mintel welcome to another episode of talking jazz and i am so so excited i have it my guest today is the founder and the publisher of all about jazz which i'm sure you've heard of but you're going to know a lot more today we're coming to you from princeton new jersey but before i introduce my guest i want to just say that i just had an article in the bucks county courier times twenty five years of my group  twenty five so what the heck you know but twenty five years in the jazz field and we've had some wonderful wonderful opportunities and i'm just grateful that we're having to show that we can educate you a little bit more on what we do is jazz musicians and how jazz is really important for shaping this country and what it's all about so speaking of all about jazz i'd like to introduce you to michael ritchie are you doing it good or great to be here it's been know we talked like we just said that like i think the last time we saw each other was like a few years ago now it's like yeah i mean over the last twenty three yes it's it's been a long stretch so one three years they are you have you've had all about jazz that's got to be like what accomplishment i mean that's a lot all of that and i want to you know for my listeners and for the viewers i want people to realize you know what's involved with jazz and now for you as a publisher i mean what's involved in getting the  word out about jazz and about letting people know about where concerts are where so let's go back to let's go back to your beginnings let's go back to the roots wow and by the way later said we were going to have him roll out of the curtain here and he was going to tell a joke it was going to be like you know do i have a johnny carson is a family friendly that yes sure oh well well we'll get to that we'll get to we've got some video we're going to show you too and and so we're have a lot of fun today so michael so let's talk about like when you record and i see the hobbit it's a double rock cool so well mater did so many great things for jazz and he did he was he was always doing outreach he was an educator he was you know really beating the drum interesting life but so from that point you know i was constantly exposed to the music and i have three brothers but i took to it i played the trumpet song for many years you know music minus one's thoughts like that had  how many years to take trumpet for i played for about twelve years really and then i well that's that's more than a few years yeah i think they're around with it after i graduated from college and you know it it became increasingly harder and harder to pick it up and play because you know w with the trumpet you're here once you're amish or goes it's really it takes a while to get it back and you've got to play you know well you know it's it's funny we had a guest on recently steve rudolph and you know steve young the harrisburg area and he started out on  oh really so and his his he any switch to piano obviously is phenomenal piano player but he was saying that his he wasn't playing in the middle is the yeah that's we have to find a way i start playing off my lower lip was which is not a good thing to have in the bowl as a matter of fact my saxophone player nelson hill actually went right out of the same university on the road with maynard ferguson for three years and actually is there's a video of nelson playing at the hollywood bowl with milk with the maynard which is really cool so how old were you would you say probably nine ok so i was hearing the music as a young person and i started collecting the music as a young person i mean the first record i bought instrumental and that's really what appealed to me and i liked a lot of the instrumental earth wind and fire tunes you know so i was i was always leaning towards instrumental music that appealed to me and it was just a natural that i you know eventually discovered people like john coltrane or yeah bill evans are exact are silver and i always find it's interesting because between that time frame of around nine years old to fifteen in that time frame it's funny because it's around that time that we try to figure out what we want to do with the rest of our lives right yeah i know when i was fourteen i found jazz and i found dave brubeck you know and it was it was just like you have that connection that epiphany like wow you know i always had played the piano a little bit you know but i knew when i heard the music that's what i wanted to do so it's the same kind of calling you know yeah i mean it really is that that age group is a formative time for you to establish the kind of music that actually you that appeals to you for the rest of your life right really you know yes oh yeah that's that was actually an article written just the other day about that and that's you know your interest in music is is formed at that that age and then it just  stays with you and and so you're from from that point on so you you see maynard ferguson you're collecting records when did you have the and ok let's talk about schooling so you went to school all right lee so where did you go to school went to ohio state  and that's really one my record collecting and picked up because i lived with a few guys that are still my friends to this day and every day we came home with because you could buy you know cut outs and records for like twenty cents and you know we did sometimes come home with like twenty record yes yup and you know they were mostly into the grateful dad and bob marley and things like and you know about right down the street princeton record exchange which is yeah i know barry i might go over there there you go check it out yeah yeah but you know i mean i always i always collected in addition to you know music like the allman brothers and traffic i would i would pick up jazz records so you know it's funny because you know you're it sounds like you know and i think i always i always find to the people who are into jazz and there were like old souls you know there there is that there's a