Talk:The Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz

Untitled

Only part of the "Personnel" list entered on the edit page is being displayed. The command "greater than/exclamation/dash/dash" is inserted into the edit page at the point where the information stops displaying. Redundant notation here for visibility in case there's a reason for the truncation I could not find in the page history and it needs to be reinstated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by VAMark (talk • contribs)

@VAMark: Thanks. I was doing this from my personal copy of the album but no longer have it. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:13, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

Artwork

I added some info on later editions but it would be great if someone who deals well with pix in Wikipedia could add the cover art of the revised (1987) and re-released (late 1990s) versions. Sullidav (talk) 17:00, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Sullidav, Usually, we avoid having multiple pieces of non-free media unless there are very clear educational purposes. See WP:NFCC. If there were critical discussion of the artwork (Did it dramatically change due to a controversy? Was it discussed by reviewers of the album? Has it been replicated by other releases?) then we can include re-release covers but until then, we should really only have the first one. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:13, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Koavf, OK thanks. Just that more recent covers are significantly different and more commonly seen these days. But they don't meet those criteria. Sullidav (talk) 17:51, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Sullidav, Totally understandable to want to include them. Note that some language editions of Wikipedia include no non-free media. E.g. look at es:Kind of Blue. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:53, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

"Spectrums"

"spanning several decades and genres of American jazz, from ragtime and big band to post-bop and free jazz"

This phrase was added by user Koavf on 06:43, 24 April 2012, in the very first substantive version of this page.

It remained exactly as written until a couple days ago, when Vmavanti, among other good edits (thanks), changed its "from" to "including" with the explanation that "spectrums" don't work in music, say "including";. (That edit left the "to" as an ungrammatical orphan.)

I plan to revert, bringing back the original "from". In my view, this is clearly a case where a spectrum does apply to music, since the spectrum is chronological, and the sentence's "decades" implicitly reinforces that point.

I think not necessary but if others think the sentence needs to be dumbed-down and the chronological point made explicit, then I would propose to leave the from/to and add "of the early 20th century" after "big band" and add "of the late 1950s and 1960s" after "free jazz" - though one could certainly quibble with the specific years.

[others - feel free to edit these 2 user names making them into links, & drop this parenthetical.] Sullidav (talk) 12:02, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

I stand by my edit. Spectrums don't work in music, and often I see people try to use them. Many or most readers are unaware of these divisions in jazz, especially something like "post-bop" which to me is almost meaningless. Using chronology as justification doesn't really work either, because most readers don't know the chronology of jazz. It's up to encyclopedias to explain these things rather than assume everyone knows them.
–Vmavanti (talk) 13:47, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. I welcome any others' reactions on this small difference.

Sullidav (talk) 02:38, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

And as a few more quick thoughts:

1. While I agree with Vmavanti that this construction may be misused or overused, I don't know of any rule against ever using "from/to" in describing music, and it seems to me that doing so could be good writing sometimes, eg, "her musical tastes run the gamut from baroque to punk rock" or "the band has been categorized in genres that range from raga to hip-hop". Do you or others have a source that identifies and explains the cited rule?

2. I think "from/to" works better than "including" in this particular instance, where the named sub-genres are the two tails of the bell-curve of this collection's coverage - what it "includes" is predominantly the stuff in between ragtime and free jazz - especially Armstrong, Ellington, and Monk.

3. Those words have stood as-is for the entire 7-plus-year history of this article, apparently with no comment or change until now. Which doesn't make them automatically right but suggests, at least, that they are not egregiously wrong.

That said, this is all about 2 minor words, & no big deal.

Thanks. Sullidav (talk) 14:13, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

There doesn't need to be a rule. One need only ask if it makes sense. It's a logic problem. Let's dig into it. What's a spectrum? It's a group of colors organized by degree of refraction. When we talk about "from/to" we are talking about spectrums, and when we talk about spectrums we are talking about degrees of difference. There's a book by Barbara Kipfer called The Order of Things which is nothing but lists of hierarchies and pecking orders. At the moment there's a hurricane near Florida. The Saffir-Simpson scale ranks hurricanes by wind speed on a scale of one to five, with category five the highest. The Scoville scale ranks the hotness of chili peppers. A music spectrum doesn't work because it's more subjective, debatable, less defined, less amenable to graphing and gradation. The difference between rock music and country music isn't one of degree. It's a difference in kind. It's a different genre. The difference between chocolate and vanilla ice cream isn't degree. It's a different taste altogether. You can define the amount of fat in milk: whole milk, two percent milk, skim milk, and almond milk which isn't really milk at all. You can't do that with music. To say "from baroque to punk rock" is meaningless because I have no certain idea of what else is on that spectrum. It's some kind of private, personal preference that cannot be assessed objectively. It's a spectrum constructed arbitarily, unlike other spectrums. You can talk about degrees of loudness, but you can't talk about degrees of music.

