Onward to 30!

For our members who do not subscribe to our weekly newsletter, this past week's was of particular importance so we pulled sections from it and published it as an article. You can join over 89,000 members and subscribe to our free weekly newsletter. When you do, we'll keep you current on website happenings plus include a local jazz events calendar. Learn more here.

Last week we toasted All About Jazz's 29th birthday. We also launched the Jazz Forward Award program and said goodbye to a friend (more tributes here). This week, we've turned our attention to an AAJ app and an AAJ chatbot. Each represents a significant step forward for us but both come with a cost. The app requires a substantial upfront investment, while the chatbot will involve a recurring monthly fee. Despite these costs, we believe that investing in both is crucial for our growth and continued success. The app will enhance our visibility and accessibility on mobile devices, helping us connect with a broader audience. Meanwhile, the chatbot will elevate your experience by providing immediate assistance and answering both simple and complex queries. If you value what we do at AAJ and want to support our efforts to expand and sustain our services, now is the perfect time to contribute. Your financial support will enable us to push beyond our current limits and continue delivering the quality you expect from us.

Writers and Articles Wanted

The All About Jazz team is made up of volunteer writers, editors, techies, musicians, industry professionals, and visual artists—all deeply passionate about music and committed to portraying jazz authentically. Our mission is to inform and inspire our readers worldwide, merging expertise with heartfelt enthusiasm. We are always seeking like-minded individuals who resonate with our vision and embrace our mission. Whether you wish to submit a one-off piece, contribute occasionally, archive historical articles or become actively involved, we can accommodate you. We're looking for interviews, album reviews (including Reassessing articles), concert reviews, venue profiles, Play This! recommendations, The Jazz Life stories (for folks who have spent a life in jazz and have stories to share), and musician penned articles. Email me to explore the possibilities.

Three reasons to write for All About Jazz

Need convincing? How about...

• We provide maximum exposure for your words or as Richard J Salvucci once put it: "I can post an article to my blog and get 14 reads or I post it to AAJ and it gets 1,400 reads on day one."
• AAJ provides instant access to the world of jazz (a promo album in exchange for a review; a concert or festival pass in exchange for coverage).
• You'll join a well-groomed community of generous spirits and deep thinkers.

So consider contributing to All About Jazz today. For historical pieces or one-off (non album review) submissions, email me directly. Otherwise, please submit a writing sample here.

As our Reykjavík friends did with "A Brief Guide to Icelandic Jazz," you can document the fascinating history of jazz or highlight the vibrant jazz scene in your country, region, or city in the form of an All About Jazz article. Interested? For inspiration, check the Icelandic Jazz article for style and formatting, then contact us.

Time Capsules

You might have heard this story before, but let me take you back to 2003, a year marked by an almost cataclysmic hack of All About Jazz and one that nearly spelled curtains for the now venerable website. The hacking was severe, leaving our hard drive a jumbled mess and with faulty backups and no way to restore, we were in deep trouble.

At the time, I was in Atlanta, working remotely while visiting my brother Ken. The instant AAJ blinked out, my heart dropped. Little did I know I was in for three difficult months of painstaking and prolonged recovery. The website eventually came back online but we sadly lost several thousand articles and it felt like we were starting over.

Fast forward 13 years, while sifting through the directories on an old MacBook, I stumbled upon a zipped file marked "archive." I unzipped it and bingo, I found many of the lost articles saved as HTML files. Since then, I have added some of the thousands of missing articles (mostly interviews) back to the database and added six this past week including Jack Bowers' coverage of the old IAJE (industry) conference in 1999, 2000 and 2002. Talk about a blast from the past! Turns out our readers liked the articles too because all three were heavily read—and on a Sunday no less. We also republished an extensive interview with Anthony Braxton (read) and John Fedchock (read) and shorter interviews with Brad Shepik (read) and David Binney (read).

The Jazz Forward Award

All About Jazz is recognizing the movers and groovers in our industry with our freshly minted Jazz Forward award program. It's our way to recognize and celebrate organizations, businesses, projects and individuals who advance jazz awareness, discovery and culture in new or impactful ways. If you or your organization is a good fit, complete our nomination form today. Learn more about the Jazz Forward program and winner prizes, here. We've received some worthy nominations and we look forward to announcing our first four Jazz Forward award winners by the end of the calendar year.

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