March 2008

We have some important information to share since our previous newsletter. Please read on...

1. April Foolery
2. Meet the Staff: New Editors and Editorial Feats
3. Site Developments: This Day in Jazz History
4. CD Assignment Update
5. Help Wanted: Interview Editors
6. Editorial Calendar: Check Your Publish Dates
7. KillQuote: Free Text Manipulation Tool for Windows Users

April Foolery

All systems are a go for our annual April 1 fun.

If you would like to submit a spoof piece this year, please add "For April 1" to the title of your submission to tip off the editors. In addition to Article / CD Review and News submissions, we've added This Day in Jazz History to the mix.

To read previous years submissions, click here.

Meet the Staff: New Editors and Editorial Feats

We've added several new editors to the staff over the last six months and we'd like to take a moment and recognize their efforts. Their names appear at the bottom of your articles, and we'd like to thank them all for making the words at AAJ shine. So please say hello to Raul d'Gama Rose, Greg Camphire, George Carr, Stanley Clarke, Richard Ryan, Henry Smith, Mark F. Turner, and Gina Vodegel.

We like to welcome Konrad Pesch to the senior staff as the "This Day in Jazz History" editor.

We'd also like to bring attention to the work of both Ed Zucker and James Nadal. Ed recently became the #2 leading musician profile editor, and Ed and James have combined for a total of nearly 1,000 profiles. Thanks guys!

For a list of the top musician profile editors, click here. If you would like to become a profile editor (even for one musician) read how you can participate here.

Site Developments

• Search change: AAJ now uses three search technologies: Google for internal page searches, Ask.com for external site searches, and our own proprietary search technology for articles, reviews, musicians, directories, upcoming releases, downloads, photos and news.
  
  
• This Day in Jazz: We recently launched our "This Day in Jazz History" section and we're adding facts daily. You can access the facts by clicking the "This Day..." link in the "BIRTHDAYS, FACTS & QUOTES" box in the right column on the AAJ home page. You can search for facts by month/day and year. If you would like to join the "This Day in Jazz History" project and add facts, please contact us about getting started.
  
  
• Site Map: We've created a single page to access all AAJ links. You can find the Site Map on the navigation bar (to the right of "Intro" and below "NEWS"); it contains over 90 links to various pages, lists, and forms at AAJ.
  
  
• Jazz Birthdays: AAJ has the most comprehensive list of jazz musician birthdays on the web and it's growing daily. To search for an artist birthday, click here. If you have a website or blog, consider adding our Jazz Birthday widget. It'll update with new birthdays daily. More info

• Viewing Article Read Counts: We've added the read count to the contributor article archive pages. To view the read counts on your articles from one location, click the "CD Reviews" or "Articles" link under the archive section on your contributor profile page.

CD Assignment Update

We've started the process of assigning CDs for review. Some of you have already received your packages, but the bulk of the CDs are yet to be assigned. We expect to assign the majority of the music this coming week, so look for your package soon!

Help Wanted: Interview Editors

We're looking for two contributors who are interested in helping us prepare and schedule interviews for publication. Though not a major time commitment, it will involve preparing one interview per week and working closely with John Kelman.

Editorial Calendar: Check Your Publish Dates

You can now view the publish dates for your articles on AAJ's Editorial Calendar page. We list scheduled articles up to 30 days out so you can see what's on our immediate editorial horizon.

Free Text Manipulation Tool for Windows Users

I've been using KillQuote, a handy tool developed by Mike Lorenz, for over ten years now. It helps me clean up text, remove quotes, remove HTML, and left justify text, all at the click of a button.

You may find this powerful little utility a real time-saver too.

Download KillQuote (21KB zipped. Windows only.)

Thanks for reading.

Michael Ricci