Community Blog Posts
A Word About Social Media and Other Platforms
By Michael Ricci
September 12, 2026
196 views
Thanks to everyone who participated in our recent Bluesky survey. Your responses were helpful, and they lead naturally to another question we're asking this week. Over the years, we've taken a different approach to social media than many publishers. It's not that we don't see its value. Social media works especially well when the person is the destination--a musician, writer or other personality whose followers want to hear directly from them. All About Jazz is ...
read moreThe Jazz Scroll Is Taking Shape
By Michael Ricci
September 3, 2026
283 views
Years ago, we built what is now called The Jazz Scroll as a proof of concept--a place where we could experiment with a new way to discover and experience jazz on All About Jazz. It's gone through a handful of name changes and iterations since then, but this year we committed to completing the project and transforming it into our flagship app. Our current All About Jazz app, though perfectly functional, is essentially the website presented as ...
read moreLou Marini: 80 is the new 50; Cassandra Wilson, Charlie Haden, Elias Haslanger and Percy France; A Poll & A Survey; Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition (update); and more
By Michael Ricci
September 3, 2026
69 views
This week we have a new installment from John Ephland's Reanimating Conversations Past series, resurfacing a Charlie Haden interview from 1991 (see below). We also have an early newsletter-exclusive peek at part 4 of The Mystery of Artie Shaw: “Art Goes Artie." Author Alan Bryson is back, too, with a new time-traveling alternate-reality story that brings musicians from the future face-to-face with The Beatles at a pivotal moment in their history. The Jazz Scroll Is Taking Shape ...
read moreThe Mystery of Artie Shaw; Jazz Talk on Bluesky; More Website Improvements; Miles at 100, Continued, and much more
By Michael Ricci
August 27, 2026
111 views
It seems that with each passing week we have something new to share on All About Jazz. This week, it's our new shopping cart / storefront, which makes purchasing our services easier and will make the fund drive donation process a breeze. It's not exactly headline news, but it is worth mentioning as it's a vast improvement and will soon allow us to phase out some legacy technology. New One Question Survey Our latest survey is just one ...
read moreThe Mystery of Artie Shaw... returns!
By Michael Ricci
August 20, 2026
1,715 views
Artie Shaw was an enigma. A self-taught, brilliant clarinetist blessed with movie-star good looks, he became one of the defining musicians of the Big Band era. Yet at the height of his fame, he walked away from the music business, leaving behind a legacy as fascinating as it was influential. In the early 1990s, Ted Hallock--a passionate jazz scholar and former Oregon State Senator--spent a week with Shaw, then in his early 80s, recording an extraordinary series ...
read moreIf You Build It...; New York's Hottest New Club; John Coltrane and Santana, Zela Margossian, plus Goldings, Bernstein & Stewart, and More
By Michael Ricci
August 20, 2026
129 views
Last week we featured an article about All About Jazz entitled “Thirty Years Later, the Vision Remains," and if you missed it, you can read it here. This week, yours truly is the latest subject of B.D. Lenz's column, Chats with Cats. We cover a lot of ground, and I shared some stories about AAJ's history that make for a fun read. It was also a good opportunity to reflect on our past three decades and chat about what's to ...
read moreThirty Years Later, the Vision Remains; plus Dorota Piotrowska, Art Pepper, Adele Sebastian, Jimi Hendrix; Jazz Fiction and More
By Michael Ricci
August 13, 2026
90 views
Looks like we hit it out of the park with Musician Orbit, as responses ranged from “very cool" to “f***ing incredible!" And we're just getting started with a feature that will help shape how readers discover and engage with All About Jazz. There's still more work to do, from making Musician Orbit accessible throughout the site to helping musicians establish their own orbits. We should have detailed instructions for you next week. It seems like just yesterday that ...
read moreIntroducing Musician Orbit, plus five new interviews, festival coverage and much more
By Michael Ricci
August 6, 2026
415 views
It's been another extraordinary week for All About Jazz. Last week, we announced HIDDEN GEMS and launched our new series, Reanimating Conversations Past. This week, we're excited to introduce Musician Orbit, where jazz connections come to life through an interactive visual experience. This week's newsletter is packed with exceptional stories, so there's plenty to discover below. Also, we resolved the problem that prevented AAJ users from uploading photos and MP3s this morning. Thanks for your patience.
read moreReanimating Conversations Past; Unearthing Hidden Gems; Why We Build, Part 2; Max Roach and Phil Schaap; Songs of the Week and more
By Michael Ricci
July 30, 2026
139 views
If you've been following along this year, you may have noticed that we've accelerated the pace of innovation, rolling out new features and enhancements as we expand community engagement and platform functionality. It feels like we've entered another golden era for All About Jazz. We have two exciting announcements to share today, and look for our “Musician Orbit" project that showcases the power and possibilities of All About Jazz next Thursday. Also, John March ...
read moreHidden Gems: Giving Great Stories Another Time to Shine
By Michael Ricci
July 23, 2026
1,824 views
Every day, new stories arrive on the All About Jazz home page, joining the interviews, features, columns, profiles and reviews that have defined our editorial coverage since 1995. As those stories move on, they remain fully searchable through our archive and continue to be discovered by readers around the world. But many deserve another moment in the spotlight. That's the inspiration behind HIDDEN GEMS, a new section that can be found on the All ...
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