User talk:EddieHugh/Archive 2018

Randy Jackson

Randy Jackson from American Idol. Is he a jazz musician? Should he be listed on Wikiproject Jazz?
–Vmavanti (talk) 19:01, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

There is no source given for the sole sentence in the article that mentions jazz. My Penguins list him (his name) on just 2 early 1980s Jean-Luc Ponty albums. EddieHugh (talk) 19:12, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

What about King Krule? Someone from the younger crowd of rap, hip hop, DJs, sampling, turntables, and so on.
–Vmavanti (talk) 19:03, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

I don't see it in the sourcing provided. "his debts to jammy jazz-fusion" doesn't even qualify for jazz fusion. EddieHugh (talk) 19:09, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

His infobox says punk jazz. The only other time I've seen that term is in reference to Jaco Pastorius, who was becoming famous around the same time as the punk rock scene during the 1970s. I would have to check my book, but I think Pastorius used it about himself and, without going into it, in different ways than King Krule.
–Vmavanti (talk) 00:22, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Zappa jazz discussion

Would you take a look at this? Thanks. Zappa and jazz
–Vmavanti (talk) 19:01, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

ok. I'll be mostly blunt, but I hope that you take it in the spirit intended, which is that I'd prefer if another editor (you, in this instance) didn't fall into some traps that I have on here. First, civility and engaging with the matter being discussed are required, not attacking the individual. Targetting another person is very tempting, but always becomes counter-productive: no one is persuaded to change their views by a personal attack, direct or implied. You and I coped well on Robert Stewart; did his personal attacks make you more or less inclined to his point of view? Just stepping back or away can give perspective; I can get het up about some topics, but it doesn't do me (or anyone else) any good. Second, as some other people have commented, there's a difference between what is included in the jazz project and what is classed as jazz in an article. So, there are 2 questions: a) should Zappa be included in the project? b) should Zappa be labelled as 'jazz'? The discussion/argument on the discography page is about a). I don't know enough about his music to know, but if several others say that he should be included in the project, then that's good enough for me. But then I don't care about it as much as you do. My thinking is that there are nearly 30,000 articles in the project... I'll remove ones that I come across that I think shouldn't be in, but if someone else re-adds them, nothing is going to be gained by fighting about it, so I leave it, knowing that I won't edit those articles anyway. Much of the time, the editors who repeatedly get into big arguments about small things are the ones who don't contribute much but who cause plenty of problems. Be a contributor. EddieHugh (talk) 21:04, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

It's good that you're blunt. I'm not looking for cheerleading. It's fine if you disagree with me. I want you to be blunt and honest and fair and rational. Words, words, words, as the young prince of Denmark said. I'm not convinced that I was the one who was the first to be uncivil in the disagreement with the other two (three?). They've said some nasty, outrageous things. They also happen to be Zappa fans, which naturally is a bias and should automatically exclude them from debate. That's obvious. They have ignored the substance of my proof. I'm following the rules about Consensus. I re-read those pages yesterday and today. I asked you because I wanted another opinion. I was curious about today's refusal by my interlocutors to enter into debate after I gave three solid sources with quoted material. You can comment on those if you want. But it's obvious to me that those sources are the heart of the debate and the beginning of discussion. Not this other b.s. You're right that I can drop it. I've walked away from many disagreements. These guys are trying to bully me. None of the material I posted today was analyzed save for a couple snippy remarks that don't even come close to discussing the matters at hand.

As you said, there are two matters: one, whether to include Zappa in Wikiproject Jazz. If I don't need sources to remove the template, that's great. Unless you or Ally or some other Project member objects, then I'll remove it. But what I noticed a long time ago when I first started down this road is that even when I removed the template, the articles without them still appeared on the Cleanup page, which I have spent a lot of time on. So that's the connection: cleanup page, Wikiproject, and how the word jazz is used on the article itself.

Therefore the second matter is related, and in the eyes of some editors more important. This is how to classify Zappa in the article itself. You don't have to know much about him. Neither do I. I think the truth is important here when I see so many sources agreeing with me. Where do we look when disagreements occur? The sources. As I said above, today I hoped to begin a discussion toward consensus by posting material from sources. That's what the documentation says.

"In determining consensus, consider the quality of the arguments, the history of how they came about, the objections of those who disagree, and existing policies and guidelines. The quality of an argument is more important than whether it represents a minority or a majority view. The arguments "I just don't like it" and "I just like it" usually carry no weight whatsoever...Limit article talk page discussions to discussion of sources, article focus, and policy. If an edit is challenged, or is likely to be challenged, editors should use talk pages to explain why an addition, change, or removal improves the article, and hence the encyclopedia."Vmavanti (talk) 03:40, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Could you give me a link to one of the cleanup pages you mention? There could be a technical explanation. EddieHugh (talk) 15:39, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Cleanup listing
–Vmavanti (talk) 15:44, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. According to User:CleanupWorklistBot, which runs it, it's updated every Tuesday and is based on what's included in the project, not words in articles. So, ones that you remove from the project should also fall out of the cleanup page, but only on that weekly basis. Check some to see if they've now gone from the cleanup page. EddieHugh (talk) 15:52, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Right. That was my understanding. We've discussed the cleanup page before. In some instances removing the template isn't enough, but I don't have an example in front of me. Nevertheless, I'm still interested in both subjects, i.e. removing Zappa from the project and having a discussion about classifying him as a jazz guitarist in the entry. If there is a consensus to remove the Zappa template from the project, how would I know what it is? An admin reverted my removal and said there is no consensus to remove it. How does he know? How do I know what the current consensus is? How many people constitute a consensus? What people?Vmavanti (talk) 23:21, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

For several reasons, I decided to walk away from trying to build consensus on this point and on the larger pursuit of trying to limit Wikiproject Jazz to jazz articles.
–Vmavanti (talk) 13:09, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

It's probably for the best, in this instance. EddieHugh (talk) 19:03, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

But keep doing your thing... I'm in the camp of casting out things that I regard as pseudo-jazz, and do so when I have the chance. Looking at Billboard's 'jazz' chart doesn't aid my happiness in this regard, but I try to work on things that I'm interested in, hence solo piano albums for me at the moment. EddieHugh (talk) 21:29, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

Ah, yes. Billboard, Jazzweek, radio stations, record labels. All of them blur the lines between jazz and other genres. There are financial reasons for watering down jazz with smooth jazz, fusion, R&B, and the off-key caterwauling of television contestants. Like classical music, jazz has always appealed to a small percentage of the population. I want people to make money, but I don't respect calling an apple an orange. There are consequences of blurring the lines. One of them is arguments with IP editors.Vmavanti (talk) 17:14, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

Dates in Discogs

My assumption has been that albums are listed in order of release date in discographies. I doubt it's obvious to the common reader what the numbers in brackets mean. I guess either the release date or record date. Most people are interested in release date, because what they will use when they look up an album. Generally release dates are easier to find, though definitely not always. I put myself in the shoes of buyer.

I don't see any need for the record date for anyone but a small circle of record collectors who pay attention to such minutiae. That's fine for record collectors' catalogs, or a jazz encyclopedia, but not for Wikipedia, which is supposed to appeal to a broad audience. I'm always in favor of less detail, less irrelevant detail, less confusing detail. I often see too much detail. I often see confusing detail. I an see common readers asking these questions. What are these numbers? Who are these people listed next to albums? What rules are being followed here and are they being followed consistently? No, they are not. To me it's an obvious point to have guiding principles for the sake of consistency and therefore for clarity and order. Is anyone else active in Wikiproject jazz other than you and me? I wouldn't mind bringing in others to discuss these matters if they have something intelligent to offer and if they have demonstrated commitment. If it's just us, then we can't settle it.
–Vmavanti (talk) 01:39, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

There are quite a few people involved, but they tend to operate in the background. Dedicated jazz discographies for a musician are almost always organised by recording date. On usefulness: a) until recently, release dates weren't even mentioned/known; b) for an upcoming release, a buyer will want to know the exact date, but that loses relevance once it's available; c) release dates tell readers about the record labels, not about the musicians. For instance, I once got interested in the development of John Coltrane's tone. What I needed was recording dates, not release dates: his tone varied over time, not with when recordings were made public. The exception is record label discographies, which are typically arranged by catalogue number, but could be done by release date (there's also an assumption that the two are very similar). There's also the possibility from some German Wikipedia pages: in tables, have one column for recording dates and one for release dates; if sortable, either camp can then get the info it wants. I'm gradually changing discog lists into sortable tables (for the pianists), which will reduce the "1987 [2016]" thing that you mention. EddieHugh (talk) 17:34, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

I don't know if I told you, I have a subscription to Tom Lord's Discography, but I doubt I will kept it much longer. I was very disappointed at how amateurish it is. His discog is disorganized and incomplete. I'm flabbergasted, really, esp. considering the price and all the hoo-ha. There are no release dates, the very thing I wanted. Tom Lord told me by email what you told me, that discogs (published ones, for example) usually are more interested in recording dates. Scott Yanow's books don't include release dates. He uses labels and catalog numbers. I really feel that release dates are most important for most people reading Wikipedia. Part of the problem is the consolidation that took place in the 1980s and 1990s. There used to be so many labels. AudioQuest had a label. BASF had a label, and JVC, Denon. Then everyone merged.

