Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Jazz/Archives/2020 1

Notability

There are comments concerning notability, and the tag dated June 2009, at Talk:Arthur's Tavern for anyone interested. Otr500 (talk) 22:30, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Happy Public Domain Day

Rhapsody in Blue, a 1924 orchestral jazz piece, is in the public domain from 1 January 2020. More media will be free every year. Check out the notes I have at Talk:Rhapsody_in_Blue#Now_in_public_domain_globally for using that article as an example of a newly free media work and how Wikipedia can respond to this. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:22, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

And others

Occasionally when I had the audacity to remove an article from the project that I considered "not jazz", people insinuated or stated bluntly that I was narrow, exclusive, deletionist, conservative, puritan, purist, snobbish, and for good measure asserted that I was violating the sacrosanct Wikipedian commandments against ownership and POV. I was being none of those things. Nor was I being audacious. I was being bold by taking the initiative. It's interesting how "audacity" gets defined as both boldness and rudeness. When a pragmatic person is confronted by idealists, these kinds of sparks fly. I found EddieHugh's moderate, balanced approach to be a model for all of us. Rarely was he excessively emotional. Rarely was his judgment self-serving. To use figurative language again, which I usually advise against, his compass pointed toward Earth rather than the clouds. (see Aristophanes)

Occasionally I was asked, or it was insinuated, what difference it makes if Wikiproject Jazz includes articles that are tangentially related to jazz or that have nothing at all do with it—so long as a consensus has been reached.

Taking the most obvious objection, it's called Wikiproject Jazz, not Wikiproject Aluminum Siding. If aluminum siding interests you, then work on Wikiproject Aluminum Siding. Calling a spade a spade and not an ax is important for practical reasons. Many projects exist to cover many subjects. I understand the purpose of a wikiproject to be a method of cutting down the territory to make it manageable. The territory is big: Wikipedia has over SIX MILLION articles. It needs to be managed. Who is going to do all that work? For free? EddieHugh has done most of the jazz work. I did a little. A few others chip away per their interests. Most people who contribute to Wikipedia are interested in "doing their own thing". That's not 100 percent bad. But it's a narrow approach. It's the beginning of an approach, not the end. It's a peephole rather than the Grand Canyon vista that one ought to have.

Including "not jazz" articles creates unnecessary work. It adds to the long list of articles which are incomplete, unsourced, and poorly written. There are many such articles on Wikipedia. They diminish the credibility and reliability of Wikipedia and everyone involved. Moreover, there are many articles which are not really articles. They consist of lists or tables or "paragraphs" of one or two sentences. That's not an article. It's an impulse. It doesn't help anyone. It's usually done for selfish reasons. It does more harm than good. These "placeholders for the future" are essentially an act of faith that a mysterious stranger will come along and solve our problems for us: finding sources, formatting them, adhering to the rules of Wikipedia in impartial, grammatical prose, thus removing all those ugly maintenance templates and red links that have been left for some mysterious Other to do. I have argued that this kind of thing is usually irresponsible. It's not a crime. But acts of faith don't get articles written. Work does.

I agree that for practical reasons the project can't favor one type of jazz over another. But it should be restricted to jazz just as Wikiproject Basketball should be restricted to basketball. When I try to remove Sade from the jazz project, I'm not removing a type of jazz. Sade doesn't belong to a type of jazz. She's a pop singer. Nearly all the sources I've seen concur. Sade never called herself a jazz singer. I went through this with an article about Steely Dan. The two members of Steely Dan denied they were a jazz band. Yet an experienced member of Wikipedia, after insulting me, insisted that this didn't matter. I think it does. It's the height of arrogance to say that some critic knows the band better than the band knows itself. Serious musicians know what kind of music they are performing.

