#jazzlives: The Live Jazz Twitter Campaign

by Patrick Jarenwattananon

If you're following the Jazz Internet/Twitterverse, you may have seen this crop up lately:

The idea: If you go see a live jazz performance, and you use Twitter, tell the world. Append the hashtag #jazzlives with a short description of what you saw and where. For example:

@blogsupreme: Just saw John Surman quartet at Blues Alley in D.C. with Abercrombie, Gress, DeJohnette. Wow. #jazzlives

@blogsupreme: At free show at the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden in WDC. Trumpeter Tom Williams. #jazzlives

Please don't use it for promoting your/your clients'/your venue's own gigs, or to simply express solidarity with the idea of jazz being alive -- only during or after seeing live jazz. Hearing from the audience, not advancing commercial interests, is the point here. More details on the movement at Jazz Beyond Jazz.

Credit to Howard Mandel for the idea. All this is inspired by the Teachout-column business. (You can read my latest take here.) Even if jazz isn't "dying," we need to critically examine our stories about young jazz audiences, for they can tell us how we can increase the audience for this underheard music. Here's some experimental data-gathering in that vein.

And now, back to my "vacation."

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12:02 PM ET | 08-28-2009 | permalink

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