goes.
• The Link Generator is now more prominent, with updated descriptive text.

Interviewing Artists with AI Transcriber

The toughest part of interviews has always been transcription. Now, with Fireflies.ai, you can record through Google Meet or Zoom and receive a full transcript automatically when the conversation ends.

If you’ve hesitated to do interviews before, this tool will change that as it can cut prep time by up to 90%. Afterward, you’ll get an email from “Fred at Fireflies” with the recording and transcript. You can even use the AskFred feature to summarize the text.

A Few More Important Items

• You can now claim expired requests directly from the Coverage Request page. It also loads much faster since we removed the tabs.
• When contacting me for help, always include a page link and screenshot (if possible). It’ll help me diagnose the problem much faster.
• Please click ACCEPT or DECLINE on every album review request. Doing so triggers an email to the requester and keeps the workflow clean. This is critical—so please click ACCEPT or DECLINE every time.

One Last Thing

A longtime contributor recently referred to AAJ as “your website.” That struck me as odd—because it’s our website.

We’ve all helped shape All About Jazz into what it is today, and I hope you feel that same pride of ownership. When representing AAJ, please speak of it as your website—because it truly is.

Thanks for reading, and for everything you do. I’ll have more updates soon as we continue pressing on into year 30.

—mR