Why is "and others" a useless phrase? It isn't. It's worse than useless. It's deceptive. What "others" are you talking about? How do I know? Do I take your word for it? That's not what encyclopedias do. Encyclopedias use information from reliable sources. "And others" is vague. Encyclopedias are specific. "And others" is open-ended. Encyclopedias define. To define something is necessarily to put limits around it. Some people dislike limits. They need to grow up.Vmavanti (talk) 15:18, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

I've gone through this with the Topper Headon article (see discussion) (and Charlie Daniels, over at Commons). I'm not as active (on Wikipedia in general) as I once was, so maybe it's not for me to say, but it's up to WP:JAZZ do decide what is or is not in their purview – this is explained (for WikiProjects in general) at WP:PROJSCOPE. It might help to remind others that inclusion (or exclusion) from WikiProject(s) is not part of the article categorization scheme. There is a notice to that effect at the top of the WP:JAZZ banner's talk page. If WP:JAZZ collectively feel that Meghan Trainor (as another, although uncontested, example) is outside its purview, then that's WP:JAZZ's business. We've previously gone over this (see archived discussion – wow, almost 10 years ago!). Having said all that: I would suggest avoiding language such as "they need to grow up" when referring to other editors. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 16:31, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

Consensus is an important part of Wikipedia, but it's not a commandment. It's not a moral absolute or the Most Important Thing. I think it would be dumb if Wikiproject Jazz included Meghan Trainor given that she is a pop singer, not a jazz musician. Consensus can't change that. Including Meghan Trainor simply because a consensus thinks it's OK would be taking the guidelines for Wikiproject to absurdity, leaving behind common sense. Applied properly, "consensus decides the purview" means raising questions such as: Is Spyro Gyra jazz? Should we include third stream? How is free jazz different from avant-garde jazz? What is the difference between New Orleans jazz and dixieland? Are Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett jazz singers? Those are the kinds of questions I expected to face when I started working on the project. But I never encountered them. Instead, I had to waste time talking about Frank Zappa, Van Morrison, Sade, Soft Machine, and Blackstar. Self-interest came disguised as argument and principle, if not moral absolute. In other words, the people who argued with me about Van Morrison et al were fans of Van Morrison et al and they wanted to believe, for whatever reason, that their idols were jazz musicians. That's why the arguments were so heated. Such people had no desire to be impartial. They couldn't distance themselves from their own biases. They had feelings rather than reasons. Over the years I have tried to communicate to people the difference between practical definition and impractical open-endedness—something defined versus something undefined. To be able to get work done, decisions have to be made, judgments have to be made, lines drawn, limits established. A house has a blueprint. A parcel of land has boundaries, otherwise you wouldn't know where to build, what was yours and what belonged to someone else. The absence of boundaries is a fantasy.Vmavanti (talk) 17:14, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

I think maybe I wasn't clear — we (more specifically, I) did not include Meghan Trainor in WP:JAZZ, and there was no consensus (nor any discussion) to do so. Again, it's not in WP:JAZZ's purview. Or maybe I'm confused about something else — because I believe we're in complete agreement, where that article is concerned. (EDIT: My apologies, but now that I've gone back and looked closely, Meghan Trainor was a bad example for me to use in the first place. The WP:JAZZ banner was never there at all — I misremembered that it had been inserted on Talk:Meghan Trainor as an automated by-product of article categorization, the same thing that did happen with Topper Headon. When I said "uncontested," I meant that no one complained that I removed WP:JAZZ from the talk page but — again — I'm misremembering that this even happened in the first place. WP:RSM's banner, though, is a different story...)

Please keep in mind that Wikipedia:Consensus is one of Wikipedia's "five pillars." So when you say you disagree, I'm unsure as to what — with WP:PROJSCOPE? With WP:JAZZ's previous consensus regarding the talk page banner? Or with WP:CONSENSUS in general? Because if it's either of the first two, it seems to me we're actually in agreement.

In the future, if all else fails, you could always come here and ask "Does xyz belong in WP:JAZZ?," and then point to the resulting discussion here on this page indicating whether or not WP:JAZZ feels it should have anything to do with that article. It does come up here now and again.

