The JAZZzology blog asks: “is acid jazz just a name given by a radio disc jockey to promote some readily unidentifiable form of pop music or is it a form of jazz music?” I think it’s the latter – more of a type of fusion but, instead of rock, it blends soul, funk, jazz, and a contemporary sound. If we’re talking about terminology – wasn’t “smooth jazz” just a term invented by a corporation?

According to Amazon, this compilation from the Soundiva label, called Chillout & Acid Jazz, will be out on New Year’s Day. Sample it now – a good mix of 25 jazzy uptempo and laid-back tracks.

I always find some good jazz while searching through the electronic category. Check out music from this new release, which features several vocal performances.

ContemporaryJazz.com Radio plays nu jazz, acid jazz, remixed jazz, jazzy house, dancefloor jazz, and other groove jazz styles. It’s online all the time and is free (with ads) or you can purchase a VIP package for commercial free listening and other benefits.

See the embedded spreadsheet below for the most recent adds to the playlist. The spreadsheet contains the artist, track, album title, and links to how to buy the recording (CD and/or high-quality, DRM-free MP3 download) through Amazon.com. Buying through those links benefits ContemporaryJazz.com. Click here for a full screen version.

Urban Elements is a quintet of musicians from Sweden and Chile. I sampled this release simply based on the name of the group and was impressed. This is what contemporary jazz is about!

Discovered Liquid Jazz by Living Room while hunting for new sounds tonight:

From Hungary comes today’s Try It Out Tuesdays offering: MM7 Secret Jazz is an electronica/jazz project of trumpeter Miklós Mákó. Miklós records for Beagle Beat Records, a jazz-focused micro-label in Budapest. Check the label out on MySpace to sample their artist roster, which covers a range of contemporary jazz styles.

Click the play button to hear “Bond Express” from the MM7 Secret Jazz project. If you like what you hear, click the Shopping Cart icon to buy it from Amazon.com.

MM7 Secret Jazz – Bond Express

I’ve posted over 500 tweets of contemporary jazz news, release dates, and site information on Twitter in the last few months. It’s how I communicate quick contemporary jazz items of interest. In today’s quick-moving world, this is how I get most of my information – through brief, one-sentence notifications. Later, I can go back and read more about something or compose a blog post. Follow my tomorrowjazz tweets on Twitter!

I keep a list of my most recent tweets here on the site, but here are some items you might have missed.

• Smooth jazz takes another blow as The Weather Channel replaces it with classic rock for Weather on the 8′s.
• Miroslav Vitous’ new CD honors Weather Report http://is.gd/1oYMf
• New release from jazz pianist Eldar coming August 25. Called Virtue, it has guests Nicholas Payton and Joshua Redman.
• Pandora and three others might be ok but that doesn’t mean it’s smooth sailing Internet radio. http://is.gd/1sYhv
• Mike Stern’s Big Neighborhood out 8/11 w/ Dave Weckl, MMW, Steve Vai, Esperanza Spalding, Eric Johnson, Terri Lyne Carrington, and more.
• B.B. King calls George Benson “the best guitarist in the world in all kinds of music.” http://is.gd/1yQhp
• One of today’s greatest jazz composers, Terence Blanchard, releases Choices on August 18th. Recorded in New Orleans. http://is.gd/1zHt7
• Chuck Owen & The Jazz Surge release The Comet’s Tail: Playing The Compositions of Michael Brecker on 8/11 w/guest stars. http://is.gd/1AYmC
• Pat Metheny writes about his upcoming “orchestrionics” recording. It’s going to be interesting. http://is.gd/1L7tI
• Far Out Recordings-Brazilian Music Sampler Free at Amazon MP3 Store. With Marcos Valle, Joyce, Azymuth, Sabrina Malheiros. http://bacn.me/9ja
• Didn’t know Larry Carlton was joining Steely Dan on six dates during their current tour.

This is the third part of a three-part series reminiscing on how I got started with contemporary jazz 20 years ago and highlights since. Part one is here; part two here.

Eventually, I graduated from the University of Missouri but still stayed on as a volunteer announcer for KBIA for some time. I think at some point the evening contemporary jazz show was put to rest and I didn’t want to stay on for programming that didn’t interest me as much. It wasn’t long before I missed it. At the same time, I started learning this new way to make content for this thing called the World Wide Web. In 1995, I learned HTML, got a web host and created my first GIF. cJazz: The Contemporary Jazz Site was launched in January 1996. I recall it being one of the first 16 jazz sites indexed by Yahoo! (people added sites manually then; there was nothing like Google yet). I’ll never forget how I quickly received 15 email messages about the site and about half were outside the U.S. It really put the world in World Wide Web. I remember an email exchange with Rob Mounsey, getting a nice message from a doctor in Italy, and meeting Suzy Cline who was running a jazz hub called Jazz Stuff.

Most labels weren’t sure or unaware of the Web then but Randall Kennedy at Warner Bros. knew the deal. I think he had a WB Jazzspace site going earlier than other jazz labels. Michael Ricci launched AllAboutJazz.com, now the top jazz site on the Web. Larry Rosen, Dave Grusin, and Jon Diamond founded Jazz Central Station. Morrice Blackwell launched JazzReview.com, still a top jazz site to visit.

I spent five years building up ContemporaryJazz.com (I’d bought the domain name soon after the site launched). I worked on it almost every day for most of those years. Due to a major change in my life and some burnout, I sold the site in 2001. I later regretted that decision and was happy to be able to get the site back a couple of years ago. I won’t be giving it up again.