UK Jazz Place started as a database for jazz musicians who want to find other jazz musicians easily, usually so that they can replace a missing musician. This remains its main function, but a host of other possibilities are springing up. So, use UKJP as your dep book, general publicity tool, or book a whole band through it. Also find instrument repairers or teachers and trade jokes, because UKJP is here to serve the jazz community. Soon there will be classified advertisements (sell your amp or CDs) members photos, a last minute booking facility (see who is still available) and a bulletin board. Meanwhile, you can search for members by their listed intruments/services/skills and or style of jazz, and or areas where they work. If you want to find a specific musician you can search for him/her by name.

At the moment, creating an account with UK Jazz Place is completely free - and we aim to always have a free basic account available. Once we come out of beta we plan to launch a paid subscription service that will give you access to more people, and allow you to display more information about yourself.

Definitely! The privacy of our users is our number 1 concern.

• Email addresses are always hidden from spam bots and malicious internet programs.
• We've decided to unlock the telephone numbers, meaning we'll display all telephone numbers to all members for the time being. However, we reserve the right to lock telephone numbers from some or all members at any time in the future.

While UK Jazz Place respects the MU and identifies with its broad objectives, there is actually no affiliation or swapping of data. Members here are free to indicate their membership of the MU (as a badge of honour) if they so wish.

Although the site is designed mainly to meet the needs of those working in the UK/Irish jazz industry, you are still very welcome to open an overseas account at UKJP. To do this, answer "NO" to the question "Based in the UK or Ireland?" You may still have a UK account, if this is also useful to you, but each account should be registered separately, with a unique username for administration purposes. The main language here should always be English, though you are welcome to list the areas (cities and provinces) where you can work in more than one language, space permitting. Try to mention your country name as part of the first area: "Torrent, Valencia, Spain" for example.

Click here to go straight to our registration page. The process itself shouldn't take more than a few minutes - all we need to get you started is a few details about yourself like your name, where you work, what instruments you play and a username and password - usual internet stuff really.

You can, but it's best to maintain some separation of Overseas and UK/Ireland. There's no harm in mentioning another country in your UK profile (it might even interest a UK/Irish band going on an overseas tour) but it's best to put most of your non-UK/Ireland information in a place where people will look for it, and that is in a separate Overseas profile with separate username. When you create that profile you should answer "No" to the question: "Based in the UK or Ireland?" even if the UK is your main home. This will not harm your existing UK profile.

It's optional. The whole name includes a First Name and a Surname. You can search by Whole Name, First Name, Surname, Other/Stage Name such as "Jim" or "Dodger". These briefer names are helpful when you're not sure how the owner has listed his name, but it does give more general results. Name is not a compulsory item in searches anyway. It is anticipated that the most common search will involve instrument and area.

The short answer is medium-size areas - typically cities, counties & shires. To elaborate: List all your favourite work areas, so that members seeking your instruments/skills in specific areas can find you. Just be realistic, and name areas you are prepared to travel to regularly. It really does help if you can use different ways of describing the same areas. We note that "Home Counties" is emerging as a popular area description too. You may put more than one word or area in each box. Commas will help to separate them, and these will not adversely affect searches. "Tonbridge, SE England" is very general, and here the word "Kent" is conspicuous by its absence. It's better for this member to leave out "SE England" if he is short of space, otherwise he'll get missed in all the searches for jazzers in "Kent"! "UK" is unnecessary, but "Conwy, Conwy, N Wales" is probably the best description available for the town of Conwy. Remember that searches are letter (not word) dependant. A search on "Lond" will find musicians in "london" and also in "SW London, Surrey". You (the members) are defining the exact areas, and the site is learning from you. If you want to explain something unusual about where you are based or where you can work, do this in the ABOUT YOURSELF box - see MY ACCOUNT/Edit basic details.

We try to protect our members from nuisances and fraudsters. Insisting on membership for access provides the first level of protection against this. See also "Is My Privacy protected."

The short answer is: because we've hidden them. It's not really a good idea to have your email address displayed on a website, because that tends to invite malicious programs and internet users to use it for spam emails and worse. When you want to send a message to another user, it's sent safely via our website.

To change any of your details once you've registered, simply visit your Account page. (You may need to log in first). From here, you'll be able to change any aspect of your profile as you wish.