FWIW, my personal criteria regarding an article's relevance to WP:JAZZ are, for example, "would I find this artist's/group's recordings in the 'Jazz' section of a record store?" (Although by this time some readers might rightly ask, "What's a record store?") Or, "is this person included in The Allmusic Guide to Jazz?" Etc. If the answer to either of these is "yes," then the article's probably within the scope of this WikiProject, regardless of my own feelings toward the subject. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 18:00, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

This is far from the first time that Vmavanti has run into difficulties with their approach. Vmavanti would perhaps benefit from reading WP:OWN, WP:EXPERT and WP:CONSENSUS. Consensus is a commandant on Wikipedia. Bondegezou (talk) 12:11, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

I hadn't paid attention to the Template Usage notice before; perhaps I hadn't even noticed it, as it doesn't display on article talk pages. "the template indicates that members of WP:JAZZ may have something to offer in terms of improving or even maintaining the article, so it should be added to articles only with significant jazz content" sounds good to me. If someone objects to the removal of the project template from an article that's peripherally related to jazz, respond with 'this article doesn't have significant jazz content, so doesn't merit inclusion in the Jazz project, per the project's guidelines (link to Template talk:WikiProject Jazz)'. EddieHugh (talk) 13:34, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

That is useful wording. The problem comes when a certain editor insists that their view of whether an album contains "significant jazz content" or not should override the views of other editors and reliable sources. Bondegezou (talk) 14:37, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

It isn't my approach that's the problem. I know better than to refer to individuals in third person plural. The difficulties here are created by the internet and by unfriendly busybodies who read between the lines to achieve their own idealistic agenda. Since we are recommending reading, I recommend Gulliver's Travels and The Clouds by Aristophanes. There's no need to refer me to documentation I have already read many times. I am the last person you will see violate WP:OWN. Look at some User pages. I'm not the one who keeps track of "What I Did". I am one of the few people who doesn't have a trophy shelf like that. I get it, but it's not what Wikipedia is about. I agree with most of what Gyrofrog says. There was miscommunication. I understood the Meghan Trainor example to be hypothetical. He wanted clarification on my views about consensus. Obviously I'm not against consensus. I'm against the misuse of consensus as it has been applied occasionally to the jazz project by those motivated purely by self-interest. I'm against the idealistic fantasy of infinite expansion and what gets called "openness", though it is really the opposite of openness. I strongly agree with Gyrofrog's standards and examples of the record store and AllMusic as good arbiters, keeping in mind the problems that have arisen regarding the latter. I have stepped away from Wikipedia, for the most part, so there's no need to panic. I imagine there are people who will probably find it easier to "get their way" and "do their own thing". That should reduce the acrimony and anxiety. Call it a gift. But don't say I "gifted it".Vmavanti (talk) 15:53, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

G.T. Hogan and Wilbert G.T. Hogan

Drummer G.T. Hogan, according to AllMusic, was also known as "Granville Hogan, Wilbert Hogan, G.T. Hogan, W.T. Hogan, and Wilbert G.T. Hogan". But that's written by Eugene Chadbourne, who usually concentrates on trying to be funny instead of conveying useful information. Grove, in its biography of "Hogan, G(ranville) T(heodore, Jr.)", warns: "Hogan should not be confused with the drummer Wilbur (Wilbert) Hogan (d New York, 1967), who also worked with [Randy] Weston, toured with Lionel Hampton in 1956–8, and played with Frank Foster's big band (1964–c1966)." Feather & Gitler has only Granville Theodore Hogan, Jr, with no Wilbert. So: was there a G.T. Hogan and a Wilbert Hogan, both drummers, or just one person? All help appreciated. EddieHugh (talk) 19:37, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Proposed change of AllMusic template

 You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:AllMusic#Set field question. Gyrofrog (talk) 20:45, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Straight-ahead jazz

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Straight-ahead jazz#Stub. Gyrofrog (talk) 21:15, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

All About Jazz reviews

What do you think of having album reviews from All About Jazz in the Album ratings template in articles on albums? The template creates the heading "Professional ratings" and I believe that AAJ reviewers don't get paid. There can also be multiple AAJ reviews, leading to different star ratings. EddieHugh (talk) 20:11, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

• Contributor payment has always been a rather loose concept for non-mainstream media, often involving a pile of review copies for the secondhand shop or token payment at best! Regarding AAJ, I didn't recall them as using star ratings, but I see now that they sometimes do. Ornette Coleman's Sound Grammar has 3 reviews, two with (one at 4.5, the other at 5), one without. I've always been comfortable using AAJ bylined articles and reviews as supporting references, outwith that Professional ratings box. Given the unevenness, maybe best left that way? AllyD (talk) 21:23, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

