Blog posting on hold

Just in case anyone wonders, I’m not sick or anything, I’ve just decided to cut way back on the posts and focus on other musical projects. I’ve always thought that the content on the rest of the site is more valuable than my posts. That content will remain and hopefully be useful to those interested in Madison jazz events and performers.

Thanks, and plea for help

First of all I want to thank everyone who has been a guest author on Madison Jazz. Posts from guest authors have been some of the most popular pieces on the site. A big THANK YOU goes out to:

• Patrick Breiner – Patrick’s rant at the Concourse put Madison Jazz on the map , and his most recent article is without a doubt the best article on the site.
• Ray Rideout- Ray provided the material for 3 consecutive posts that together with Patrick’s post were responsible for the busiest stretch in the site’s history: his letter to Kathleen Falk, a copy of the Concourse letter, and his spoof of that letter. Interest in these articles lasted for months.
• David Cooper – Dave  has contributed two heartfelt pieces, one about the demise of the Concourse jam and another remembering Freddie Hubbard.
• Jeff Peronto – Articles about and by Jeff have been extremely popular. The announcement that Jeff’s MATC career is over has been by far the most popular article on the site, and his post looking back at his time at MATC earned the distinction of a mention and link on the Isthmus daily page.

Now, the plea. I need more help writing articles!

I’m proud to say that in less than 4 months this blog has gone from a pipe dream to being an integral part of the jazz community. Many people visit Madison Jazz daily. Unfortunately, running this site and writing daily articles is incredibly time consuming. The rest of my life is suffering, especially practicing my saxophone. Now I also have a new musical project I want to put energy into - something has to give. I need to restore some balance.

Ideally, there would be two posts by guest authors each week. If two people step forward and commit to writing one article weekly that will do it (or four people every other week, you get the idea). If you want to write but need topic ideas talk to me. Otherwise, write on whatever you want, whatever you think  will interest or benefit the Madison jazz community. The only restriction is it shouldn’t be purely self-promotional. 

More guest authors means more diversity, a more interesting site, and a stronger jazz community. Please think about sacrificing a few hours a week to write an article and help keep this site going.

Navigating the site

Despite my best efforts to keep Madison Jazz organized some people do not find what they come for, even though it is here. Therefore, I spent the last 2 days improving the way posts are organized in categories. I hope this makes it easier to find related posts. It’s not perfect but it is improved.

Here are some different methods for finding things on the site:

1. Use the search box. This will return items that occur within posts, but will not return items from within comments. Unfortunately, I’m not aware of a good way to search the comments.
2. Click on the category. Each article has a category listed at the bottom of the post. There also is a list of categories in the sidebar. The weakness of this system is only one category can be assigned to each post but some posts can easily be put into several categories.
3. Click on the tag. Tags are listed at the bottom of each post, and the most commonly used tags are also available in the sidebar tag cloud. The font size in the cloud indicates how often the tag is used. Choose the most specific tag for best results.
4. Browse the archives. This is the least efficient way to find a specific item but you may come across many other interesting items you weren’t aware of.

For example, you read an interesting post and want to find related posts. Click on the category at the bottom of the post, or the most specific tag either at the bottom of the post or from the tag cloud. Some tags like “Madison Jazz” are used on almost every post so will not be helpful. They are there to help search engines find the site (it is the same reason many posts have the words “Madison jazz” within the first sentence). I hope this helps.

Wall of Fame

I tweaked Madison Jazz a bit yesterday and added a new page: the Wall of Fame. Right now there is a section for Madison Jazz Personality of the Year winners, and another for MAMA jazz category winners. If there are other awards given to Madison jazz musicians or contributors please let me know. And if you know the name of a jazz song or album that won a MAMA and it isn’t listed please get that information to me. Thanks.

I created this new page because awards are often won and then soon forgotten. Hopefully this will make it easier to remember who has been important to the Madison jazz community.

Madison Jazz mp3 of the Week

The Madison Jazz mp3 of the week series is kicking off. One mp3 will be streamed weekly. Send in your mp3 to tniwrek AT hotmail dot com. I will play the tunes in the order received. Rarely, I may decide not to play it.

Please provide some info about the song such as name of musicians, tune name, and any other thoughts you want to include.

 Your mp3 will be fairly secure from downloading. Check out the audio player to see how it works (the Richie Cole mp3 was free from Allthatjazz). It may require a bit of buffer time at startup but if you have a good connection if should play fine after that. Please let me know of any bugs.

Need a Bass Player?

Content continues to be added to Madison Jazz. On the the Musicians Network page I recently added a link to Madison Bass Player. It seems everyone has difficulty finding bass players so I wanted to highlight this site, and give a special thank you to John Christensen for making the process easier.

Additions/updates to site

This site is more than a blog on the Madison jazz scene, it’s also a website. This weekend I spent quite a bit of time adding content to the rest of the website. The Band/Musician page now has many more listings (with more to come), and the newly added Resource page has links to Madison jazz radio and festivals, practice rooms, and more.

The Resource page also has an area for music teachers who teach jazz to be listed. It can be challenging for students to find a teacher that fits their learning style AND teaches jazz. Send me your information if you teach jazz and I’ll list it so that students can find you easier.

If you think something should be added to the site, or your contact information doesn’t look right, let me know. And don’t forget to send me any Madison jazz news you want to share.