Few people are interested in jazz. The only time that wasn't the case was the 1940s. So it should come as no surprise that few people volunteer to work on jazz articles or that jazz articles go untouched for years. Don't read between the lines. That's a terrible habit. Going untouched doesn't mean the article is right. It means it hasn't been touched. Nothing more. I'm always amused when someone says, "no one changed this in X amount of years until you came along." Considering the low quality of so many articles, that's a point that is unlikely to persuade. When we analyze prose, we ought to ask not whether this edit is new or old. We ought to ask: Does it make sense? Is it good? People who don't know how to make sense ought not to be writers or editors. They need to find other work.
–Vmavanti (talk) 17:24, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. I agree with a number of your statements, eg that "going untouched doesn't mean the article is right." But I continue to disagree with your conclusion - in this context I think that "from/to," as opposed to "including/and," is the more accurate and more informative formulation.

Btw, I don't appreciate the ad-hominem implication of "People who don't know how to make sense ought not to be writers or editors." It also seems contrary to the open and crowdsourced nature of Wikipedia to say that some people aren't qualified to edit it.

I asked about the general rule to understand your larger point. Thanks for explaining. I personally disagree. I think that in normal usage a "from/to" phrase does not need its objects to be on a quantifiable spectrum. Rather, "from/to" is routinely used to describe a group by giving a couple of examples, as in "from the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli."

But here's a guy, with Professor before his name, who agrees with your take: [The Website of Prof. Paul Brians]

Anyway, this difference over the general rule is not at issue in the sentence from the article. In that sentence, the named musical styles or genres DO fit on a spectrum, a chronological one, even if their boundaries and exact dates are squishy and debatable. And using "from/to" in this phrase best describes the pretty-much-chronological arrangement of the music in the collection it describes. That collection starts with Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag" (1916) and ends, in the 1973 version of the collection, with Ornette Coleman's "Free Jazz" (1961) and John Coltrane's "Alabama" (1963). That's why I think "from/to" is the better and more accurate form to use here.

Nobody else has weighed in on this little issue. I'd be glad to call in somebody to resolve this, by seeking a third opinion. WP:DR says it "is an excellent venue for small disputes involving only two editors." Which is exactly what we have. What do you think? Sullidav (talk) 02:00, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

p.s.from Sullidav - on the tangential “general rule” question, you will find several more writers who support your view of that rule if you Google “false range” - though with a few buried caveats and minority dissents that are more akin to my view of it.

Among other things, I’d rather not tell a Marine that his or her Hymn exemplifies poor grammar or sloppy logic. A quick trip to the hospital would likely ensue. :) 2600:1003:B027:4D85:2580:8C69:6A19:5392 (talk) 14:12, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

If I were going to continue the debate, I would dig into the problems of jazz and chronology, but I have too many other things to do.

Re:Marine. Face to face, yes. Where real communication occurs. But this isn't the real world. It's Internetland, where anonymity can protect you and tempt you to say things and do things you wouldn't on Earth.

I learned what someone above called "false range" from a creative writing professor in college, who was and is a published poet. From him I learned. It made sense and still does. But that was face to face. Is that why I learned from him and others don't learn from me? I don't know. I do know there is nothing so powerful as the words "I want", and when people want something they will find a way to get it. For my part, I don't give a shit. I was one of the those different kids in school who looked forward to having essays returned with red-ink corrections so I could learn from my mistakes. If I got an "A" with no comments at all, it pissed me off. Not everyone has that curiosity or desire to learn.

Re: what someone called an "ad-hominem implication". I have doubts about that construction. I get the point, but I disagree with it. From an early age, growing up in Middle America, I learned that people are different and have different strengths and weaknesses. I see that as a good thing. That's true diversity. Although most people ought to be able to learn basic literacy, and the fundamentals of writing and editing, not everyone can be a good writer and editor anymore than anyone can be a doctor, engineer, or computer programmer. Why would they? People are different. It's absurd to think people are identical when there is so much evidence against it. To me, it's an obvious fact that many people don't know what they're doing—not just on Wikipedia but in all walks of life. IP editors cause a lot of problems. If they would learn the rules, many problems on Wikipedia would disappear.
–Vmavanti (talk) 17:06, 6 September 2019 (UTC)