Michael Ricci

Lover of jazz, technology and sitting in a chair, Mike merged his three passions to create All About Jazz.

About Me

A web entrepreneur with a background in information technologies, Michael Ricci combined his love of jazz music with his fascination for all things internet and launched All About Jazz in 1995—a website that reaches over 20,000 readers a day.

Michael spun off Jazz Near You in 2012, an event discovery platform focused on collecting jazz events and promoting them through his vast network spanning the web, email, phones, widgets & feeds, churches, synagogues, Piggly Wiggly's, Wawas, and at the bottom of a Cracker Jacks box.

Michael is considered one of jazz's foremost agents of change. His All About Jazz website is a 13-time winner of the Jazz Journalists Association's “Best Web Site Covering Jazz” award before the category was ceremoniously retired. AAJ has also been recognized as the top jazz web site by Google, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR, BBC, Time Magazine, Forbes Magazine, Real housewives of Atlanta and Detroit, people of color, people of no color and by Michael Ricci's mother, Lulu.

Mr. Ricci lives outside of Philadelphia with his wife Rosemary and his trusty GSD Sammy. He knows 130,255 jazz musicians by name.

My Jazz Story

Thanks to my dad and his record collection, I started listening to jazz at an early age. He also took me to concerts, and I was nine when I saw Maynard Ferguson (circa "Live at Jimmy's"). The band's leisure suits were nearly as memorable as their music. Inspired, I played the trumpet for several years but stopped sometime in college, though I continued to collect music (thousands of vinyl records turned into thousands of compact discs) and see live shows. In 1995 I combined my interest in the internet with my love of jazz and created a website to promote the music. And here we are today!