#jazzlives weekend update: 12-day count of tweeting fans

Variations on the #jazzlives idea also developed -- the Detroit International Jazz Festival started its own campaign, raising about 20 tweets. Some people linked to photos in their tweets, and I suspect video cam clips will turn up depicting the range of people turning out to hear the music. Some people urged the campaign to migrate to Facebook or other ways of expanding it. Technical difficulties preclude using FB in easy conjunction with Twitter, but all possibilities ought to be explored and implemented -- it's a free idea, folks so feel free to take it and run with it.

It's true that a lot of the tweets were posted by only a handful of Twitterers (Twitters? Tweeters? Twits?). A few -- especially early on, were from publicists and radio show hosts who didn't abide by the rules: No advance promo, no cds, only live and live-on-radio mentions, please. Yet the distribution from across the world is impressive, the number of tweets from attendees at the Chicago and Tanglewood jazz fests, where onstage MCS and musicians themselves urged audiences to do it, is instructive, and the enthusias, as in the sampling below, is clear, occasionally poetic, infectious:

Fantastic day at Chicago Jazz Festival yesterday! Muhal making history! #jazzlives

Post fest hang is at the Hungry Brain somewhere on the north side of Chicago. Lucky 7s play to a packed house. Few over 35. #jazzlives

Billy Childs Chamber Ensemble is tearing it up at ACJF [Angel City Jazz Festival]

Jon Faddis, Wallace Roney and Sean Jones now playing at Tanglewood - Faddis just introduced himself as Chuck Mangione. #jazzlives 

Pretty sure I'm now a huge Dee Alexander fan #jazzlives

yeah that was pretty cool. I had not seen that before #jazzlives

At Chicago's Jazz Fest with #S_B, which is pretty much the best way to usher in my 24th year of life. #jazzlives

#jazzlives in Chicago!!! @ the 31st Annual Chicago Jazz Festival in Grant Park! There IS a new wave of young Jazz followers!!!

Having a blast. .  . . . .At jazz fest baby! . . . Great event, and FREE! . . . Even being alone, it doesn't get better than this. . . . wOOt!! From Chicago jazz fest!!

. . . Perfect Labor Day relating at the Riverfront Jazz Festival in Stevens Point, WI. . . What a joyous weekend it's been exploring jazz with my neighbors. . . McCoy Tyner, Junko Onishi, Quasimode among others at the Tokyo Jazz Fest . . . Thorny Brocky brough some exciting sounds to San Francisco's Red Poppy Art House tonight . . Jose James jams, sings, scats, swoops, slams @Detroit Jazz Fest . . . heard the Jeff Lofton Trio at Annie's, the Ephraim Owens & Friends at Elephant Room + Andre Heyward & Russell Gunn #jazzlives in Austin. . .

Patty and the Buttons at Cafe Maude -- brilliant young button accordionist plays old/timey jazz, with Sousaphone #jazzlives

Letting fantastic jazz soak the soul with amazing music . . . this is magic . . .

Amina Figarova rocking (jazzing?) that piano. . . It's going to be hard to leave mid-set. . . 

William Parker, who is alive, at Chicago Jazz Fest going into the songs of Curtis Mayfield (who is not . . but still). #jazzlives

Just saw Evgeny Lebedev's World Trio at Tanglewood -- Encore was a smart version of Message In A Bottle #jazzlives

Terri [sic] Gibbs was cutting it up at the West Coast Jazz Party last night . . .

Fred Anderson is weaving long melodies and flourishes through Josh Abrams and Hamid Drake's persistently flowing groove . . . austere lyricism . . .

Tia Fuller is a super saxophonist & deep composer. She was great last nite w/ Sean Jones @ Dirty Dog. #jazzlives

It's Labor, but not exactly hard labor . . .

Esperanza Spalding leading a scat singalong as her closer at Chicago Jazz Fest reminds me to go #jazzlives

and so on.

The count continues . . .  as long as listeners care to post about who they like and where. Thought has been given to the notion that every year at Labor Day, when so many jazz fests occur, a self-executed census of jazz listeners take place, something like the annual Great Backyard Bird Count. In Chicago, at least, incredulous reactions to the recently released National Endowment for the Arts data on jazz audience demographics led to the NEA conducting focus groups at the fest and the Chicago Jazz Partnership (led by The Boeing Company) surveying the crowd about their "happy images" of the fest experience. What happens with information gleaned from those initiatives is not yet known, but it's always good to have information. Whatever else comes from #jazzlives, I'll let you know.