Did I say release dates were easier to get? Ha. Hardly. I've spent several days trying to figure out John Abercrombie's discography. ECM has its discography online, but in the case of Abercrombie, not all of it. They consolidated some of his albums into groups and compilations, which doesn't help. I've become so annoyed with AllMusic and all their errors and inconsistencies that I've considered emailing them to ask: What's the deal, man? I'll help them, if they'll pay me and provide me with resources. The rest of it is simply data entry. I have no idea why so much of their info is wrong. I know a lot of people use Discogs.com as a source, and I've consulted it, but that site has mistakes and omissions, too. As I wrote you many months ago, I'm still in pursuit of reliable sources for release dates. Do you think anyone at the other Wikiprojects (Classical, rock) has any ideas about sources? I emailed a state library yesterday for ideas and did some Googling. I still think that the discographies online by individuals, such as the one in Japan, are not reliable enough and authoritative enough to trust as sources. I would like to find someone with professional experience, perhaps an archivist or historian who can give me some guidance. It's a more complicated subject than people think. That has been a real surprise to me. More than ever I think discogs should sourced for the very reasons I've suggested. The more complex the info, the more we need citations to reliable sources.

Got my first Barnstar. For disambiguating. I'm now in the Wikipedia Disambiguators Hall of Fame. Narky Blert let me win, I think, because he wants to encourage more people to shrink the backlog of links. They never stop coming. Whack a mole.
–Vmavanti (talk) 18:18, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Congratulations on the Hall of Fame appearance. I'll have to look into getting into one... Maybe the system should throw out an immediate warning if a disambig page is being linked to, instead of a talk page message the next day. Fewer moles that way.

Among the many books I possess but have yet to read is More Important Than the Music: A History of Jazz Discography. Discographers take their task very seriously, but are self-taught and tend to work solo. (Near the beginning, it comments on Lord having copied his early versions from the work of others.) You mentioned that you were thinking of subscribing to Lord; it's a shame that it's not much good, as that's the main one mentioned in various places. And AllMusic... they can't have many employees; they say that it can take months for an error to be corrected (a musician on here asked them to change his dob; this was so long ago that I can't remember the person's name). Do you mean discogs.com or http://www.jazzdiscography.com ? The latter has Michael Fitzgerald, who can be contacted; there's also Walter Bruyninckx's publications, which I haven't seen. I've looked in Sourcebook for Research in Music, but that has the usual suspects, plus some old publications. I don't know people on here who do discographies, unfortunately. You could try a uni with a jazz specialism and library if the state one can't help. The narrower the publication, the more accurate it's likely to be – fine if the person you're interested in has had a proper discography produced by someone, but it's patchwork for everything else. In theory, this should improve, as record labels move more to an online presence, but that'll be only for new/recent releases in most cases.

On practical matters, what Abercrombie info do you need? I can look around. EddieHugh (talk) 20:21, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Who is Leonard?

Hi, Eddie. I was reading the Miles Davis article when I came to, "He wrote that in 1954, Leonard 'was the most important thing in my life besides music' and even took on his 'arrogant attitude'." Who's Leonard?. Second, do you have any opinion about assessments, grades, reviewing articles? Do these serve a purpose? Do you pay attention to them? Should I work on C articles and try to make them B articles? Does it matter?Vmavanti (talk) 17:17, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

Hello there. I have that book, but not that exact edition, so the page numbers are different (or the person who added the info got the numbers wrong). It should be [Sugar Ray] Robinson, not Leonard, so I've changed it. A while ago I worked on getting all the top and high priority articles to at least start class. I do monitor overall progress in the jazz project. Really, it's GA and FA that matter (C to B might be just a matter of rating opinion), but I suppose that improving the major articles (based on importance) should be prioritised. I'd like to have everything rated and sometimes go on rating bouts, but then go back to trying to get something to GA, which for me does matter. EddieHugh (talk) 23:17, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

In your experience, what are the biggest obstacles to getting an article into the Mount Olympus of GA and FA? Why is it so difficult? Is it something I can help with or something I should work on? I've read many unimpressive GA and FA articles, so the designation per se doesn't mean much to me unless there is some other advantage.
Vmavanti (talk) 15:36, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

For importance, you could use the popular pages list, even if you disagree which articles are most important. There's something to be said for fine tuning articles that people are looking at the most.
Vmavanti (talk) 19:16, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

FA is difficult (usually), but GA isn't (but it's time-consuming if doing it properly, especially if starting with an article that is very limited). Most people do other things instead, so they don't get done. It's a measurable show of progress on an article and in a project & it's about overall quality, which is what matters to me. I suppose that's a variant of the fine tuning that you mention. EddieHugh (talk) 10:03, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

Great Quintet

What do you think about the use of Great Quintet, Second Great Quintet, and similar names for Miles Davis's groups? I know they are used among jazz fans, but what about writers of encyclopedia articles? The options I see are: use them, use them with quotation marks, use them without quotation marks, or don't use them. I'm unsure about capitalization, too, but you get the point. I'm leaning toward deletion. New Grove doesn't use them. On Wikipedia quotation marks are used excessively and often incorrectly. That's almost reason enough for me to avoid them. The old editor's litmus test is: If you remove it, do you lose anything? I try that in many contexts. Quotation marks are often used for sarcasm. Even when that's not the intent, they diminish the weight of the words, which perhaps is the intent in the Davis article, i.e. a lack of confidence in their use. If so, why not delete "great quintet" altogether?
Vmavanti (talk) 15:33, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

I've no objection, provided the term is properly introduced, although writing an MD article without using the term(s) wouldn't be a challenge either. The people at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters will definitely have an authoritative position on GQ or gq. I wouldn't use quotation marks – I haven't seen them used for those terms and agree with the problems that you point out. EddieHugh (talk) 10:12, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

I prefer avoiding describing his bands as first great quintet, second great quintet, regardless of format, because doing so suggests an opinion. Every use of the term great quintet would need a citation. It's easier to talk about his bands without assigning them a rank. Of course, I'll change it, then someone will object to it being changed.
Vmavanti (talk) 17:17, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

A quick mention that critics/fans sometimes use those labels could work as a compromise – that would ensure that the labels are mentioned, but not used as descriptors in the article. EddieHugh (talk) 23:28, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Saint Louis Blues

You don't have to comment, but it might interest you. See Talk:Saint Louis Blues (song)
Vmavanti (talk) 17:14, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Ah, the nearly but not quite random lists problem. I was almost tempted into working properly on 'Round Midnight (song), then someone added huge tables of material, all sourced, and all of which would have to be cut, so I left the article as it was. In my view, if a list is worth having, it should be in a separate, list, article. That leads to things such as List of cover versions of Michael Jackson songs, which is a good example of why such lists shouldn't be created... EddieHugh (talk) 23:23, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

No, it isn't random, but irrelevant and useless items do accrue as the list turns into a trivia contest for the local barflies. I've been struggling with how to improve these types of articles. I've tried making tables for the long lists, creating a column titled "Source" to encourage people to source their additions, but I was lambasted because "it looked better the old way; it doesn't look as good with a table." Once I tried blanking the whole list, but I was upbraided by an admin. One time I tried deleting only the unsourced items, but I was severely beaten about the face and neck for "picking and choosing" and "using my own judgment." I was told once that sources did exist at the bottom of the page, in rough form, instead of in-line citations, and that that was just as good because in-line citations were unnecessary in this situation. A couple weeks ago I added entries from a book by Ted Gioia as an example of how these lists could work. The list was less than ten items, from a serious, reliable, useful source. I still think that was a good way to improve the page. I'm the kind of person who likes to see progress. On Wikipedia it's often difficult to make progress or to see where and how it might be made.
Vmavanti (talk) 17:56, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

It's frustrating. I've had another search and found, at Wikiproject Songs, WP:SONGCOVER: "Only cover versions/renditions important enough to have gained attention in their own right should be added to song articles. Album track listings, listings in discographies, etc., do not show that versions by other artists are noteworthy. Cover songs with only these types of sources should not be added to song articles, either as prose or in a list." Whether or not other editors will adhere to that project's ideas is another matter though! It sets the bar high, which I like, and it should be possible to get back-up from the project members if anyone objects when the principle is implemented. I like it: cut almost or literally everything from a list and throw in "WP:SONGCOVER" as the edit summary. EddieHugh (talk) 21:10, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Billie Davies

The article about Billie Davies has been written by someone with the user name Mike a davies. Is this significant? The user's contributions are only on Billie Davies. When you click the user name, you get a version of the article.
Vmavanti (talk) 00:04, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

