Type jazz into the UK version of Google News and what do you find today, Saturday 14 July just after midday on a rainy London day?

Well of course there are pages and pages of the stuff so trawling is going to take some time.

What do you mean you use Bing or Yahoo for your jazz news? Of course you do! But jazz news, is there actually any I hear some grumblers contend, as the music died in 1961?

Well up to a point (without stating the obvious), but may I suggest typing “jazz is dead" into Google? You’ll be fine and dandy in that cheerful, slightly spooky corner of the web.

So here goes, and bear in mind it is a Saturday, so some jazz news sites go to sleep this being the weekend.

First then, right at the top, the very newsy jazz entry from Wikipedia. In depth yes, but bang up to the minute, maybe not.

Ah, next, wait: a theatre show to close, from the Daily Mail website? Yes, interesting, but what a shame, it’s Chicago that well known jazz musical.

Moving swiftly on, Keith Chegwin at the Marlborough Jazz Festival… well fancy that? Celebs rule after all.

But the next story down with more than 300 stories on the same topic is the sad passing of Nat King Cole’s widow Maria, which was widely reported a few days back by other sources including The Hollywood Reporter.

The Copenhagen Jazz Festival is next to be mentioned in Google jazz dispatches on the first page and then an irrelevant Utah Jazz story, followed down page by the sad passing of Nova Scotia musician Bucky Adams, more Utah Jazz doings, even more, a review of Wynton Marsalis some two days old, and thanks to Wigan Today the first sighting of the day of the headline that’s daddy of them all: the venerable All That Jazz.

So all very salutary, and it certainly makes a change from reading sleeve notes, but in the midst of a busy festival season, and with more than 400 new or reissued CDs appearing every month, it’s not much to go on, is it? The inevitable trek back to print beckons for now.

Stephen Graham