That's been my approach up to now. I've noticed that some people do put AAJ reviews in the ratings box, though, so have asked here to seek different perspectives and possibly a consensus. EddieHugh (talk) 17:24, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Are there any more views (same or different)? 2 people isn't really a consensus. EddieHugh (talk) 16:38, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Automatic WikiProject tagging

I would like to gain thoughts and consensus on whether my bot should add the WikiProject banner on the talk pages of articles in categories which are a subcategory of Category:Jazz (I will be manually filtering the categories to use). I am creating a list of the subcategories the bot would use. It will be stored at User:Dreamy Jazz Bot/Task 4.1/categories once the list is ready (the page will go blue once the list is ready), although an updated version of Wikipedia:WikiProject Jazz/Categories could be used if it is wanted.

The bot could also, if wanted, auto assess when it adds the banner (following the rules at User:BU RoBOT/autoassess). It could also auto assess the class as a stub if there is a stub template on the article if no other projects have rated the article. This will reduce the increase of unassessed articles.

The bot could also add |musicians-work-group=yes to {{WikiProject Biography}} (if it is on the page) when the bot adds {{WikiProject Jazz}}, and add |albums=yes or |songs=yes depending on which category the article is in. I would sort the categories into album categories, song categories and others if such a feature was wanted.

A WikiProject tagging bot has been used before by this WikiProject, and my bot is currently running for Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography. Thanks, Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me | my contributions} 14:35, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

I've generated the list and filtered it. Probably best to be checked by someone else, but it should be OK. Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me | my contributions} 16:03, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

• Broadly the list looks good. I do wonder about some peripheral cases, such as albums by Traffic (band) or The Style Council, dropping in here. The relevance here of musics which have used some jazz-influenced elements has been a not infrequent topic on this Talk page. But that is a matter for the Categories' categories. AllyD (talk) 16:30, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

This is problematic. There are upsides, but we're still removing jazz project tags from when something similar was run years ago. We definitely don't want the contents of categories such as Category:Amy Winehouse songs all to have this project's tag on them. Wasn't the auto-tagging by genre of all items in a category discussed (and rejected) recently in a discussion? I can't remember where it was.... Looking down the list, Category:Barbra Streisand compilation albums? No, thank you. We have 31,500 articles already; that's enough without adding lots that don't belong, and then having to find them, which literally takes years. This looks like too crude a solution to a very minor problem, if indeed there is a problem. So, on balance, no to any auto-tagging of the project. EddieHugh (talk) 20:41, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Based on the above, it seems like its best not to go ahead with this idea as isn't wanted / probably has more disadvantages than advantages. Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me | my contributions} 21:00, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, we had done this in 2010, and then again sometime in 2013 (twice I think), at my instigation. I'd agree that we shouldn't proceed (not now, anyway). My recollection is that the first pass brought a lot of things (for the most part that should've been) under the WP:JAZZ umbrella, but that the second/third passes brought in more things like the Amy Winehouse category that aren't part of this project's purview. For this to work, we'd first have to go through and clean out the categories, which is a thankless task. I don't imagine anyone's up for that. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 21:36, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Often jazz and pop songs of the 1920s & 30s

would include an introduction section, I think of a pretty standard length, that would often be omitted when the song was later recorded. Is there a name for that section? Or do I need to come up with examples? Thanks, Einar aka Carptrash (talk) 20:30, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

I suspect that it is because these songs are from musicals and there is often was a bit of intro to the song as a sugue between the dialog part of the show and the song part. However this is obviously the wrong place to ask this question, I will try somewhere else. Carptrash (talk) 16:14, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

@Carptrash:: This sounded familiar. I looked at the glossary in a Jelly Roll Morton piano book, and it identifies the introductory section as the "verse" (Thirty-two-bar form identifies it as "sectional verse"), and the familiar part of the song (e.g. the "I Got Rhythm", A-A-B-A changes) as the "chorus". This is different from how I'd always thought of (or used) the terms verse (e.g. "In the town where I was born...") and chorus ("We all live in a yellow submarine..."). I didn't know about it at all until I'd heard "Over the Rainbow" sung with a verse that isn't in the movie, nor any other version of that song that I'd previously heard. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 23:18, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