That editor has uploaded family photos, so I'd guess it's a family member. The user page shouldn't be a mirror of a real article – this is covered at WP:FAKEARTICLE. The usual alert about declaring close connections looks to be in order. I'll leave it to you, if that's ok. EddieHugh (talk) 14:10, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Show/hide

Throughout Wikipedia there are many show/hide boxes at the bottom of the screen. Take Capitol Records, with the Vivendi box. Is there a default position for these? If so, what do I type to show or hide? I would rather have them hidden to spend less time scrolling, but I don't know what the rule is, if any. Thanks for your help.
Vmavanti (talk) 17:48, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

I prefer hidden too. I'm not sure, but I think the setting is in the original template, which can be found at Template:template name (e.g. Template:Horace Silver). I know that @Philip Cross: has been working on jazz templates recently, so maybe he could give a definitive answer... EddieHugh (talk) 21:48, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Nothing heard, so I looked. Going to the template's page and making sure state = autocollapse should do it. EddieHugh (talk) 14:57, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

Vmavanti... I've found the info... actually, state = collapsed is preferable. The options are:

• |state=collapsed: {{Bix Beiderbecke|state=collapsed}} to show the template collapsed, i.e., hidden apart from its title bar
• |state=expanded: {{Bix Beiderbecke|state=expanded}} to show the template expanded, i.e., fully visible
• |state=autocollapse: {{Bix Beiderbecke|state=autocollapse}} shows the template collapsed to the title bar if there is a {{navbar}}, a {{sidebar}}, or some other table on the page with the collapsible attribute; shows the template in its expanded state if there are no other collapsible items on the page EddieHugh (talk) 22:03, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. That's interesting because I rarely see these templates collapsed.
Vmavanti (talk) 22:26, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

External links indication on Cleanup Page

The Wikiproject Jazz Cleanup listing gives a long list of articles, over 600, under the heading "Dead external links". I've been going through them, but not all of them have dead external links.
Vmavanti (talk) 17:56, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for continuing your cleanup work. The first one I clicked on had no external links at all, but a few dead links in the refs. Does "external links" include references in cleanup? EddieHugh (talk) 21:52, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

I've wondered about that myself. It seems to, but it's not supposed to, right? If we're using the terminology correctly, a reference isn't an external link.
Vmavanti (talk) 17:14, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

In theory... you'd have to ask whoever wrote/maintains the code that generates the list. EddieHugh (talk) 19:23, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

This might help
Vmavanti (talk) 00:24, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Separated by a common language. EddieHugh (talk) 09:50, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Arlen Roth

Have we talked about Arlen Roth before? I thought so. I added a COI template and mentioned the problem on the Talk Page. The edit history reveals a redlinked "arlenroth" has been editing this article since November 2011. He's been using the article as a résumé, as promotion and advertising, as a memorial for his dead wife and daughter, and as a way to suggest there was a controversy about their deaths. I find it hard to believe that after all these years this guy doesn't know that he's violating the rules. Is there anything else that needs to be done?
Vmavanti (talk) 17:13, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

Last year. He's been reverted enough times to know about RS etc, but his history is a long list of inserting unsourced material about himself (assuming that he is AR). As with our saxophonist experience, bringing in an admin is the ultimate step. EddieHugh (talk) 19:22, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

You're Welcome

Thanks for your note of appreciation - it is welcome as there are a few here that are experts at criticism or just mark my album creations as not notable and get them deleted. Also thanks for your support on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Don't Know Why (album) - we will find other sources for that one eventually DISEman (talk) 01:19, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Deleting crossover jazz

What do you think about nominating Crossover Jazz for deletion? A couple brief comments are here.
Vmavanti (talk) 17:45, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

I replied on that talk page, to keep things together. EddieHugh (talk) 18:53, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Louis Armstrong archived link about editing

I'm puzzled by what to do about this unusual link in the Louis Armstrong article. It's under the Early life section where there is a long quote about the family he was working for. The citation is for a book, but the archived link leads to an article about paid editing.
Vmavanti (talk) 01:06, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm not sure if googlebooks pages can be archived successfully. I'd change the stated source to the book version or just the unarchived version. EddieHugh (talk) 09:41, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Twogether (John Hicks and Frank Morgan album)

Concerning your recent edits at Twogether (John Hicks and Frank Morgan album), for what reason do you say that AllMusic cannot be trusted with release dates? This is a statement on AllMusic's competence that requires some evidence. And you accused them of an error incorrectly. They clearly say that the album was released in 2010, though their info on recording dates of 2006-07 is a little off.[1] That album was made available to the public by retail sites in 2010: see iTunes [2], Amazon [3], and the HighNote Records website [4]. So therefore AllMusic can be considered correct. HighNote and Amazon both also state that the album is live, with some sections being a "recital" by Hicks which is still probably outside of a studio. Your recent edits to that article are based on what you claim to be uncertainty, though all looks quite certain to me and other recent editors. Please explain. ---DOOMSDAYER520 (Talk|Contribs) 15:03, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

There are countless examples of AllMusic claiming that an album was released on the day that it was recorded, which is absurd. I don't know if they are correct on this one, but I and others (you can see examples on my talk page) do know that they can't be trusted on much apart from the actual reviews. itunes and amazon shouldn't be used either. All About Jazz is ok, but that review doesn't give a year of release (taking the year of review to be the year of release is an assumption). If it was outside a studio but not a concert performance, then my understanding is that using "other" is correct for the infobox. I'm not claiming that it wasn't released in 2010 or that the whole thing wasn't recorded in studios, but I am saying that reliable sources for both of those are required and that such sources haven't yet been supplied. EddieHugh (talk) 16:38, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

I don't get it. AllMusic is NOT saying that the album was released when it was recorded. At the lower-left of their page they say it was released in 2010 which corresponds with the retail sites and the record company's site. I did notice that there is some disagreement on when exactly the album was recorded: various sources claim multiple concerts anywhere from 2005 to 2007, but that is a different problem. You are claiming that the release date is unconfirmed because several different services that are in agreement on this one cannot be trusted because they have been wrong elsewhere. That does not prove that they are wrong on this one by association, while you seem to have missed that the recording dates are the ones that are actually uncertain. ---DOOMSDAYER520 (Talk|Contribs) 17:39, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

The source given for the recording dates is the liner notes: not guaranteed to be correct, but a very strong source. Hicks died in 2006, so anything suggesting 2007 can be ignored. WP:ALBUMAVOID states "Online retailers such as iTunes and Amazon.com should also be avoided [as sources]". It also goes on to recommend AllMusic, which is unfortunate, although it notes a problem with AllMusic's genre categories. I use AllMusic as a last resort if I can't find anything more reliable: the fact that it's so often wrong on dates seriously undermines faith. That's my view, based on my experience. However, I don't mind if you put in "AllMusic stated that the album was released in 2010" or something like that. I just prefer to leave dates blank if AM is the only available source. EddieHugh (talk) 18:23, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

Just to clarify, I do know that retail sites have been deemed unreliable when used in isolation and I intended to mention them in this discussion simply to corroborate the "2010" seen at AllMusic. It is my fault for not writing that very well. But back in my first comment I provided a link to the record company's own website that also says the album was released in 2010. In this discussion we have not seen any reason to disbelieve THAT. Regardless, after conversations with you and others I acknowledge your expertise and experience with unreliable info on jazz releases. I just do not see the logic in disbelieving a collective of sources all saying that this album is from 2010, even though each has individual weaknesses. Regards. ---DOOMSDAYER520 (Talk|Contribs) 02:29, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

I'd go along with what the record label states, but that link is actually to All About Jazz. They usually give a release year, which I'm fine with using, but that particular review was originally on another site, so doesn't follow AAJ's standard presentation and doesn't provide a release date (the "April 27, 2010" is positioned where the date of publication is normally put; the original has "April 26, 2010" as its publication date). HighNote is at jazzdepot.com, where the album's page (no specific url available) doesn't give any dates. I agree with your triangulation idea of looking at other sources even if they can't be cited as sources – I do it a lot, as it's often necessary in the jazz world. EddieHugh (talk) 11:04, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

An example for my own record, if needed: AllMusic stating that an album was released before it had been recorded. EddieHugh (talk) 19:45, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Linking and piping labels

I went through a discography, not a long one, and linked and piped the labels on first occurrence. My changes were reverted by someone who has been an editor for thirteen years, who is a member of Wikiproject Christianity, and whose first language, I think, isn't English. His argument was that there was nothing about label format in the MOS, so he had no reason to listen to me. I've forgotten where the rule or suggestion was regarding labels, so I volunteered Wikiproject Music or Wikiproject Jazz. That wasn't good enough for him. So then I tried reason. "Even if there is no rule," I said, "Doesn't it make sense to be consistent with the rest of Wikipedia?" I got no answer. I asked, "Why link the same label over and over again on the same page? Why repeat the word "Records" over and over again on the same page? What's the point?" Again he avoided my questions. I asked him what his reasons were doing it his way and not the more common, customary way. He had no answer again except to get annoyed. So I didn't know what to do. Consensus, I thought, means we try to reason with each other. He didn't want to. I've never had much confidence in Reason, but I did try.
Vmavanti (talk) 17:12, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

OK, the MOS here lets people chose between (Columbia, 1989) and (1989, Columbia) but says nothing about piping.
Vmavanti (talk) 17:16, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

It's difficult if people don't engage, or insist that something must be stated explicitly in an official policy or guideline. The widely accepted norms for discographies are: if it's in a sortable table, link every occurrence; if not, link the first instance only. Don't use "Records", "Inc.", "Ltd." etc regardless. One recourse is to look at featured articles (change: featured lists would be better, although perhaps all of them will be in tables); hopefully they all conform to these norms and therefore can be used as a reference point. EddieHugh (talk) 20:11, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

album chronology

Hi

I guess an album chronology should be created according to dates of album release rahter than recording. I remember I saw it in MOS.