certain connection to the music that this maybe this day and age doesn't have sometimes with you know with the music and it's just something that speaks to you right yeah i mean you know the thing that you hear about at least when i when i look at when i watch videos on you tube certain certain jazz you know bands or players you know a lot of the recurring commentary is you know real music played by real musician yes you know and using real instruments and i you know that's like ok i really do believe that there that there were it's kind of coming around where you know maybe not that techno will ever be out or whatever but i think there's there's there's there's a return to authenticity absolutely and you know people want to hear an acoustic band you know like a yeah like a you know a piano trio or quartet and you know it's a thinking music and it's it is it's the music but it also appeals you know to your heart and yeah you know fills your soul and it's not electronic in the fact that i've seen you know people go crazy over a musician who's literally just sitting there like or not even a musician but they're pushing buttons and it's everything's preset right and i'm like but that's not  in a jazz for in a jazz setting you know the improvisation which obviously is spontaneous you know so it's that spontaneous conversation just like we're having today we're having like a spontaneous not restraint that it's unscripted  unplugged hello it's what you know but it's a beautiful thing with jazz because that kind of thing is immediate you know and that yeah you'll that's why i always say to the audience that you know the audience is the extra member of a group because the feedback and they're witnessing something that's not really ever going to happen again each night that jazz performance is going to be different each time right now and you hope it will be it in the audience it depends on their level of involvement you know that they're engaged you're going to hear it i'm sure it takes in different directions exactly and that's that's the beautiful thing with an electronic thing like that it's like ok that's ok well where is the creativity you know so that's and i think you're right there is a whole a whole movement now that people are coming back to live music and you're doing some cool things to write young people for sure i mean they're the resurgence of vinyl right really out of them by well i mean and before and before we talk about all that jazz too you've got a lot of great things to talk about you're also doing the living room concerts which i want to talk about because we're also going to show a little clip right but tell us what we show a little clip first ok and we'll come back and talk about the shift to all about jazz and this is this was in your house gentlemen my name's michael ritchie and i'm hosting a house concert tonight and you can  know i think i think it's the way of the future i think that people love the camaraderie and to enjoy a glass of wine and some great food and i think that it it makes the band play in a more relaxed and intimate way than you can find really in any other venue it was such a grand and i love those kind of i love this kind of like intimate performances you know that everybody who was there i mean there were some jazz you know fans to vote but there were a lot of people who weren't familiar with the music   it was really a gas and you know we had wine and food yet and some people i didn't know but boy it was it was a big deal and you want to you see a lot of new face i've seen a lot of new faces to with a lot of the social media things that we're doing and of course the show is phenomenal too because it's really getting out to an audience that might not necessarily know anything about jazz but hey you know what they're there at least taking a chance you have to learn a little bit more we had we had you know it was about sixty people there but michelle already has a vocal oh yeah got october i have a college reunion i get together with my buddies and just so happens tony monaco the organ player the hammond b three organ player who lives near my friends so i asked tony if he would be interested in playing at my friend's house so so let's talk about let's and we're going to keep going and i want to talk about that because that sounds i love those concerts we've done those several times at different locations love them they're they're awesome as matter fact we're doing one in princeton here not too long from now depending on when this is out but so let's talk about the shift from college where did you get weird where did all about jazz come from and where did that where did that fire in the belly for wanting to get this word out and do like leave a legacy sure yeah well you know i was i was an entrepreneur in spirit and i had a technical background and after college i was collecting the music at this at that point you know vinyl transition to the c d s and i had this enormous collection and so but i was always end up going out seeing shows a lot a lot of younger i was getting out and you know there was just something about the web i had developed some software and i was selling it in a box but then we quickly transition to the web and i realized the potential of the web and the re at that time a lot of lot of people were just starting websites as a hobby some of my friends started political sites some started humor sites and it was similar to the to the boom the blog boom so anybody could really start anything you just had to understand h t m l which you know which i learned and so i just started building all about jazz as a hobby i used to hang out on this newsgroup and i just thought well i'd like to publish some album reviews and book reviews and i asked people who were  on the forum if anybody was interested and you were and one thing led to another and you know with my technical background i had to build the database and i just kept building and building on building and now it's like over a million pages you know had