 |
Search our site:
|
|
by Dean Hampton
The KCJA/JAM Web Site:
New & Improved for 2001
When we launched the KC Jazz Ambassadors' web site in the summer of 1995, we knew we had a winning idea. We also had a team that shared the understandings that would be key to the success of such an undertaking.
First, the Internet's World Wide Web was in its infancy then and we knew it was going to grow. We expected a gold rush to take place, and it did.
Next, we felt that our members needed to be connected to the web, even though not very many were at that time. Only a handful had computers, even fewer were using the Internet, and I was the only KCJA board member online.
Third, we knew that a KCJA Internet presence would enable the rest of the jazz world to see what was happening in Kansas City. Our goal was simple: to put KC back on the jazz map. The venues and the talent were here, but not the proportionate audience.
So, we put everything we could online despite our limited resources, we added hundreds of jazz-related links, and even though there were larger (and fancier) jazz sites on the web, content rather than fluff became the measure of our success. (Within three years, The New York Times listed the KCJA site as "One of 10 jazz sites worth visiting." Not bad for an all-volunteer effort to spread the word!)
Now, five years later, the best is yet to come.
Beginning with this issue of JAM, we are launching a brand new KCJA/JAM web site at the same address of www.jazzkc.org. If it's been a while since you last visited us online, you may wonder if you're in the right place! The white "newspaper" look is gone, and "frames" are history, too. Both have been replaced by an all-tables design along with brilliant colors and more than 500 web pages to visit.
The new site is also loaded with features that will give you plenty to do while you're there and plenty of reasons to want to return after you leave. Navigation is much easier. The left column of each page is structured much like JAM's "Table of Contents" with buttons for Current Issue, Past Issues, CD Reviews, Club Scene, On the Air, Subscribe, Masthead, Advertising Info, and a link to take you back to our Home page.
The column on the right contains many of the KCJA events and organizational buttons, including Wholenotes, Events & Festivals, Jazz Lover's Pub Crawl, Private Pub Crawls, KC Jazz Workshop, Volunteering (where you can sign up online to help us), Join KCJA (to become a member), Pics & Flicks, About KCJA, and a Board of Director's page complete with our email addresses.
Across the top, we have included six useful (and fun) tabs. They are:
- Contact Us -- How to reach the right person for your jazz/KCJA needs.
- Site Map -- How to get around in our new cyber neighborhood.
- Jazz Links -- Featuring hundreds of local, national and international jazz resources.
- Mailing Lists -- A new way for us to communicate with you. (And where you call the shots by subscribing or unsubscribing.)
- Message Board - A place for you to tell us and the rest of the world what you think about a number of jazz-related topics.
- Merchandise -- Where you will eventually be able to purchase KCJA apparel and other items online with a credit card or check (via Pay Pal).
And there's also the site's brand new search engine. No matter what you are looking for, just type it into the white box, hit GO, and you will get a list of what can be found on our site. But be sure to refine your search with quote marks around your keyword; that way you will get only exact matches for words within the quotes.
Oh, and one more thing. We still have to pay the bills. Please click on the banner ads and patronize our advertisers. That will help us to make The New York Times' "top five" list someday!
An MP3 Update
From my perspective, most of the news on the MP3 front is good. (Even though Napster and MP3.com may only partially agree.)
In the long run, I think consumers, musicians and record labels have won major battles in the last couple of months. Among them:
- Napster seems to be moving to a subscription service for downloading music. From the recent agreement with Bertelsmann's BMG Entertainment, the producers of the music are to be paid for their products.
- MP3.com has lost a major copyright infringement battle and has paid $53.4 million to Seagram's Universal Music Group. This seemed to clear the way for MP3.com to continue its My.MP3.com music locker storage service that includes a database of 80,000 songs. Word on the street now is that the labels that had settled out of court for lesser amounts are probably headed back to court to get their fair share. They are Sony Music Group, Time Warner's Warner Music Group, EMI Recorded Music, and Bertelsmann's BMG Entertainment. If they win, MP3.com will probably have to add $127 million to the $163.4 million already paid to the labels -- $127 million more than they had reserved for these cases.
In my opinion, long term, everybody will win. MP3.com will not have such deep pockets, but they will survive; and the music producers will be paid and the locker storage service will continue.
Sprint PCS & the MP3 Bandwagon
Sprint PCS and Samsung have teamed to bring another great product to the MP3 world: the Samsung Uproartm -- a Sprint PCS Phonetm with MP3 player, and much more.
The Samsung Uproar is a dual-band Sprint PCS Phone that has a built-in MP3 player with 64 MB of memory. That's enough for over an hour's worth of music! It comes with all of the goodies that you need to convert your CDs to MP3 format and listen to them either on your computer or on the Samsung Uproar. If purchased in time for Santa's delivery (or before January 14), Sprint will include one year's access to their new service, Sprint PCS MyMusic(sm) where you can store (much like My.MP3.com's locker) up to two gigabytes of music, which is room for about 800 tunes. To playback your music, you may stream music directly from the Sprint PCS MyMusic web site, or download straight to your Samsung Uproar phone.
You can also create playlists of your favorites or search your collection by title, artist, or album. The site offers an area for rating and reviewing tracks, sharing opinions with other music lovers, or reading artists' biographies.
Yet another good way to continue your jazz odyssey into the year 2001!
Pat Metheny with patients & parents at Children's Mercy Hospital.
|
The Gift of Music
Prior to his October 10 Folly Theater show, KC native Pat Metheny took some time to meet with patients and parents at Children's Mercy Hospital and to present the hospital with a new Metheny model Ibanez guitar. It was part of a concerted effort by KCJA Jazz Education Director Tom Alexios, Down Beat magazine, and Donnell Bennett of the Kansas City Chiefs to "enhance and create unique musical opportunities for the young patients." Said Alexios, "We are thrilled that Pat agreed to be a part of this."
-- MM
Rusty Tucker singing & swinging at 75
|
75 Candles!
Thank goodness there are still several active links to KC's grand jazz heritage, one of whom is Scamps' vet, Rusty Tucker. On October 26 at the Phoenix Piano Bar & Grill -- and with festive support from Tim Whitmer's KC Express -- the venerable vocalist/drummer/trumpeter celebrated his 75th birthday in style, singing, swinging, and playing with the kind of authenticity worthy of everything the words "Kansas City jazz" will always stand for. Happy Birthday, Rusty. It must be all that clean livin' that keeps you looking so young and sounding so good.
-- MM
RETURN TO DECEMBER/JANUARY 2001 MAIN INDEX
© Kansas City Jazz Ambassadors 1996-2001. All rights reserved.
|
|
|
|