Cheerz! Lamro (talk) 08:41, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Hello. Not in the jazz world, which uses recording dates in discographies. There's a lot of circularity in the advice: pointing editors to another page for further information, which points back to the first page for further information! There was a proposal at Wikipedia:WikiProject Discographies/style, but that's been abandoned. Template:Infobox album#Chronology exists, but that's just documentation for a template. MOS:DISCOGRAPHY doesn't state what year should be used. It does say: "For artists without separate discography pages, relevant discographical information, such as record labels, date(s) of release, chart positions, and sales certifications, may be included in the discography section." I note the "may", although how it's applied varies. The most important bit is last: "The exact format chosen will depend on the discography and the amount of verifiable information available, which may vary greatly between musical acts. In all cases, the format should follow from what's best for the article, and not vice versa." In the non-Wikipedia world, you'll struggle to find a serious jazz discography that's based on release dates. Usually, they're not even mentioned (in part because they're often not known). That's a strong justification for using recording dates for jazz (in both discographies and infoboxes, to be consistent). EddieHugh (talk) 09:39, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

As you know, I favor release dates and will continue using them. The search for better sources is endless.
Vmavanti (talk) 23:10, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

Ray Charles: The long and short of it

The short: Ray Charles wasn't a jazz pianist, so he shouldn't be classified that way. The long: Notability speaks to a defining characteristic. Often I see poorly written ledes where someone feels it necessary to write "is known for his time with Weather Report" or some such thing. Such comments end up being subjective opinion, a debatable point, the taking of sides, which encyclopedias aren't supposed to do. What they should have said was "was a jazz fusion bassist" and left it at that. Jaco Pastorius had such a large life and personality that's he known for all kinds of things. Regarding Ray Charles, I read the paragraph that said he recorded two jazz albums, but the bulk of his work isn't jazz. It's rhythm and blues the way it used to be defined, i.e. correctly. If you saw the movie The Blues Brothers or listened to their music, that's rhythm and blues, not blues. They did play some blues, but most of their songs were peppy and upbeat, two adjectives no one associates with blues. They play songs by Aretha Franklin, Elvis, Sam and Dave, and Wilson Pickett. John Lee Hooker has a cameo but the soundtrack is not John Lee Hooker music. You might have noticed the Blues Brothers had a big band led by Cab Calloway. How many blues big bands are there? None. As you know, Calloway's music used to be called jump blues. Joe Jackson did a cover of Louis Jordan's jump blues songs, but Joe Jackson doesn't get called a jazz or blues musician. He also did a tribute to Ellington and a couple classical albums. But again, those are seen as exceptions. How can one separate Brian Setzer from The Stray Cats? Ray Charles sings a song in that movie, too. But no one has ever called it a jazz soundtrack. So I don't consider him a jazz pianist any more than I consider Chaka Khan a jazz singer because of one album. I don't think of Linda Ronstadt as a jazz singer because of two albums, though I know she is one of those rare talents capable of singing almost any kind of music. You probably dislike hearing this kind of thing, but these points seem obvious to me.Vmavanti (talk) 23:08, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

I don't mind at all. There was a radio programme a while ago: Ray Charles, jazz musician. Almost all of the music played was his R&B, with a bit of chat about how he'd been influenced by, and influenced, jazz musicians. I'm edging closer to your hardline position. Thought: if '(genre) musician' is defined as 'musician who plays/has played (genre)', then it's easy to claim that RC was a jazz musician. If '(genre) musician' is defined as 'musician primarily known for playing (genre)' then it's difficult. "Primarily known for" is used for Instrument at Template:Infobox musical artist, which adds "The instruments infobox parameter is not intended as a WP:COATRACK for every instrument the subject has ever used." It's tempting to propose the same thing for Genre. EddieHugh (talk) 11:30, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

I was surprised to find Ray Charles in the New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, volume one, page 421: In 1945 he left school and went to Seattle where he formed jazz trios influenced by Charles Brown (blues, R&B), Louis Jordan (jump blues, R&B), and Nat King Cole (jazz). Around this time he changed his name. The next sentence jumps to 1954 when he formed a band that had rhythm and blues hits such as "I've Got a Woman". The next sentence after that says he was "heavily influenced by gospel music" and 1958 had "established himself as a rock and roll preacher, smooth, sophisticated jazz and popular singer, a big band leader, and a swing pianist." So a lot to deal with there.
Vmavanti (talk) 22:50, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Template:United Kingdom in the European Union

This message is being sent to let you know of a discussion at the dispute resolution noticeboard regarding redirects. Content disputes can hold up article development and make editing difficult for editors. You are not required to participate, but you are both invited and encouraged to help this dispute come to a resolution. The thread is "Template talk:United Kingdom in the European Union#Redirects". Please join us to help form a consensus. Thank you! --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 19:59, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

"Please join us to help form a consensus." That's ironic: we were close to reaching a consensus! Just replying on the talk page would have been fine. EddieHugh (talk) 22:19, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Scientists for EU and Healthier IN the EU shouldn't both be in the People's Vote template – I'll leave you to make that change. - or else what? This diff is a country mile away from a consensus. --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 00:32, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Or else nothing! The edit summary was "proposal". You could simply have replied to the proposal, or done nothing, given that my proposal amounted to 'wait and see what happens'. EddieHugh (talk) 09:41, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

I propose that Britain for Europe be removed from the template and that we adopt a wait and see approach to what else gets added to the template. Removing Britain for Europe is an action it is not waiting to see. 'Wait and see' regarding additions is, in any case, vague - what are we watching out for and how long are additions to be left parked at the kerb? Also the People's Vote template is a separate template and it has its own talk page. All you are really demonstrating is the need for dispute resolution but you haven't posted anything at the discussion so no volunteer has picked it up. --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 22:04, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

My reading of the big red warning ("Please do not continue to discuss disputes before a volunteer has opened a thread") that appears upon clicking "edit" at dispute resolution is that no one should respond to the initial posting until a volunteer has picked it up. I mentioned on the relevant talk page that this edict was unclear, but there's been no response. Yes, "I propose that Britain for Europe be removed from the template and that we adopt a wait and see approach to what else gets added to the template" contains 2 proposals, which can be considered separately. The first is uncontroversial, I believe, as it is in accordance with the WP:SELFRED guideline, but I don't know how you feel about it, because you haven't responded to the proposal, so I haven't done it. What are we watching out for? As I stated in the following sentence: "If more redirects appear, we can revisit the matter." How long are additions to be left parked at the kerb? I wasn't aware of additions waiting; are there any? There's really not much of a dispute here: I've proposed a guideline-based action and a compromise. I thought we were a step away (you responding to the 2 proposals) from agreeing. EddieHugh (talk) 22:34, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

I think DRN have a bit of a backlog at the moment I plan to give them a week or so, I've given them a nudge and I don't plan to edit the template and I don't think it would be appropriate for me to comment any further on this in the meantime. --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 15:57, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

This message is being sent to let you know of a discussion at the dispute resolution noticeboard regarding a content dispute discussion you may have participated in. Content disputes can hold up article development and make editing difficult for editors. You are not required to participate, but you are both invited and encouraged to help this dispute come to a resolution. Please join us to help form a consensus. Thank you!