To my (uneducated) ear, @Gyrofrog: this section is not a verse, which is typically repeated - often with different lyrics. This section, which I've found (listening to a lot (too much?) Rod Stewart as being from 8 to 32 bars long , it has different chords and is never repeated. It is just a sort of walking start before the song it's self takes off. Unfortunately my go-to music guy is cloistered down miles away so I am trying to figure this out myself. I was going to take this over to "Project Songs" (or something) until I noticed that no one has answered a post on the talkpage in a year. I'm glad that you showed up & restored my faith in humanity, which is pretty low right now. Carptrash (talk) 23:36, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, that's how I (and, I suspect most people) have usually thought of a "verse" but, from what I've recently learned, it (or, "sectional verse") also refers to that seemingly unrelated, introductory part (e.g. to segue between the dialog in a play and a song). Well, hope it helped, hope you feel better at least! -- Gyrofrog (talk) 01:04, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks @Gyrofrog: I was hoping to use this . . .... information in a wikipdia article, Introduction (music) where it is sort of alluded to, but the way it is there does not really fit with these intros. Anyway, life (according to Oscar Wilde) is seldon pure and never simple. So thanks again, Carptrash (talk) 04:49, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

@Carptrash:. From Grove (2002): "Popular songs usually have two sections: a verse, which is often through-composed (i.e., having no repeated phrases) and ends on the dominant; and a refrain (also called a chorus). In jazz performances the verse is little used, if at all; in early jazz it was usually played only once, at the beginning of the piece, and after the 1920s it was generally discarded altogether and the refrain was taken as the sole material. Thus in jazz the term 'song form' or 'popular song form' refers to the structure of the refrain alone. The refrain is usually 16 or 32 bars long and made up of four- or eight-bar phrases grouped into designs such as aaba (or aa′ba′, or aaa′a), abac (or abab′), aabc, or abcd." Based on that, "verse" is the word you're looking for. "Sectional verse" comes from this edit and, after a bit of digging, I think it originates in John Covach's chapter, "Form in Rock Music: A Primer" (2005)... "It is important to note that Tin Pan Alley songs typically consist of two sections, often called the 'verse' and the 'refrain' but perhaps better labeled the 'sectional verse' and 'sectional refrain.' The sectional verse is a kind of lead-in to the song, with lyrics that set up the sentiment expressed in the sectional refrain. The sectional verse tends not to be heard much in modern performances, and the sectional refrain is what most listeners would recognize as the song itself." That's the same explanation as Grove; I don't see much evidence that the 'sectional verse' label caught on, but I could be wrong. It looks like another Wikipedia example of people dumping their favourite theory into articles without mentioning the sources. EddieHugh (talk) 11:36, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

• I'm not adding anything of consequence, but thanks for that fascinating composite on the evolution of the song. AllyD (talk) 12:57, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Thank you @EddieHugh:, this is more or less what I have been looking for and I need to collect my thoughts (somewhat difficult for me in these days of plagues and riots) and then decide if something like this needs to be added to the Introduction (music) article. Or if what I am referring to is just verse & refrain, and these "verses" although never repeated, are not really a song introduction. Anyway I appreciate your efforts. Carptrash (talk) 18:11, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Jack Bruce

Vmavanti removed the WP:JAZZ link from Talk:Jack Bruce without comment in this edit. While Bruce may be best known for his work in Cream, West, Bruce and Laing, etc., he also recorded Things We Like under his own name, joined The Tony Williams Lifetime for their second album, as well as appearing prominently on Escalator over the Hill (particularly on side 5, again alongside John McLaughlin). He has entries in “The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz” and a Jazz-oriented appraisal by Mark Gilbert in Grove Music Online. My view is that the project link is appropriate and should be reinstated, so I am bringing this here seeking consensus from others. AllyD (talk) 19:21, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

I'd say the article's in scope (though perhaps where 'Importance' = "Low"). Those are very similar criteria as what I've suggested in the past. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 19:31, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Does anyone know of any American publication that has called Jack Bruce a jazz musician?
Vmavanti (talk) 17:16, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with publications from anywhere else in the world. Bondegezou (talk) 18:18, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Query on pre-Nazi attitudes to jazz in Germany

