Before the advent of the web there were only jazz magazines and the papers, timely coverage of jazz confined mainly to reviews and live reports, the occasional feature and of course, obituaries.

Now magazines and the papers are often last in the queue to let their readers know the latest as much because of deadlines as anything else and the priority of keeping stories back for the print editions they don’t want to give away for nothing.

From time to time I like to have a look around at new and not so new jazz sites that have moved into the new information provision zone opened up on the web.

Here’s my latest list, with a few comments on aspects of each site’s approach plus a link to get you there.

A Blog Supreme. Not as frequently updated as it used to be – and it also used to have a very handy weekly round-up of favourite stories, whatever happened to that? But NPR’s informative and well written blog is always worth a look. Latest piece, a report last week on Bruce Lundvall’s passing.
Revive Music. A newer jazz-into-soul-into-hip hop kind of site with some great graphics and plenty of “next generation” artists and like NPR based in the US. They’ve linked to an audio sneak-peek from the new Robert Glasper covers album here.
Jazz on Flipboard. Flipboard.com collates a lot of sites if you search for jazz and picks up some from non-obvious sources some times that might expand your reading including this one from Mother Jones on Wes Montgomery.
UK news and reviews sites include London Jazz News and the Jazz Breakfast. The latest review on the former is an Oz Noy album; the latter has albums by Vein and Pablo Held reviewed.
Canadian site ejazznews.com claims to be the number one jazz news website since 2001. I think they’re overstating that a bit. The last time I checked there was a piece on Terence Blanchard becoming a scholar at Berklee dated 20 May.
If you go to a lot of jazz festivals in Europe or plan to in the future jazzfests.net is just about the best website out there at the moment for links to a big range of festivals you may never have even heard of. Organised in an intelligent way, frequently updated and easy to navigate it’s one of the more purpose-driven sites out there catering for jazz tastes.
One big change recently away from media sites is that record companies have begun to break more and more news. OK it’s mainly banging on about their new releases but there is plenty of release minutiae and amusing bombast to pore over if you’re so inclined and have a high toleration threshold for well meaning hyperbole. Since I last looked more labels are keeping their fans up to date on a more regular basis and they’re often releasing more video and Soundcloud advance previews. Labels worth keeping a eye on in this regard for regular release announcements and other bits include Whirlwind, Edition, ECM, Blue Note, and Basho.
Finally, if you’re into the art of discography-keeping then discogs.com is the best new site to have come along to my knowledge and is more or less indispensable for day-to-day use.
Look out for regular jazz website round-ups on Marlbank each month