• NB: Closing editor on the previous DRN for this advises that it was closed because there was No response from other editor. I have confirmed with him that I should refile and renotify see: this thread. --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 23:15, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

I've responded at the noticeboard. EddieHugh (talk) 14:32, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

Glenn Miller band members

The Glenn Miller article has a long, detailed section about musicians who played in the Miller band—and what they did after the Miller band. Do you think this section belongs there? I don't. It's an article about Glenn Miller, not the lives of his band members. It reminds me of those dumb movies where the end credits give the fictional characters imaginary afterlives, described in suitably pithy but whacky annotations (He became a lawyer! He sells insurance! Really? Wow! So funny!). Possibilities: 1) delete material, 2) trim, 3) move into other parts of the article, 4) move to articles about those musicians. Other?
Vmavanti (talk) 18:56, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Agreed. Something like a Legacy section would be ok, stating that many musicians got their start with him or it helped their careers. There's Glenn Miller Orchestra as a separate article that can be linked to for readers to get more information about members (although details of future activities don't really belong there either). Trying to incorporate the material (especially the refs) into the articles on each of the musicians would be optimal, as some of them are lacking in sources. EddieHugh (talk) 20:52, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Defining jazz fusion

I re-read the fusion chapter in Ted Gioia's book The History of Jazz and found much to agree with. The current Wikipedia article gets it wrong, I think, and as is often the case, expands beyond definition, both accurate definition and useful definition. Readers of encyclopedias want both. As I've tried to tell Chubbles, readers don't want infinite expansion and inclusion. Consequently, yes, although jazz has fused, absorbed, assimilated, fed on, stolen all kinds of music, fusion was essentially a phenomenon that began in the 1960s when rock music started to dominate. And so, as many critics have said, Miles Davis was probably the father of fusion when he brought elements of rock into jazz. The article should stick to that point: fusion means jazz and rock, not jazz and everything else.

Gioia follows a thread from Bitches Brew (1970), to Teo Macero's "borrowing" previously record snippets of music before rappers were doing it, moving on to former bandmates of Davis who were dabbling and defining fusion in the 1970s. Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea (Return to Forever), George Benson (played on a Davis album), and John McLaughlin (Mahavishnu Orchestra). Gioia then discusses (these threads are easy to follow) Weather Report, Pat Metheny, Jaco Pastorius (member of Weather Report and played on Metheny's first album), Brecker Brothers, Steely Dan (often employed the Breckers), Frank Zappa (who integrated jazz elements into his late 60s and early 70s albums before leaving them behind for "Don't Drink that Yellow Snow"). Gioia does touch on acid jazz, US3, A Tribe Called Quest, MBase, and Steve Coleman, but more time is spent on Medeski, Martin & Wood, Creed Taylor, and the rise of smooth jazz, ending with how long Kenny G can hold an E flat. By that time he has concluded, "In truth, the jazz element in this music is modest by any measure." He mentions rap slightly but not nu jazz or jazzcore or some of the other tangents that the current WP article gets lost in which I would like to see deleted. I would like to know your opinion about where the boundaries are for the jazz fusion article and whether you agree with the essential definition of jazz fusion as the mingling of jazz and rock.
Vmavanti (talk) 23:39, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

I see that there's plenty on the talk page, especially from 2011, about this. The problem perhaps began when the use of the term 'fusion' in its original form (a blend of jazz and rock) became 'fusion' (a blend of jazz and just about any other form of music). Remember that we're trapped in Wikiland, where we're required to report what sources say (damn them). If Gioia and others discuss lots of things as belonging to category X ('jazz', 'fusion', whatever), then they should be incorporated into the article on X. The "In truth, the jazz element in this music is modest by any measure" line is telling, though: I read it as meaning that, although these things have been called X by some, there's very little left of the original characteristics. As I've mentioned before, my preferred way out of this sort of mess is to cover what is uncontroversially X, then add just a short section/paragraph on the rest. It all needs to be sourced and can end up being properly reflective of the WP:BALANCE of what the sources assert (that some people/blends/fusions are definitely 'fusion', some are considered 'fusion' because early usages of the term have been stretched, and some are generally not considered 'fusion' – even though they're sometimes labelled as that – because they stretch the use of the term too far). EddieHugh (talk) 11:08, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

As usual, you make good points. I'm trying to understand how Balance gets into this. I would like to see a stronger emphasis on jazz and rock with an Other section at the end in which people can toss their cherished ephemera. To me that is balance. In most or all cases no definition is given for these hybrid forms beyond "it's a mix of..." which takes no brains at all to accomplish. The section headed "Acid jazz, nu jazz and jazz rap" is unsourced except for a link I fixed a few days ago in which one critic at AllMusic calls one person a prophet of acid jazz, and I'm not even sure what he meant by that. Could that section be deleted? I have doubts about the first sentence of the article.
Vmavanti (talk) 22:41, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

Policy is that everything should be sourced. Balance is reflecting weight (the extent of coverage) in sources. If "Acid jazz, nu jazz and jazz rap" are covered a bit in sources, then they should be in the article too. If they're not, then they can go. If they're described as peripheral, then throwing them in an Other section would be fine, as would getting rid of them and just linking to their main articles in See also. EddieHugh (talk) 11:36, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

Do you consider this a reliable source? [5]
Vmavanti (talk) 23:14, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

He includes a list of sources that would be reliable. Self-published sites can be reliable if the person's considered to be an authoritative figure (I've used dothemath/ ethaniverson.com). Is Al Garcia? Probably not. EddieHugh (talk) 09:29, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Opposition to Brexit in the United Kingdom, August 2018

Thanks for sorting out this page, it is much improved. Sorry for all the dud references. T0mpr1c3 (talk) 19:17, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the thanks. I occasionally hack at articles that have become overgrown because of piecemeal additions. This sometimes brings out a protectionist or two, which is fine, unless they object but aren't prepared to do anything to improve the article. So far, the process has been more collaborative on this one, which is nice. Please comment on the structure (talk page discussion) if you have time. EddieHugh (talk) 19:31, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

I just saw that discussion. The structure is better already, but I will have another look. T0mpr1c3 (talk) 22:09, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

Important Notice

This is a standard message to notify contributors about an administrative ruling in effect. It does not imply that there are any issues with your contributions to date.

You have recently shown interest in living or recently deceased people, and edits relating to the subject (living or recently deceased) of such biographical articles. Due to past disruption in this topic area, a more stringent set of rules called discretionary sanctions is in effect: any administrator may impose sanctions on editors who do not strictly follow Wikipedia's policies, or any page-specific restrictions, when making edits related to the topic.

For additional information, please see the guidance on discretionary sanctions and the Arbitration Committee's decision here. If you have any questions, or any doubts regarding what edits are appropriate, you are welcome to discuss them with me or any other editor.

TonyBallioni (talk) 22:34, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Er, could you narrow that down for me? I've worked on several hundred biographies... EddieHugh (talk) 22:36, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

This is just a general alert letting you know that the discretionary sanctions system exists on all biographies of living persons. The reason you received this is because you've recently been editing the Corbyn article, which I have placed under WP:1RR in my capacity as an uninvolved administrator. This message just alerts users that administrators may take special measures to control disruption on BLPs (like Corbyn) and to be more careful when editing there. TonyBallioni (talk) 22:44, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. I thought 1RR was already in place on the Corbyn article. Editing there has been largely good-natured to date (in comparison with some articles). EddieHugh (talk) 23:04, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

What's the story on these articles that need coordinates? I don't know anything about that subject. Does this need to be done?
Vmavanti (talk) 19:31, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

I don't know what it is. Can you show an example? EddieHugh (talk) 16:40, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

On the Cleanup Listing, scroll down to Content>Coordinates needed.
Vmavanti (talk) 22:45, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

ok... I still don't know, but my guess based on the articles listed is that it's literally geographic coordinates, which would be in an infobox. EddieHugh (talk) 23:29, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

yes, it's based on "Template:Coord missing". EddieHugh (talk) 23:30, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

I see coordinates sometimes but not in the infobox. Above it, usually the upper right corner, as at Royal Observatory, Greenwich, though I've seen them stuck all over the place, too. Now all I have to do is find an article about how to find coordinates.
Vmavanti (talk) 23:51, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

Ebersson/Zanussi/Lofthus

Do you have any interest in this?
Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Ebersson/Zanussi/Lofthus?

