Best media sites to read about jazz

‘Best’, you ask? Compared to what! Well, what I’m on about is part-‘favourites’, ‘part’-simply gotta relate. The list is simple, many of the sites obvious, but not all, with a few notes about the whys and wherefores. It’s not science. There are specialist magazines and non-specialist papers in the list. Media sites start and finish with a blank page and words on the page whatever the field. Nothing else matters as much

*** www.downbeat.com
The online equivalent of the world’s greatest (still!) jazz magazine is a little too slow to react. Otherwise it’s sensible and wise.

*** www.allaboutjazz.com
The site with the biggest global readership. Variable quality and the technological imperative seems to come first. But there is some great writing scattered widely within its volunteer-buoyed vastness, the articles of John Kelman and Ian Patterson particularly.

*** www.londonjazznews.com
Great for the London scene and beyond.

**** www.guardian.co.uk
Read it for John Fordham, Richard Williams and John Lewis. There should be more content and space given to all three writers especially on the main music blog within culture where there is a lot of room clogged up by ‘landfill indie’ content. Why not ‘landfill jazz’ too without being too facetious?

***** www.nytimes.com
Read it for Ben Ratliff and Nate Chinen especially.

**** www.irishtimes.com
Google the great Dublin paper for Cormac Larkin, a writer as talented as a Ratliff, Chinen or Fordham.

**** www.newyorker.com
Read it for Alec Wilkinson, the new Whitney Balliett in theory.

***** www.thebluemoment.com
Superb writing from Richard Williams. Also read the very different book that spawned the blog’s name.