LAjazz.com Names Tom Meek President & Managing Editor

Los Angeles, CA, June 16, 2014 --(PR.com)-- LAjazz.com, Southern California's number one resource for jazz music, today announced that Tom Meek has reached an agreement with the family of the late LAjazz.com founder Michael Heilpern to become President and Managing Editor of LAjazz.com. Meek has served as LAjazz.com's Editor, and will assume responsibility for all day-to-day operations of LAjazz.com as July 1, 2014.

Michael Heilpern. a lifelong jazz fan and amateur musician, began LAjazz.com in 2004 from his offices in Claremont, California as part of Highpoint, Inc., a web design, hosting, and printing company, and continued to develop the site until his untimely death in February, 2014 at the age of 63.

Michael's wife, Linda Heilpern said, "I truly appreciate Tom stepping up and offering to take over LAjazz.com. Michael put a lot of love into this site, and I am very grateful it is going to continue."

Michael's brother Slim Heilpern, a musician himself, said "Tom's extensive connections in the Southern California jazz community have been a major asset to LAjazz.com. He and Michael both had a fundamental desire to help audiences find the great music that's happening here nearly every night of the year, support the musicians that play jazz, and help the venues across Southern California that offer live jazz music. I'm absolutely delighted that Tom has offered to step in and pick up where Michael left off, this is a big win for the jazz community."

Tom Meek commented, "Michael Heilpern dedicated much of the last ten years of his life to building LAjazz.com into the finest online jazz resource serving a single market anywhere in the world. It was a genuine labor of love and something he rightly took considerable pride in. I'm grateful the family is willing to allow me to carry on that legacy."

Meek added, "I've seen the tremendous amount of work that's gone into building both the website and the mobile site designed for smartphones, now more than 20% of LAjazz.com's audience. I want to build on the foundation Michael created and expand the reach of LAjazz.com through new strategic alliances, enhanced sponsorship and advertising opportunities, greater use of social media, and a wider range of content from the local community and beyond. I hope to have a major announcement of our first new strategic alliance in the next few weeks."

Tom Meek began writing for LAjazz.com in 2007 with a weekly column called "About & Out," highlighting the best live jazz happening each night across Southern California. Since becoming Editor in 2011, he has handled most editorial and editing functions for the site on a daily basis. "About & Out" is now the most widely-read weekly live jazz music highlights column in Los Angeles, publishing each Monday for nearly seven years. Tom Meek has a background in music, media, Internet, audio, video and technical consulting extending back over four decades.

LAjazz.com now receives over 150,000 page views per month and nearly two million page views annually, and has a repeat audience approaching 20,000 visitors each month. LAjazz.com caters not only to local jazz and music fans, but to visitors worldwide from more than 150 countries. It also sends more than 20,000 opt-in emails weekly of upcoming jazz events by neighborhood across Southern California, and maintains a free registry of Southern California jazz musicians.