Vmavanti (talk) 17:55, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

I occasionally go to AfD. I don't know about that one. On your points: sources don't need to be in English. I've recently concluded, though, that Wikipedia's biggest problem (from a reader's perspective) is sourcing: if people can check the sourcing, then trust will go up. As it's online, being able to check online sources is ideal and yes, their being in English on the English Wikipedia is also preferable. I've also seen a proposal that oral history should be counted as a reliable source from certain cultures, so perspectives on the accessibility of sources vary a lot. EddieHugh (talk) 18:35, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

You understand that in certain cases on the Cleanup Listing it's impossible for me to make progress if I can't read the citations. I know that citations don't have to be in English, but I recall reading in the documentation where English is preferred. I will have to find those sections and look at this subject again in addition to the subject of citations and their purpose. It seems quite absurd to me to have citations in foreign languages. I know that foreign external links are sometimes tolerated, but citations? I agree with your point that good sourcing might raise trust and credibility. To me it is self-evident that crappy articles (crappy in a number of ways) have only negative consequences. But cleaning up them up, as you know, often leads to roadblocks. Whack-a-mole comes to mind.
Vmavanti (talk) 19:00, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Art Tatum article

I notice you have made a lot of changes to the Art Tatum article, and corrected some vandalism as well, for example, the states in which Tatum's parents were born. In looking through the current article, I notice a lot of text has been changed or deleted from the article as it was on May 15, 2015. You might want to look at that earlier version and consider whether all of the deletions were appropriate or encyclopedic or beneficial. For example, somebody changed the sentence that referred to Tatum having perfect pitch. They probably thought it was hyberbolic. But "perfect pitch" is not hyberbolic. It is a technical description of a musician's ability to identify musical frequencies without using a reference point. Keep up the good work. 2601:903:180:454:7851:1974:F77F:6726 (talk) 23:01, 4 October 2018 (UTC)kolef2601:903:180:454:7851:1974:F77F:6726 (talk) 23:01, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

OK. I'll look over it again. I would not have deleted sourced material. Unsourced, yes.
Vmavanti (talk) 23:23, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

I see that you've made a lot of changes. It's difficult to go back through all of mine unless you have a specific question. I don't recall the part about perfect pitch. Maybe I was thinking about vocalists. If it was unsourced I could have deleted it. Looking at my edit summaries, I commented on the poor sourcing. It looks like I was becoming impatient. I deleted sources that could not be used, such as Amazon and Answers.com. When I changed citations, it was to improve them, though you may not like the style. For me the easiest way to enter a citation is with the pop-up template. That's what I tell rookies and IP editors. I use syntax highlighting to make everything easier to read. I do have a bias against block quotations and long quotations, though I'm usually reluctant to change them. Paraphrasing is difficult and time consuming, but it's better than quotations. People use block quotations as pov cheerleading to say how great someone is, which I find unencyclopedic and against the rules and purposes of Wikipedia. Long quotations often include irrelevant and unnecessary material, and they take up too much space. I prefer writers get to the point right away without digression. For the same reasons that I applied to quotations, I'm wary of saying someone or something is the best, even if it's sourced. I don't think it's Wikipedia's place to tell people who or what is good and bad. They need to make up their own minds. I try to stick to the facts. I dislike articles that include sourced quotations in the lede to say how great someone is. That sounds like advertising, promotion, and journalism rather than an encyclopedia. You can find published enconiums about anyone or anything. Every Wikipedia article could lead with praise, if only as the result of notability. When trimming text, I have a habit of deleting fillers like "very" and all the clichés and abuses of music critics, such as (without quotation marks): stint, tenure, subsequently, relocated, fellow, stablemates, alumni, and others, among others, recruit, teamed up with, together with, as well as, quickly, immediately, soon, went on to, the likes of, and launched. I have reasons for deleting all this fluff which I am always ready to give. I don't do it arbitrarily.
Vmavanti (talk) 00:06, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Vm: I think what you did was fine. I agree on the long quotes. I changed the ref style because I'd got round to reading the book-length biography and wanted to use the sfn system for different page numbers from the same source. I haven't reached 1940 yet, so there's still a long way to go with just adding/checking/correcting the biographical info; I don't know if I'll take on the "he was great" sections – there's possibly more of that readily available than about his life. That's a good list of words to watch! I use some of them, especially the time markers...

2601: At some point, I'll look at the May 15, 2015 and see how it compares. Perfect pitch... I probably removed that, as the source I saw didn't specifically use the term (although supposedly being able to hear which brand of beer can was dropped on the floor, and various other feats, points in that direction), and it does have a specific meaning, as you mentioned. There's probably a good source that mentions it explicitly. Finally, most of the jazz things I work on are not followed by anyone (Vmavanti being an exception), so I often do what I want with adding and removing material, with an eye to a final/much later version being better and with my thinking being that how the article looks while it's happening is not very important. So thanks for the comments and please add more if anything comes up. EddieHugh (talk) 10:43, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

So, after checking, the sentence that I edited was: "A child with perfect pitch, Tatum learned to play by ear, picking out church hymns by the age of three, learning tunes from the radio and copying piano roll recordings his mother owned." There was no source given for this sentence and the one for the following sentence (Lester, p44) doesn't mention pitch. (This is one very good reason why I favour giving a source for every sentence, but that's another matter.) The only Lester mention of "perfect pitch" is when he quotes Tiny Grimes on p148. I'll work in some version of it later. EddieHugh (talk) 10:57, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

On a related point, what do you think about the citation style in the article Third stream? I've never used that method, so I would have to read the documentation to learn it. I would rather change it to my usual style, but I know that's considered bad form on Wikipedia without running it by someone. So I'm running it by you. There aren't many inline citations, so changing it would be easier and faster.
Vmavanti (talk) 17:43, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

I think the idea's to bring up changing the type on the article's talk page. Frankly, although it's not policy, if you're going to improve the article, it's not good at the moment, no one's done much on it for a while and there's a small number of sources anyway, then you're justified in using the style of your choosing. In the unlikely event of someone screaming in protest, you can adjust as required. And the style's not 100% consistent on that page now anyway. EddieHugh (talk) 19:37, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

EddieHugh, regarding your deletion of the Esquire Jazz Poll info as "name dropping", apparently it was not an insignificant poll (being decided by a panel of jazz musicians, rather than the reading public) and concert at the time, but later was co-opted by Eddie Condon. See here: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esquire_Jazz_Award ~~Kolef~~

By the way, I do not aspire to become proficient in Wikipedia editing and citation style, but fully appreciate those who take the time and effort to master it! But I do believe it is part of the special DNA of Wikipedia that its contributors include style experts like yourself and neophytes like me.

Regarding the "he was great" sections, the praise directed at Tatum was of a different order of magnitude than ordinary fanboys spewing hyperbolic opinions on the internet. The referenced accolades for Tatum were made by masters -- by world-famous artists at the peak of their profession. It would be like Michael Jordan, Lebron James and Magic Johnson saying that so and so basketball player is the greatest of all time. That would mean something more than ordinary fanboy hyperbole. That's why that section is important. 100.8.184.48 (talk)kolef100.8.184.48 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:46, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with your deletions of the Stanley Cowell quote and the Jimmy Rowles quote. They are very highly regarded pianists. Cowell's quote about Tatum "breaking the piano" conveys the overwhelming effect his technique had upon his audience. Rowles effect about Tatum's technique being "like camouflage" is particularly telling as to the outward calm that Tatum displayed when performing. 2601:903:180:454:8873:1F2C:DA06:F913 (talk)Kolef2601:903:180:454:8873:1F2C:DA06:F913 (talk)

"I thought the piano was gonna break": what does that mean? If taken literally, it clashes with the standard description of the delicacy of his touch. If not taken literally, there's no way of knowing what it means. So, maybe it means something like the 'overwhelming effect his technique had upon his audience' that you suggest. That's already more than adequately covered by the descriptions in the article. Similarly, is "like camouflage" any different from "Hank Jones said he had a style that seemed effortless", which is still there? It's an encyclopedic article and there's a huge quantity of people who say the same things about Tatum... being selective is necessary, and choosing material that is unambiguous and direct is preferable. EddieHugh (talk) 23:27, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

Critic Gunther Schuller declared, "On one point there is universal agreement: Tatum's awesome technique." Taking that out of the article is because you feel it is "laudatory" is wrong. You must not be a musician. We are not talking about just another musician who played his instrument well. Schuller's statement is absolutely factual.

What does it tell the reader (musician or not) about his technique? There is still lots of info in the article about his technique (and there is more to come), which makes it clear to the reader (musician or not) that his technique was awesome. I prefer to be an informed reader (descriptions of what Tatum did), not one who's been lectured to (told that authority figures think he's great); I suppose that my choices of what to include and exclude when writing reflect that. The article's still a mess... I'm still working through sources... let's see what the balance of opinion versus description is later on. EddieHugh (talk) 10:40, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

Not sure who deleted this, but here is the introductory paragraph in Group Work from a couple of years ago: "Tatum tended to work and to record unaccompanied, partly because relatively few musicians could keep pace with his fast tempos and advanced harmonic vocabulary. Other musicians expressed amazed bewilderment at performing with Tatum. Drummer Jo Jones, who recorded a 1956 trio session with Tatum and bassist Red Callender is quoted as quipping, "I didn't even play on that session [...] all I did was listen. I mean, what could I add? [...] I felt like setting my damn drums on fire."[46] Clarinetist Buddy DeFranco said that playing with Tatum was "like chasing a train."[40] Tatum said of himself, "A band hampers me."[47]" In my opinion that text was quite informative. Can't figure out why someone would delete it. 100.8.184.48 (talk) 16:24, 23 October 2018 (UTC)Kolef100.8.184.48 (talk) 16:24, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

You guys are adding a lot of good stuff to this article, but your insistence on deleting any factoid that is "unsourced" is wrong-headed. If you reasonably suspect that an unsourced fact is wrong, then by all means delete it. But if there is no reason to suspect the truth of an unsourced statement, it should not be deleted. Rather, mark it as needing a citation, if you must, and hopefully someone will source it in the future.

