ON-LINE Jazz on the web
An early new year trawl around the main Scottish jazz sites produced some disappointing results. Too many had not been updated for too long, and others had a depressing lack of action to report.
Jazz In Scotland is the indispensible
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resource at www.jazz-in- scotland.co.uk. Run by Ian Miller and Dominic Spencer, the site carries loads of information about the who, why, when and where of Scottish jazz, and also has a chat room and a noticeboard, where, among more useful things, frustrated folk can vent their spleen (usually on Tommy Smith) under the cloak of anonymity.
Jazz promoter Assembly Direct's site
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at www.jazzmusic.co.uk looks snazzy, but is currently low on information, and has the feel of good but still unfulfilled intentions. This site also contains the Edinburgh and Dundee Jazz Festival pages, but with nothing up at the moment. The Glenmorangie Glasgow Jazz Festival at www.jazzfest.co.uk is also in abeyance, with information on the 2001 event promised around mid- April.
The Edinburgh Jazz Projects site at www.ejp.org.uk has some nice pictures, but again had nothing current to report, while the Dundee Jazz Page, run by The Tunesmith (aka guitarist Kevin Murray) at www.sol.co.ukltlthetunesmithl1’ heDu ndeeJazzProject1.html, is still
dominated by the programme for last year’s Dundee Jazz Festival.
Glasgow’s jazz scene is now served by a new site, GlasJazz, found at www.9lasjazz.co.uk. It is too early to pass judgement, but the site does carry useful gig and venue information and promises regular additions to its feature sections, which include a weekly interview with a local musician, and the lyrics of a famous jazz standard.
Tommy Smith's website at www.tommysmith.demon.co.uk has the merit of being both slick and up- to-date, and advance orders can be placed for his debut album on his own newly launched record label, Spartacus Records, as well as the usual biography, tour dates, and so on.
One of the most important developments in recent Scottish jazz
The website at www.cabermusic.com contains Tom Bancroft’s mission statement, as well as artist biographies, catalogue and the opportunity to buy CDs direct. Photographer Marc Marnie, whose work has appeared often in these pages, has an excellent site at www.marnie.demon.co.uk, with several galleries of music-related pictures. Marc has also allowed me to use some of his images on my own site at www.kenmat.dircon.co.uk. Further afield, Jazz Services survey the UK jazz scene at
www.jazzservices.org.uk, while a cornucopia of Jazz Resources on the Internet can be found at www.nwu.edu/jazzlinternet.html. (Kenny Mathieson)
Ir '-
Totally wired
The world of the web
Q Magazme's Top 100 Albums www.q4music.com/buyersguides/ ListlntrolOOalbums.cfm
Don’t you just love top album polls? They’re great to read and even better to argue with. This is the current ’objective' best 100 from the contemporary rock press. This is, however, more than just a list — there are interviews with the artists. Radiohead win, with their modern day Sgt. Pepper.
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Important American Musical Works
npr.org/programs/specials/vote/ listhO.html
On the other side of the Atlantic there is a website that attempts to catalogue the most defining works of 20th century US musical history, and offers feature length audio critiques and interviews with the artists.
Earthlights
antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/ OOl l/earthlights_dmsp_big.jpg
I’m a bit of a fan of long exposure photographs, but this is one with a difference. Taken by satellite, this is a long exposure of Earth where streetlights of cities are visible. It's been flattened out so you can make out the entire globe, and instantly make out the built-up areas on the planet. Very much worth a look — it’s an unnatural photo that's difficult to visualise, but spectacularly beautiful.
real. (Steve Blair)
INTERNET
internet@list.co.uk
Earthlights is spectacularly beautiful
Spot The International Space Station
spaceflightnasa.gov/realdata/ sightings/index.html
And while on the subject, why not look through the other end of the telescope, and try and spot the lSS. While Mr is all but dead, the lSS has just been fitted wrth vast solar panels, making it theoretically the third brightest object in the night sky. This site will tell you when it’s Visible over your city and tell you where to look.
Pulitzer Prize Photographs
www.newseum.org/pulitzer/
’Capture The Moment' declares this site, and it does so admirably wrth defining fragments of time gomg back to 1945. In the video age it's easy to forget the power of news photography, but a qurck perusal of this site will quickly remind you. However, be wary of the Shockwave presentation which seems to take forever to load, and opt for the normal HTML version.
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Monkey Invaders
www.rathergood.com/ monkeyinvadershtm
Sites like this mimic real life With an almost unnerving accuracy. Shoot down the evil, levitating monkey heads with exploding crabs, and for your own sake, avoid the nose-mounted snot cannons! It doesn’t get any more
18Jan—l Feb 2001 THE UST 99