Maybe it is just being sentimental but jazz coverage in the newspapers nowadays is over. You cannot even count really on old friends that used to keep jazz up there with a lot more column inches than now ie in papers like The Guardian and Observer. Basically now everything is so much more splintered and we are all getting our media information from a wider range that does not necessarily lead off with reviews and features.

The written word is suffering massively, however. Yes we are more image drawn now and the Internet serves us well with that as it does with video and audio.

But we need some written preferably long-form topical analysis too in bigger media outlets which is not academic writing (and in that sector in universities there is more of this than ever before) and the direction the arts editors on our leading papers follow is not really in keeping with the priorities of jazz fans.

I sincerely hope that changes but it needs a raft of new appointments with writers and editors drafted in to up coverage and a big change of attitude to chime with specialist music fans’ tastes not only jazz but other areas like classical which are also poorly served rather than the long observed trend of assuming that everyone is intoxicated with celebrity-driven pop culture. Otherwise if this does not happen papers lose their relevance and we all just drift away.