See Talk:Django_Reinhardt#pre-Nazi_jazz_ban_in_Germany?. Anyone here have access to that Budds book? AllyD (talk) 09:35, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Query on pre-Nazi attitudes to jazz in Germany

See Talk:Django_Reinhardt#pre-Nazi_jazz_ban_in_Germany?. Anyone here have access to that Budds book? AllyD (talk) 09:35, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#INCORRECT_PHOTO

For the interested, is the photo at Jimmy Cleveland wrong? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:21, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

Blue Note Records

This article needs to be much better sourced and it probably calls for a general re-write. Despite the large number of inline citations, this article is poorly sourced. Many paragraphs lack any citations. Some sentences show three citations at the end. I suspect there is ome original research here, too.

I am reading Richard Cook, Blue Note Records: The Biography (Boston: Justin Charles & Co., 2003). This is a good looking book and could be the go-to source for this article.

I have no experience writing about record labels and only a little background about jazz. I have questions about the structure of articles about record labels. Thanks, Oldsanfelipe2 (talk) 13:52, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

I see you've found WikiProject Record Labels and asked the same thing there already. A good option is to look at some existing articles (good ones!) on the same topic and base what you do on them. You can find some via the table here. It sounds like you have the right ideas about sourcing and structure already, but please ask any questions you may have and someone will try to help. EddieHugh (talk) 19:27, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

Question re. new articles on jazz-related topics

Hello. I'm a relative newcomer to Wikipedia editing. (I started in January.) I've been focusing on expanding mostly music-related articles, as well as researching and adding citations where needed. I've also created a few new articles, and was wondering what the normal review time is for these. For example, I've had two articles on jazz albums (The Hilversum Session (an Albert Ayler album) and Wildflowers: The New York Loft Jazz Sessions) sitting in the queue for over two months. Is there anything I can do to the articles (other than adding WikiProject Jazz and WikiProject Albums) to make them more likely to be reviewed and rejected/approved promptly?

Many thanks for taking the time to read this, and many thanks to everyone for all the improvements to what I've done. It's been a wonderful learning experience so far.

Helen Puffer Thwait (talk) 20:24, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

• Interesting! I recall being surprised at the absence of an article on Wildflowers and intended to create something if I could ever find my file of old articles by Steve Lake, etc. which could support its claim to importance. I've still not stumbled over these articles, but will try to have a look at this new Draft:Wildflowers: The New York Loft Jazz Sessions. On your question, the AfC queue can be very long duration. But I'd say there is nothing to prevent an article being moved to mainspace if that's the consensus of a few folk here. AllyD (talk) 20:59, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
• There is a German article at de:Wildflowers – The New York Jazz Loft Sessions which quotes various critics opinions. AllyD (talk) 07:28, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll have a look asap.Helen Puffer Thwait (talk) 11:56, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

• More eyes needed: I have added more references to critical coverage to the Draft:Wildflowers: The New York Loft Jazz Sessions. I think this article is fine for mainspace, but would appreciate others' opinions before moving this out of Draft space. AllyD (talk) 07:54, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

Borth published. User:Helen Puffer Thwait: excellent contributions, thank you. Feel free to drop a note on my talk page, any time you have something ready for review; though you can create articles directly in main space when you feel ready. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:25, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

• Many thanks for your help and for your kind offer. Helen Puffer Thwait (talk) 00:52, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

Assessment of importance

In this edit Vmavanti has changed the project Importance rating on Albert Ayler's Spiritual Unity from Top to low. I was very surprised by this change, and would like to seek others' views to establish a consensus. The article page already includes various critical assessments, including the album's inclusion in a Core Collection in The Penguin Guide to Jazz, which in itself would indicate a critical view at odds with a Low assessment. I will also note Valerie Wilmer's summary in As serious as your life: "Spiritual Unity, a trio date with Gary Peacock on bass and Sunny Murray on drums, revolutionised the direction for anyone playing those three instruments." - again inconsistent with a low rating. I am opening this topic to seek views on the particular case of the Ayler album, but perhaps the 2010 discussion on Importance ratings should be revisited. AllyD (talk) 09:18, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