Maybe, but who's likely to spend the time finding a source? If it's been there for at least 2 years and no one's done it yet.... The actual change was from "Tatum tended to work and to record unaccompanied, partly because relatively few musicians could keep pace with his fast tempos and advanced harmonic vocabulary. Other musicians expressed amazed bewilderment at performing with Tatum" to "Tatum did not readily adapt or defer to other musicians in ensemble settings. Relatively few musicians could keep pace with his fast tempos and advanced harmonic vocabulary". A later edit added "Tatum was too assertive to be a good accompanist; he seemed to compete with the soloist he allegedly was accompanying", properly sourced. Is that much different? EddieHugh (talk) 19:32, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

"Aunt Hagar's Blues is not a good example of pioneering dissonance: it was from the 1950s." Yeah but just because it wasn't recorded until 1953 does not mean he wasn't playing it for long before then; and can't it be cited as an example of dissonance, without being pioneering dissonance? 100.8.184.48 (talk) 12:50, 25 October 2018 (UTC)Kolef100.8.184.48 (talk) 12:50, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

When you moved Group Work to the main section, what happened to: " Other musicians expressed amazed bewilderment at performing with Tatum. Drummer Jo Jones, who recorded a 1956 trio session with Tatum and bassist Red Callender, is quoted as quipping, "I didn't even play on that session [...] all I did was listen. I mean, what could I add? [...] I felt like setting my damn drums on fire."? Another great tidbit bites the dust for no good reason.

Hagar's could be used, but it's not an example of what's being asserted (the dissonance pioneer claim is also unsourced). The Jones line went, because it was about a trio setting, while the group info was about >trio. Maybe they'll reappear in a different bit later. EddieHugh (talk) 16:10, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

IP 2601 in Savannah, Georgia, my edits regarding the states in which Tatum's parents were born were made in wholly good faith and I'm rather disappointed that they should be considered "vandalism". I'm still waiting to see learn where exactly "Martinsville, West Virginia" and "Statesville, South Carolina" are supposed to be. Perhaps you could enlighten us? But then maybe I "don't understand the meaning of irony." Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:21, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Does it matter where Art Tatum's parents were born? Do we know where he was born?
Vmavanti (talk) 19:37, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

All of those places are currently listed. I don't know yet if the parents' should be retained: it's background information; there's the whole Culture of Toledo in 1909 section to consider too. My habit is to include lots of info on the first run through, then refine/cut/add as required. There's still a decade of the first run to go until he's killed off. EddieHugh (talk) 20:00, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

Martinevans, apologies about called your edit "vandalism". After EddieHugh changed the states of Tatum's parents birth back to what it was previously, I assumed the intervening change was vandalism. I have seen a good bit of vandalism on this page over the years. Fortunately, it is usually fixed fairly quickly by someone or some bot following the vandal's tracks! ~~kolef~~ PS: I don't remember what triggered the irony comment ... I hope it wasn't a fly in the chardonnay!

By the way, although the Lester book is the principal source of info for the Tatum article, having read it, I suspect that it was not rigorously fact-checked. 100.8.184.48 (talk)kolef100.8.184.48 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:32, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

IP100: you make reasonable points. I'll probably cut the parents' birth places eventually, as they don't tie in with the narrative. "he was great": yep, but this is an encyclopedia, so X Y and Z saying the same thing ('he was great') doesn't add anything; in contrast, X saying 'he was great because...' and Y saying 'he was great because...' can be informative. I agree on the Lester book: it could have done with better editing. Tatum numerous times is portrayed as being simultaneously rolling in money and in need of it, and both popular and unpopular. Still, I don't know of a better source – it's a matter of using it with discretion. EddieHugh (talk) 20:03, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

Oh, and Esquire: the poll result is still listed, but not the performance by the poll winners. EddieHugh (talk) 20:06, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

Perfect pitch is back in: I found 2 sources for it. EddieHugh (talk) 21:30, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

Scarabus

This might interest you.Vmavanti (talk) 19:34, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

Have you joined the discussion on removing 'genre' from infoboxes? EddieHugh (talk) 19:55, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I talked about that. The Scarabus debate, if you can call it that, continues if you want to comment.
Vmavanti (talk)

Eugh... reluctant to get involved. For me, if there's a dispute, it comes down to what the sources say. If they say 'this is genre X', then that can go in. If they waffle a bit but don't get round to saying explicitly what genre it is, then editors shouldn't guess or infer. If they're contradictory, then give up – it's not worth it. EddieHugh (talk) 22:31, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

Or ugh. He doesn't respond to the source. It's like talking to a seven-year-old. There shouldn't even be a debate.
Vmavanti (talk) 22:33, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

And "jazzy" ≠ "jazz". If an author wants to state that something is jazz, there's a good word that can be used. "jazzy" is like "tall-ish": not jazz, not tall. EddieHugh (talk) 22:34, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

Try to avoid rudeness, though... I'd ask something like "please provide a quotation with content directly supporting 'this is a jazz fusion album'." And leave it at that. If there's no answer, then there's no jazz fusion. EddieHugh (talk) 22:37, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

Hmm, of course you're right. Maybe I can blame it on my Italian genes? The British and their politeness, eh? I'll try to do better. You might be interested in my last post on that page. I intended it to be conciliatory rather than confrontational. We reached some kind of impasse which looks something like a compromise, though I'm not sure it is. Regardless, I plan to drop the subject.
Vmavanti (talk) 18:25, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Understanding has been improved: that's positive. EddieHugh (talk) 10:48, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

The year in jazz lists

While looking at 2016 in jazz, I noticed that most of the events and musicians described have to do with Scandinavia. I checked the history and—would you believe it?—the article was started by a Norwegian. Many of the sources are in Norwegian. Is this democratic? Is this putting readers first? How many English-speaking people do you think are interested in Norwegian jazz? How many Norwegians do you think are interested in Norwegian jazz? Could that time be better spent? That editor's time. And the time of other editors who have to clean up these articles. Me, for example. Moreover, there's not much content here. It could be criticized for presentism. I wouldn't call 2016 the distant past. Encyclopedias are not supposed to be about current events. They're not newspapers or record stores or television or Facebook where one wants to know the latest—there are already so many outlets for that kind of thing, all over the world. Encyclopedias are supposed to be about knowledge at least as much as they are about information, keeping in mind the peculiarity of Wikipedia as an encyclopedia. When we encourage presentism, we encourage impulsive vandalism and slapdash editing because readers start to look to Wikipedia as a news source for the Latest. Presenting to the latest to them in turn conditions them, indulges them, creates certain habits. I propose that we re-evaluate the value of the timeline Lists (the year in jazz lists), for all the reasons I mentioned, and for the more obvious one that they aren't really about the year in jazz, are they? Seeing that title raises a certain expectation in the reader's mind that, I fear, is immediately dashed when the reader sees what's in the article—and what isn't. I don't know how or if I should go down this road. I can see you shaking your head at the silly American. I'm raising the idea because I think it has merit and because I think it's good for all of us.
Vmavanti (talk) 18:28, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

It raises some familiar questions: who chooses what to add? What are the inclusion criteria? How comprehensive is it meant to be? What is jazz?? I wouldn't create such a list, but there's also the absurdity of 2016 in the United States and ...2021 in film! The person who created it has also created a lot of biographies of people from the same place. Democratic/representative? One criticism of Wikipedia is its Anglophone/US bias, so perhaps creating biographies of notable people from outside that sphere addresses that. Recentism? Yes, but why wait? If the list contains albums released in a year, festivals in a year, etc and there are sources for them all, then why wait until a few years have passed and finding such sources becomes more difficult? I, too, question the worth of year lists, but there isn't going to be a consensus to delete them, so I just let people work on them while I work on things that they quite possibly think are a waste of my time. EddieHugh (talk) 11:04, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

I hate to see Wikipedia treated like a newspaper, a record store, Facebook, or television. I hate to see announcements of upcoming albums, events, movies. Horrible. Totally unencyclopedic. I'm thinking now of anonymous IP contributors. Someone is always saying "He lives with his wife and children in Los Angels...blah blah blah" So what! An unsourced unforgivably nosy invasion of privacy. Do you really want the names of you wife and children on the internet? Think, people, think about what you're doing. I'm not the paparazzi. I'm not getting paid to stalk. I know that many people today didn't grow up with Britannica like I did, but the idea of an encyclopedia isn't that complicated. The neoterism of Americans! I can't speak to England, but all Americans by the age of thirteen have (or should have) learned how to write footnotes and document sources. That's when I learned. There's no excuse! It's laziness! My conclusion is that people write they way they read—or see, hear. Where is language today? TV, internet, Facebook, texting, Twitter. They parrot the language and methods they are exposed to. It hasn't occurred to many people that Wikipedia is different, requires didn't writing tools, methods, approaches, thoughts, rules. I hate to see Wikipedia concentrate on current events of any kind. It's the source of so much conflict, ill will, and wasted time for everyone. Maybe there should be a rule that Wikipedia will only have biography articles about dead people. That would avoid some of the promotion. So much time is wasted telling people, "That's not how Wikipedia works". It was Chubbles who gave me the idea from his user page that there should be a rule that a person must open an account to contribute to Wikipedia. Those lists you mentioned are indeed absurd. So many lists on WP are absurd. We should not hesitate to say so and delete them. They diminish WP. They make everyone look bad. It's so easy to create an article and so hard to delete one. Our time is our most valuable currency of all.
Vmavanti (talk) 20:22, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

