Internet Sites in Tune With the Genre

With everything else exploding all over the World Wide Web, it’s not surprising that jazz, of every shape and style, is flourishing in cyberspace as well.

Of course, broadband and high-speed access are as significant for jazz-site surfing as they are for anything else. And the availability of a fast processor and a DSL line can make for dramatically improved enjoyment of sight and sound. Nonetheless, the growing activity is well worth checking out. Here’s a random list of jazz-related sites and developments.

* Arbitron’s December ratings for Web radio reveal a number of jazz outlets doing extremely well. In the category of time spent tuning (listening), https://www.smoothjazz1059.com, the contemporary/smooth jazz service from WJZW-FM in Washington, D.C., clocked in third, with five hours and 23 minutes average time spent listening. KPLU-FM in Seattle, at https://www.kplu.com/home.html, timed in at three hours, 54 minutes.

* https://www.medium4music.com describes itself as the “largest genre-specific network of streaming on-demand music videos on the Net.” Among its 16 individual channels is https://www.alljazztv.com, which currently features videos by Cassandra Wilson, Miles Davis, Patricia Barber and Richard Leo Johnson, and an interview with Cuban pianist Frank Emilio.

* https://www.allaboutjazz.com is a huge site. But the well-organized, visually attractive layout makes it easy to navigate through its many colorful byways. In addition to information about new releases, festivals and tours, there are many more unusual areas: “Gigs From Hell” (with first-person musicians’ reminiscences); Desert Island Picks (in which viewers can submit their own lists of what they would take to a desert island); a History of Jazz Timeline; a Guide to Getting Started for neophyte jazz listeners; Jazz Radio, with a list of stations playing jazz, broken out by state; Just for Fun, a grab bag of information about jazz slang, nicknames, musical terms; and All in the Family, a fascinating, longer-than-you-might-expect list of jazz fathers, sons, daughters, brothers, etc.

* https://www.customdisc.com is one of several sites offering the opportunity to create custom CDs. The service charges $15.99 (plus shipping and handling) for a CD containing up to 12 songs. Selections can be made from a broad catalog, including tracks by Art Tatum, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Woody Herman, Nat Cole, Charles Mingus and dozens of other artists.

* https://www.jazzonline.com, created in 1991 as a bulletin-board system, evolved into the first commercial interactive network devoted to jazz in 1994. Its features include record reviews, Hot Picks, Artist Q&A;’s, and the Jazz Online Starter Kit--a basic jazz record collection. Viewers can ask questions of the Jazz Messenger, and Jazz 101 offers a basic historical overview of the music.

* https://www.jazzhalloffame.com is a swing and mainstream-oriented portal. It is currently developing what it describes as the National Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame Museum, which is “intended to do for music what the Cooperstown Hall of Fame did for baseball.” Still evolving, the site has a number of areas still “in development.” It does, however, contain a great deal of material--bios, history, essays, etc.--related to the big band swing era. Its Jazz-hooligy arena includes locations dedicated to jazz history, biographies and special features (“little-known facts about some of the biggest names in jazz and big band music”).

* https://www.takephivejazz.com is yet another ambitious jazz portal. Like other sites, it contains a historical overview section, artists’ bios and discographies, news and record reviews. There is also a recommended discography covering each of the major eras in jazz history, an online jazz radio feed that offers the option to pick stylistic program categories (big band jazz, horns, acid jazz, divas, etc.), and a few downloadable MP3 files.

* https://www.contemporaryjazz.com. In case fans of smooth and contemporary jazz feel left out, here’s a destination tailored specifically to their preferences. Although the site is strongly oriented toward record releases, it also includes current news about performers, tours, etc., a month-by-month listing of scheduled new CDs, a proprietary Top 10 list, columns and numerous forums.

Riffs: Jazz players who happen to be in New York the first week of April might want to check out a presentation by Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians’ Jazz Advisory Council. The event, titled “How to Make More Money as a Jazz Artist,” takes place April 3 at 4 p.m. at 322 W. 48th St. in New York City. Panelists include Roy Ayers, Lou Donaldson, Clark Gayton and Weldon Irvine; guest speaker is Jay Schaffner; and Jimmy Owens moderates. (Of course, L.A. musicians who are in NYC to perform must already have a pretty good notion of how to make money as a jazz artist.) . . . The Toronto Jazz Festival, a major Canadian music event since 1987, has canceled this year’s scheduled 10-day program as the result of legislation that limits tobacco company sponsorship of arts events. The Du Maurier company, the event’s premier sponsor since the festival’s inception, was obliged to reduce its support from $680,000 to $170,000. With a budget that totaled between $1.5 million and $2 million (Canadian), and secondary sponsorship of only $300,000, the producers decided it was impossible to mount the sort of high-quality festival programmed in previous years.