One Year Later

I began this blog on December 28, 2011, so today is the end of my first year at it. It's been a lot of fun to organize my thoughts and get them down on paper, and hopefully provide some value to those reading it. 

I began with one objective in mind, which is provide exposure to a broad range of possibly lesser-known or overlooked artists, and in doing so to broaden the discussion of non-U.S. jazz at the same time. Later I broadened my scope to include the promotion of local record stores and physical CDs/vinyl, to writing about books that I read about jazz, to comment upon other related issues, and to occasionally writing about non-jazz music.

I don't know how well I have fared, whether anyone tried anything new based upon the posts, or if at the very least I provided some interesting reading. I do know that as of today I have written 136 posts, and had about 13,500 hits, so somebody is checking in.

If the statistics mean anything, the most popular posts included:

• My 2012 list of favorite CDs
• A post about the players behind the leader and the need to read the labels about sidemen 
• The Ann Arbor Pioneer Jazz Band
• Several of the posts about Italian players (which I must return to)
• Individual posts about Erena Terabuko, Luis Perdomo, Mira Opalinska, Amina Figarova,  Mats Eilersten, David Wong, Marc Copland, Sophie Millman, Trio M, and Jacques Schwartz-Bart.

What I do know is that I have enjoyed writing these posts and talking jazz. So on to 2013.

Thanks.