Here's one of the many business-related lessons I'm taking away from this amazing jazzfest experience. It might be the biggest one so far.
While Rhythm Changes has basically solved the problem of having a comprehensive Vancouver jazz gig list on the web, it doesn't offer an elegant solution to this common, straightforward question: "Do you have any recommendations of what I should see?"
Now, all of us jazz-heads provide answers to that question in casual conversations all the time. But does the RC outlet offer any answers in and of itself? Not really. I've already been aware that someone who doesn't know the scene very well will come away from the gig list lacking a lot of context; this issue has become much more apparent to me when I imagine outside-the-scene folks coming in and scrolling through days with 20+ listings of random people's names at unfamiliar places.
Does RC have any mandate to solve that question; i.e. why don't we just save that for the small talk? I don't know. There's a graveyard of digital recommendation players out there. Let's see what else I hear on the streets and in the clubs about people's use of the gig list this summer.