Jazz Around the World

Recently, we have been curious about the readership, especially since thejazzmonger blog went through a protracted period of idleness last year. So, I checked into our usage statistics a little bit. We found some surprises… some very pleasant surprises. First, we have been averaging around 65 hits per day, recently, with the high being 82 hits and the low being 50. So the traffic has been pretty steady. That’s good, I think.

Kudos are due to the great folks at WordPress for providing a terrific vehicle to let one speak to the whole wide world. If you have ever given any thought to expressing yourself in blog form, I encourage you to check out the great package of services and assistance  provided there.

But, what really surprised us was where the visitors are logging in from. Naturally, most connections originate in the United States, with the United Kingdom and India (both predominantly English-speaking countries and very heavily wired-in) coming in second and third. It was the overall distribution that was a revelation. Over the last seven days, we have logged visitors from thirty-eight (38) different countries.  And I am quite stoked about that.

Any disappointments? Yes, a couple. We would really love to be picked up more in Japan. The Japanese are well-recognized as sincere fans and aficionados of good Jazz. One fine exampleof this is the excellent site Jazz in Japan, edited by Michael Pronko.  Not only does he thoroughly cover the Jazz scene in Japan, but he writes with passion and talent on some surprisingly (for me) provocative subjects, such as Jazz and Zen. This guy has stretched my horizons considerably. Maybe our problem, here, is that thejazzmonger just doesn’t measure up to this kind of material. Michael gives us something to shoot at.

And the Japanese are not just fans. Many important contributors to the genre are from Japan. A case in point is one of my favorires, Gota Yashiki, about whom thejazzmonger wrote lovingly some time ago (Cf: http://wp.me/ppvVJ-al).  thejazzmonger needs to put in some serious thought on how we might appeal to this sophisticated audience, in the future.

Another disappointment is the low showing from Switzerland. I have some family, and a couple of good friends in Switzerland. We bagged one hit for the week. C’mon family!

We draw some encouragement, though, from what we think are pretty good numbers in some other places. Fifty-three hits from India and Pakistan, combined. Twenty from Greece! The Greeks have plenty going on, right now, so we are gratified that a few of them had time to drop by. One hit from the Russian Federation, probably Vladimir Putin, unwinding from another election rout.

WE invite any, and all, visitors to come back often, comment as you see fit and, please, drop us a note via the “Contact Us” link, introduce yourself and let us know where you sign in from.

Here is the chart

Back to the Old Format

Apparently, the new format we experimented with was slower to load on some people’s systems and that is a very bad trait. I really hate a website that takes forever to load, and we want to be a quick, easy, pleasant diversion for those of you who visit.

So the experiment taught us something, and that is a good thing. Back to business. Thanks to those who sent us a note. We really appreciate it.

thejazzmonger

Trying a New Look

We are a text-heavy blog. We try to feature a photo, or two, in every post and we include soundtracks and/or video wherever applicable. Still, our content, overall, is primarily text. I thought we would experiment with a new wider format that saves some scroll-down effort when reading a long post. If we can get our wordsmith buddy bluetwango to post again, this will really pay off.

Take a look. See how it works on your screen display. I have tried it on a wide-screen monitor and on a 14-inch laptop and it seems to look okay. Help us out with some feedback, please. Let us know whether this works for you, or if you greatly prefer the original format.

Stay tuned. Reviews on some new talents coming up!

thejazzmonger

P.S. To keep this from being a thoroughly boring post, here is a teaser track from T-Cash, one of the new talents I spoke of.