Jazz is niche. Because of this it may have more resilience as we recover from 2020 than most. Let's hope. It is also a community that knows about hard times and neglect. Sometimes even hostility. Within the music industry it is a Cinderella because of low sales. Put it this way there is no jazz Bad Bunny anywhere capable of such vast mass appeal.

What's the year been like so far, how long have you got? With the live jazz scene more or less completely cancelled for months on end, streaming has taken off. Better than that film and TV shows have been more plentiful and some even better than usual. The Eddy was best of all, quite an achievement. However so far there is no real breakout success, no online live gig that you know you have to drop everything and just go see. That isn't because of quality more to do with promotion and the vast competitive array of entertainment choices on the Internet where super-professional video production and then canny promotion and distribution beats everything to actually let you know that it's there. Fictional jazz themed drama as The Eddy proved is competing head-on and winning over non-fiction jazz performance. Soul is next. That development is unusual.

Clubs and recording studios that have already invested in state of the art video equipment and the very best streaming technology and IT support are completely clued up not just for now but the decade to come. However, can your favourite neighbourhood place actually be able to do all that when it's a struggle at the best of times to just pay the rent?

Some artists switching to the studio often at home seem to be releasing more records in a single year than they ever did before, pushing out more digital-only/download albums than ever and that's a big positive. However, perhaps the quality threshold bar is lowered for good reasons and the lack of third party producers being available or afforded.

The scene changes anyway. But changes are already easy to spot as some venues close for good. There will be a big change in the gigging landscape again as live music starts to return. Some clubs will close for good. Survivors will have to lose personnel. There will be a lot of new faces. Clubs that provide food may increase in number because of lockdown rules in some places. In others programmers will be looking for safe bets to get bums on seats which is not always a positive. Pining for international jazz acts being available again in the flesh will continue to be a thing.

The venues that have weathered the storm helped by government grants and their own fundraisers are in a better place than most perhaps but they may only be just about holding their heads above water in the very short term.

Festivals will struggle to return properly particularly the ones scheduled for the first part of 2021 given the advance planning needed and the uncertainty still that exists and the temptation to go online entirely or as good as. Online jazz festivals are still work in progress. The main problem with them is to create something special visually and then to get the word out. Festivals will need to advertise more and build more partnerships with influencers.

To an extent talks and masterclasses work better online than they do as afterthoughts at real world festivals because we are so used to video apps this year like Zoom for communication and work and there is a seamlessness to consuming them. But it's the music, the gigs themselves, that do not work so well unless there is a true sense of event and narrative, not just ''live scheduling''. You as a punter won't get fooled too many times about gigs advertised as live when they are anything but. Think about it: you didn't pre-Pandemic turn up to a gig to see a band who actually had played the day before, did you? You often do now.

Jazz heads all: The Eddy, top. Photo: Netflix. Y Pati is also out now