millions of visitors and houses of contributors so much of an extent yeah it's and it is enormous and what is your role as far as this that you kind of let it just feed upon itself now well i you know well you have to guide it home and there editing involved and there's a just you know i have a vision for it and the thing is with with the internet it's constantly evolving and technology changes so you really have to adapt and change with technology i mean you know i started this site before banner ads and long before facebook yeah you know before google you know yeah so but you know these things emerge and you have to account for them and of course there's you know streaming technology band with increases so we've been able to adapt over time but we still had that deep archive of information and we have nearly one hundred thousand musician pages you know and how would say probably three hundred thousand records i mean it's just a very deep archive that you can search and find we publish every day and a published about eight articles a day stow you out is amazing about four five album reviews and you know the rest are interviews profiles  stuff now you've got the living room concerts you've got all about jazz you've got jazz in your you now you're also doing some meet ups right with the right so yeah so all this about that sure i mean in philadelphia but what i'm trying to do is get philadelphia jazz professionals together it started last april april two thousand and seventeen we had a really great turnout at south great jazz club in philadelphia and so the next one wasn't as well attended but it was in december but it got me thinking about how i wanted to do it you know it wasn't quite a fully fleshed out you know vision so i thought well you know i'm always  about results get results you know as establishing some sort of you know direction where we can were there are tangible results whether it's people meeting people in fashions meeting professionals and collaborating in some  one we're going to move away there will be a networking component but it will be the networking component will be more focused on you know posting ideas in discussing various collaboration's but we're also going to  have the first segment would be a roundtable meet the experts where we get students involved so students get to meet experts and and talk about you know different careers and then there would be a networking event and then what we're hoping is that with the with the students because when we go on the road and do colleges and universities too that's a huge component of what we do is we do workshops and i also have a talk on being an entrepreneur in music you know so talking about you know the students may know everything there is  musically when they get out but out of college but then they don't know how to get a gig right you know when you're i mean you're the king of self so well but now you know it's also because it's been like twenty five years obviously doing that but any even beyond that but it's it all boils down to you have to market yourself and you have to find a niche so we i talk about that and i'll tell you it's opened up to the not only the music majors but it's also opened to the business majors because it's all about building relationships right you know and we're all about building those relationships even with you with your with all that jazz you're building you've got relationships with everybody in the music industry and beyond right albums playing right or yeah it's employers so it's that kind of thing so you're building that and it's something that it's a building process so it's that's when we when people say well it's not an overnight thing it really isn't because you really have to build it yeah and you have to build it and over time that it becomes you know yeah i mean i you know it's it's been it's been over two decades and but i've been able to establish an international network i'll be attending the jazz ahead conference in bremen germany in april and been talking to the folks there and they'll have a booth an excellent  germany i mean at the jazz ahead conference jazz at conference and go look michael up he's got a booth and but look up on the web too so you're an all about jazz dot com correct and then jazz near you yes dot com right we have over three hundred city sites so we have san francisco dot jazz near you philadelphia dot they could be here in california right and you say you pay people to type in jazz near you right and then boom that's yours right it will it'll route itself to the two to  little city yeah so they're in san francisco or l a or something right but you can change cities to get if you're traveling from san francisco to new york you can if you want your g p s for jen i live in may's it's a beautiful thing yeah i know well we have sometimes have like two thousand new york city events in all your basic adding given time so i don't know if you're traveling or york yeah it's a great resource so any musicians out there and people that are looking for gigs and looking for opportunities check this website out because it's just like it's you know it's my job to say that people know it exists absolutely so ladies and gentlemen you want to do that you want to get on line and we have a couple more minutes here look up michel all about jazz dot com jazz near you house concerts  aco and all the really great stuff so anything else we've got like a couple minutes here like we've got like maybe one minute so anything else you want to impart on your on our listening public and he made a gesture that we were talking as you tell us that jazz joke how do you end up with a million and i'll tell you you know there should be more people like michael here because you know what that's this is how this music grows and keeps generating to the next generation jazz is such an important part of public of the consciousness so i hope you enjoyed today's show and we've got a lot more great interesting guests coming up so thanks a lot for tonight everybody