Spent the whole week in the Detroit metro area, away from the comforts of home. Able to function somewhat with a new notebook computer, but it's been hard to focus, especially on music -- brought three travel cases of CDs with me, but don't have the reference notes, and have just been playing them for impressions, not writing as I go. So no jazz prospecting this week. Probably none next week either, as this week looks like more of the same.

No Jazz Consumer Guide either. Just heard from music editor Rob Harvilla that the space crunch is getting even worse, so he's postponed my full page piece until next week, May 14 issue. This is pretty much out of my hands: when I promised the postponed piece would run this week I was just repeating what I had been told at the time. I doubt that it's Harvilla's fault either -- maybe you could say that he's the one making priority choices between bad options, but by its very nature Jazz CG is both big (making it awkward to fit) and untimely (few of the records are very recent releases and none have much in the way of buzz).

Harvilla raised another question which I would like to throw out for comment, particularly from publicists who have some feel for the importance of Jazz CG remaining in the Voice. Harvilla suggested running Jazz CG online-only, offering to pay me the same as I've been getting for the print column. The print paper has virtually no visibility outside of NYC, so I imagine that most people only see the online version. (I often never see the print version myself.) One advantage of going strictly online might be that it could come out more frequently, with a shorter lead time, and possibly longer (e.g., more Honorable Mentions). On the other hand, I wonder how long they'd pay me print rates. So I'm not sure what to say. Don't get much feedback from these posts, but I would appreciate comments on this. Thanks.