What a surprise because I just upgrade my new blog with Wordpress 2.7. Well as we know, Mark Jaquith just announced that WordPress 2.7 is now live and ready for download. The official announcement is now out and confirms the news.

This version of WordPress is named “Coltrane” for famed jazz Saxophonist, John Coltrane, a favorite of sax playing, WordPress founder, Matt Mullenweg.

There are a lot of new features and improvements, including the new interface. For examples, screenshots, video, and information on the new WordPress 2.7 version, see WordPress 2.7 Release News and Links, Countdown to WordPress 2.7 and WordPress 2.7 Hits WordPress.com Thursday, December 4, 2008.

WordPress.com has been running WordPress 2.7 for a week across almost 5 million blogs and the response has been incredibly positive. Old users are finding the learning curve almost non-existent and new users are embracing it.

The hard work done by all of the development team, especially by Jane Wells who lead the conversion to the new interface, deserves some serious rounds of applause.

For those concerned about upgrading to WordPress, and how often those updates occur, take a step down memory lane with Justin Tadlock in “Be Thankful WordPress Gets Updated.” He takes you through the various versions and why we should be so thankful for the most current versions, considering the path it took to get here.