BCM Blog

#JAZZLIVES

So the issue still remains, is jazz dead or alive? 

Dumb question really, of course its alive!  Take one look at the Twitter response to yesterday's on-air debate between Terry Teachout and Vijay Iyer (audio here):

The Twitter debate dove deeper into how attendance and interest in jazz shows could be propagated and Howard Mandel came up with a great idea!:

[...] but rather than more stories, let's establish some new numbers. How many tweets including the hashmark #jazzlives can we accumulate over the next couple of weeks? What if we take this campaign to Facebook and other social networking sites, too? The numbers won't be statistically valid, but will provide a new metric for references' sake. Could we reach the 500,000 typically applied to attendees at Woodstock?

I hereby urge jazz bloggers and websites and jazz fests and venues to promote the idea that jazz listeners tweet including: #jazzlives, who was playing and where. Open a Twitter account if you don't already have one -- it's free and this is NOT a Twitter promotion, it just happens to work for these kinds of campaigns. Including #jazzlives will allow the tweets to be searchable at Twitter and to be scrolled on a widget that can be embedded into websites and blogs (email tweetjazzlives@gmail.com for the widget code -- you can see how it looks at www.HowardMandel.com). No further commitment, nothing to buy.

I've added the #jazzlives widget under my personal Twitter widget on my left sidebar panel and so far I've been amazed at how quickly it gets updated! (DJA has the widget code available on his website)

Keep this up and #jazzlives may soon become a trending topic! Now wouldn't that be something!

Tech Help Needed!

Any WordPress gurus out there? Or just general know-it-alls when it comes to interneting?

I need some guidance... I'm considering streamlining my internet presence and taking this blog up a notch. The idea I'm tossing around is a single website for the blog and my personal info. This would mean taking down the Dynamod website (which I was never fond of anyway) and closing this blog in lieu of a new one. After switching the Races in Places site from Blogger to a WordPress.com blog, I've come to love WordPress's interface much better than Blogger. However, I'm not keen on the majority of their free themes which has lead me to explore the WordPress.org option, but opened up a huge canful of questions.

I've searched forums and FAQs but cannot seem to find the info I need. So I thought I would pose the question to you, dear reader.

What I'd like to know is this:

• If using WordPress.org, is the blog posting interface the same as WordPress.com?
• Can I use a theme like this one on WordPress.com?
  
• If I want to use any theme not listed as an "available theme" by WordPress.com, does this mean I need a WordPress.org account instead?
• If the above answer is "yes," how much new info do I need to learn to operate a WP.org blog? (I already spend too much of my composing time doing auxillary interneting, I don't really want to increase this!)
  
• I noticed that some of the hosters through WP.org, such as Blue Host offer email inboxes. How exactly does this work?
• How do I set up my current sites (Dynamod & Blogger) to redirect to the new site?
  

And finally, can someone just tell me what my best option is for how to do the following:

• Have a blog with multiple pages so that one page is the blog itself, the others are pages containing info about me as a composer (bio, etc) and the big band.
  
• I want to host audio, video, pictures, polls & external (non-WP) widgets
  
• I want general customization as far as font, color schemes, banner image, and basic layout (positioning of widgets, etc) are concerned
• I don't have the budget to pay some to do this and this new venture shouldn't cost more than what I am currently paying for my Dynamod, which is $15/mon.

Anyone out there know the answers and feel like having a discussion with me??? If not... can anyone direct me to a thorough resource, be it book, website, forum, or person?

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!

Morning Cup: Mother of all Funk Chords

Pure Awesomeness!

Courtesy of Kuitman, a super-smart dude who collected YouTube clips and sequenced them together to form not only a brand new video, but a brand new song! Genuis!