Building a Stronger Foundation and much more

Over the past several weeks, we've made significant progress across All About Jazz and Jazz Near You. Much of the work has taken place behind the scenes, but its impact is already beginning to surface throughout the platform.

One of our highest priorities has been reliability. After a deep investigation into the intermittent access issues some readers have experienced, we identified multiple underlying causes and have begun implementing permanent fixes. Our goal is simple: make All About Jazz and Jazz Near You faster, more stable, and more dependable for everyone. If you occasionally encounter a Cloudflare error screen, clearing your browser's cache and reloading the page will usually restore access.

Reimagining the Member Experience

We've also completed a major overhaul of the member experience. Both the member settings page and musician settings page have been redesigned, and member profiles now offer more opportunities to share your jazz interests, activities, and connections with the community. We replaced the old tabbed interface with a simpler one-column layout, making it easier to manage your information and discover new features. If you haven't visited your member page recently, now is a great time to update it.

Recognizing Community Contributions

These improvements are part of a larger effort to strengthen the community aspects of the platform. New Builder and PRO designations have begun appearing throughout the site, and we're developing a comprehensive badging system that will recognize participation, contributions, and achievements across All About Jazz and Jazz Near You.

As part of that initiative, we've introduced a growing collection of leaderboard and Top 100 reports that highlight the people helping build the community. From article authors and editors to event listers, musician page administrators, and other contributors, these reports celebrate the individuals whose efforts make the platform more useful, informative, and engaging for everyone.

• Top Published Authors
• Top Article Editors
• Top Read Authors
• Top Viewed Staff Members
• Top Followed Staff Members
• Top Musician Page Editors
• Top Event Listers
• Top Business Listers
• Top Album Uploaders

Making Participation Easier

At the same time, we're working to reduce friction between you and the full All About Jazz experience. We've heard from readers who want to vote in polls, update their profiles, support the platform, or participate in the community but run into sign-in challenges. We're exploring additional authentication options, including the possibility of Google sign-in, to make access simpler and more convenient in the future.

Community participation remains central to everything we do. Our Top Venues Poll is currently underway, allowing readers to recognize the clubs, concert halls, listening rooms, and performance spaces that have provided their most memorable live jazz experiences. The poll also serves as a reminder of what makes this community special: jazz thrives because people support venues, artists, presenters, writers, educators, and one another.

More Than a Publication

What's most exciting is not any single feature or improvement, but how these pieces are beginning to connect. Member profiles, badges, leaderboards, venue data, musician pages, events, articles, podcasts, and community activity are all becoming part of a more unified experience designed to make jazz discovery more engaging, more useful, and more rewarding.

We're building something larger than a publication. We're building a platform that helps people discover jazz, connect with one another, and contribute to a growing global community. Thank you for being part of it.

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Posted to Publisher's Desk IN THE All About Jazz GROUP
Read more posts by Michael Ricci