I read some of the comments you linked to from ten years ago. You have fallen into several common traps. I understand rank in Wikiproject Jazz to mean how much work an article needs, how soon it is attended to, or other project-related matters. Which is to say, how important it is in relative terms to us, to people who work routinely on the jazz project—not how important it is to Jazz History, the World, or Universal Global Humanity Amen. To my knowledge two people work routinely on the jazz project, EddieHugh and me, and I haven't heard from Eddie in many months. The others do gnome work based on their interests and desires, such as fighting crusades to "save" articles from being deleted or, the other side of the coin, creating articles that are somehow Important to the Cause. The assumption is that working on Wikipedia is morally good. But it has nothing to do with morality. It's simply an encyclopedia, a collection of boring facts. Straying from that reality creates nothing but conflict and a pile of messes that someone else has to clean up.

Rank has nothing to do with inventing an impartial standard by which jazz musicians and jazz albums can be judged. I can't think of a more subjective subject than jazz. The word itself is debated. The word's origins are debated. It is the last subject where you are likely to encounter something like an impartial or objective standard for what is good or bad, better or best. The search for such an iron law, commandment, or divinely inspired biblical text (like New Grove or The Penguin Guide to Jazz) is doomed to fail because there is no such thing and never can be. There are reliable sources and unreliable sources, not perfect sources and imperfect sources. They are all imperfect. Like human beings, they all make mistakes. So what?

Worse, the search for infallible unchanging standards for Wikipedia invites, begs for, opinion, which in turn leads to more conflict and fruitless, irrational debate. We are not here to collect opinions. We are not here to act like parents telling childlike readers what is good and what is bad for them. Readers of jazz articles are not children. They can make up their own minds. Even if you don't believe that, you still must abide by the goals, processes, and rules of Wikipedia. Wikipedia has nothing to do with the expression of opinion, even if it is considered an informed opinion or Authoritative Opinion from the Mount Olympus of Jazz Gods. There are enough talking heads in the world already. There's enough to do on the jazz project at the most foundational, basic level—finding sources for articles, for example, doing the actual writing, the actual work of Wikipedia, or, God help us, using the comma correctly, as opposed to slapping on templates and creating endless stubs for groundlings to take care of, and debating and debating and debating. Words, words, words, according to the melancholy Dane. Just one more tale full of sound of fury, signifying nothing.
Vmavanti (talk) 16:37, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

• Returning to the question at hand, this is how Template:Importance scheme defines these ratings. Top: "Subject is extremely important, even crucial, to its specific field. Reserved for subjects that have achieved international notability within their field."; Low: "Subject is not particularly notable or significant even within its field of study. It may only be included to cover a specific part of a notable article". AllyD (talk) 07:55, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

Everything I said is relevant to the question at hand. If you don't understand something, ask.
Vmavanti (talk) 12:54, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

• The Importance ratings were, I think, originally introduced for, and contribute to the Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Article selection process. In that sense, what was being sought from this and other projects was a view as to what was important, in this case, then, a judgment relating to "how important it is to Jazz History". It is worth bearing that usage in mind. AllyD (talk) 08:26, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

And I believe it is contrary to the goals and processes and documentation of Wikipedia for the members of a Wikiproject, no matter how many members it has, to decide for a world of 7.5 billion people what is good and what isn't, no matter what the subject. I don't know why Jazz History is capitalized, but those caps really give the game away.
Vmavanti (talk) 12:58, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

By the way, I'm starting to lose my patience with the constant privileging (deferral to, really) of British sources like the Penguin Guide and Oxford University and the Guardian especially when it comes to a thoroughly American subject like jazz on an American web site like Wikipedia. Like jazz, Wikipedia was created by Americans. Let's never forget that.
Vmavanti (talk) 16:42, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

'Class' is how well developed the article is. 'Importance' is how much editing attention/resources we think it warrants. Using Penguin was a way years ago of using a reliable source to determine what would get 'top importance'. There are several ways of attributing 'importance' – how important is Spiritual Unity in the whole of jazz? As a jazz album?... These lead to varying conclusions. 'Importance' as I see it is meant to be a tool to help us direct our efforts. If Spiritual Unity has been 'top' for a decade but remains little changed in that time, then perhaps the tool isn't helping much. (But I still like it to have it.)

On British sources: it's more about what's not behind a paywall or can be obtained easily. Grove (OUP) is accessible via Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Library; The Guardian has no paywall (but barely covers jazz these days); lots of people/libraries have a copy of Penguin. Are there US equivalents? Some accessible jazz magazines are from the US, but I find that a lot of stuff published in the US is behind a paywall, syndicated, or local. EddieHugh (talk) 18:58, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

FWIW I think I'd suggested the Penguin ratings mainly because they seemed consistent, if subjective, in their application. Allmusic.com, in contrast, might assign a five-star rating to an album with no accompanying review, or conversely only two- or three-stars where the written review itself was more effusive than the star rating would suggest. At this far remove I can't cite specific examples, but recall seeing this pattern(?) (or absence thereof?) more and more when looking up something or other at allmusic.com. My impression of Allmusic (FWIW) is that someone there was tasked and/or preoccupied with seeing how they could fit music criticism into their database (IIRC the early AMG books' copyright notices ascribed ownership to Matrix, a software company). (Another side effect of this, and I've gone on about it in the archives, was listing numerous, if unlikely, styles of jazz that Allmusic didn't really define themselves, but came (for a while) to define article categorization here at Wikipedia -- e.g. "Early creative".) The earliest edition of the book version of AMG to Jazz (1994) did not have multi-starred ratings. It did have a system of circle- or star-markings, somewhat analagous to Penguin's Crown and Core Collection, respectively, but even in that edition's case there might be an album that was marked but had no accompanying text, or conversely a written review that might suggest a superlative marking but had none. Long story short, by applying Penguin as one criterion for article importance, we were at least deferring to a third party, as opposed to editors equating importance (to Wikipedia) with their personal preferences. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 19:31, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Eddie: Does everyone have free access to Grove? I mean everyone in the world. Do you know about the Downbeat digital archive? Free pdfs of every issue. I have a pdf of every issue from 2008 to the present. I'm looking at my files now: I have pdfs of Earshot Jazz, JazzBeat (the Jazzology newsletter), JazzInside, JerseyJazz, JazzTimes, The Jazz Rag, and The NYC Jazz Record. You can find some interesting things (of dubious legality) at the Internet Archive if you dig around. Syncopated Times is an interesting site. JazzTimes is a substantive site with a lot of free material and pretty good writers. AllAboutJazz has a lot of free material, but it's promotional and its reviews tend to be written by fans and amateurs. It often uses information from press releases and from musicians' web sites. I wish I had access to all those old Billboard magazines. Google has given us some good snippets.

If it were up to me, no one would use star ratings or numbered reviews. Remove them from Wikipedia, web sites, magazines. How would I rank my collection? Everything I have, I like. If I dislike it that much, I get rid of it. Sure, some I like more than others, but I don't really try to make fine distinctions. That's a mug's game. I don't expect people to like what I like, though of course it sometimes puzzles me. Even having a Core Collection, someone's always going to disagree. Always. There's a problem with trying to objectify what isn't objectifiable. Music isn't 100 percent subjective, but much of it is. I would get rid of the Wikiproject Jazz ranking system that started this thread. I've had to defend it to IP editors, and they rarely get it. It seems to create more problems than it solves. It seems like a waste of time or worse.
Vmavanti (talk) 23:31, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

I have some of those, but you've given me more to look at. I actually have more than I'll ever (be able to) read, but pdfs are easy to search, so I accumulate them anyway. Billboard can be found at worldradiohistory.com, but the search function is poor (I see that whole issues can now be downloaded from there... is there a mass download method...?). EddieHugh (talk) 16:09, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

Interesting site, thanks. I listened to radio a lot when I was kid.
Vmavanti (talk) 22:54, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks to Eddie and Gyrofrog for their thoughtful replies, for engaging with the subject, and for their real work. These things separate the men from the boys, and we certainly live in a world of children don't we?
Vmavanti (talk) 17:25, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

Musicians who committed suicide categories at CfD

Please see this discussion. Thanks. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 08:00, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

Merge proposal that may be of interest to folks in this project

• Talk:Stanley Clarke#Merger proposal -J04n(talk page)