An Anglo bias? Who would complain about that? Of course the English Wikipedia is going to have an Anglo bias! Does the Italian Wikipedia have an Italian bias? Of course it does! People write about what's around them. They use the sources available to them. They are influenced by the people they interact with. If Wikipedia wants to pay my way to Europe (and through it) to learn and write about jazz or anything else, I accept the offer. On a serious note, I'm baffled by the allowance of citations and sources that are not in English. That makes no sense. Sure, some people are bilingual and multilingual. I admire that tremendously. But most people are not. Most jazz readers are not. So why not have a rule that says "English only" on the English Wikipedia? Why not keep all readers in mind rather than the few people who speak many languages? Having said this, writing from one's milieu is different from being excessively provincial. I'm not encouraging that. I'm encouraging common sense.
Vmavanti (talk) 20:43, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

I would like to see the rule about foreign citations changed. That simply makes no sense to me. Any idea how I go about that? Where's the rule about allowing them? If you don't have answers off the top of your head, don't worry about it. I'm fishing through the documentation now. I'll find some ideas eventually.
Vmavanti (talk) 17:44, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

I don't know for sure, but it's high-level stuff, at guideline or policy level. I see it at WP:NOENG, which is policy, so would require a formal proposal, discussion, vote and consensus to change. EddieHugh (talk) 19:20, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Book recommendations

I'm keeping a spreadsheet on my computer of jazz books. I don't expect to be comprehensive, but I hope to cover the more important ones. I wanted to let you know that the October 2018 issue of DownBeat has a review of a book called Jazz in Europe which might interest you. (In fact DownBeat, as usual, and in this issue, always covers a lot of European jazz players and events). My experience in Wikipedia tweaked my interest in this subject, particularly the discussions (heh) about progressive rock. Last week I was looking for sources for Electrecord, the label, and of course there is almost nothing about the obscure topic of Romanian jazz, though there is a CD which might have some interesting liner notes. Playing jazz during the Cold War under regimes who frown on it, to say the least, is an interesting subject. Would make a good movie. The only thing that comes to mind, tangentially relevant, is Robin William's turn as a Russian immigrant saxophone player in Moscow on the Hudson. You probably the know the story of Hungarian guitarist Attila Zoller escaping his home country through the mountains to Austria, guitar in hand, while the Soviets were taking over. There's a movie for you. The other book with a European flavor which has helped me, which continues to fascinate me, is The Jazz Book by Joachim Berendt. I discovered an extremely inexpensive hardcover copy (2009, 7th ed) in excellent condition via the Amazon marketplace. A fine discovery. You probably have it. If Berendt's goal was to include as many names as possible, he accomplished that goal. I would like to see more substance beyond all the name dropping, but this book is like an encyclopedia in itself. So many interesting things here. His last chapter, not his first, is his definition of jazz. The first section is divided by decade, the second by the characteristics of jazz, the third by instrument, fourth for vocalists, fifth for big bands, sixth for small groups, with a meaty discography at the back, seven hundred pages in all but with a readable font, and it's not a giant doorstop of a book. Impressive organization and accomplishment. Which doesn't mean I always agree.
Vmavanti (talk) 20:34, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the Jazz in Europe. I have some narrower ones on jazz in Europe: in France, the UK, Poland, Nazi Germany! I started reading through the jazz books that I have, adding things to articles here as I spotted them (just for pianists, really). Then I hit the Tatum biography... and found that some other people care, too... so I've paused going through them (now, I'm searching them specifically for Tatum details). I do have the Berendt (same edition), but that's a long way down my (alphabetical) reading list. EddieHugh (talk) 20:18, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

Lafayette Gilchrist

Hi, good to meet you. Actually, one of the Amazon sources was "music from the wire", so yes, it does specifically mention one of the two. Not gonna get into an "undo" battle here, just wanted to comment. Jazzilady (talk) 15:15, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

Hello. I've found some stronger sources and added them. It's not 100% of the info that was there before, but covers most of it. EddieHugh (talk) 15:27, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

I also was working on the stronger sources. Included some actual quotes. Regarding the Amazon controversy, I think that one has to consider what one is looking to Amazon to verify. Of course, I would not source it for anything that involved reviews, other types of user-contributed facts, or even some of the descriptions. But, and this is a big but, if Amazon has licensed music for its streaming service, it is definitely proof of release by the artist, so I think it's fair to use it for that. I'm a retired librarian, so I do understand the importance of reliable sources. It's impossible to make hard and fast rules, that why we human editors are here to make judgments.

Jazzilady (talk) 16:04, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. The msac one looks promotional/self-penned to me. I tend not to bother if I get down to the level of having to use things such as Amazon as a source, but I take your point on releases. It's a shame he doesn't get more attention, but not many do outside the New York scene. One of the reasons I start articles like the one on LG is to provide a basis for others (or myself) to add more info, so thanks for doing that. EddieHugh (talk) 18:26, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

Actually, I don't think the MSAC was self-penned, and here's why. His bio on his personal website is not nearly as well written and does not have any quotes such as the jazz critic Kevin Whitehead, Jazz critic, NPR Fresh Air with Terry Gross. Most likely it was written based on stuff he submitted, but they took it beyond that and added that quote, which is all you can expect of anyone in that position after all. I have seen some glowing quotes from other publications that are highly reputable, but just can't get beyond their paywalls to quote them.

What is a REAL shame is that the producers of the TV series didn't see fit to include his name in the closing credits, even though they used his music throughout the series. Seems like a common problem these days.

Jazzilady (talk) 20:53, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

I agree with WP's rule about avoiding Amazon as a source. I know that people like to bend rules and might even have a legitimate claim in a certain odd case, but odd cases make poor protocol, and it's this kind of wiggle room that ends up causing big problems down the road for everyone. I have no problem following a hard and fast rule in this case. The reasoning behind the rule is sound philosophically and practically. Retail sites are motivated first by selling. All information is subject to that goal. It's not a bad goal, but it's not Wikipedia's goal. You can't rely on a retail site for facts any more than you can rely on a television commercial. Moreover, I have found many errors in Amazon data. I used to send them email to correct them, but then I gave up. Much of their material is entered in a slapdash manner. To expand a bit: even on the purchase side, Amazon has let me down many times, sending me the wrong item or a broken item, advertising an item incorrectly, charging me incorrectly, giving me the wrong information on the phone or in an email—in short, showing obvious signs of incompetence. They want to pay their employees minimum wage or lower. They are experimenting with using robots to load and move boxes, rather than use human employees. Incredibly, for a long time they were talking about delivering packages to people's home via drones. When I first heard that, I thought it was joke. It's like something from a science fiction movie. I usually dislike when people put their opinions in Wikipedia, but what I'm saying is related to the subject at hand. It's simply an untrustworthy company for anyone interested in gathering facts. I try to avoid buying anything at all from them and have almost succeeded. A hard and fast rule guarantees avoiding the problems caused by sites whose goals and interests are not shared by Wikipedia. I would rather have less information than wrong information.
Vmavanti (talk) 02:36, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Keith Jarrett template

Many of the albums listed on the Keith Jarrett template that goes at the bottom of the page were wrong. So I changed them to release dates. My understanding is that in this template, as in infoboxes, release dates are always used. I was alerted to this when I repeatedly tried to disambiguate the page Yesterdays. The DAB fix tool kept quitting at the album Yesterdays by Keith Jarrett, giving a "wrong date?" error. I've disambiguated many pages, and I'm not sure I've ever seen DAB repeatedly quit like that. So I went to that page. Sources seem to be right that Yesterdays was released in 2009 except All About Jazz says 2008. On the template I checked the dates for every album. I could not corroborate dates for some, but I did make several changes. Then I went to the Keith Jarrett biography, which sent me to the Keith Jarrett discography, where I noticed there's a table of albums with recording dates but not release dates. I don't know if that's a very good idea. Maybe someone changed the template after seeing that table on the assumption that recording dates belonged there. In most discography pages, people are used to seeing release date in that left column. At least, it's better to have both rather than only the recording date. I've never been a fan of those discography pages because they are always poorly sourced, even worse than the discographies on the biography pages. The good thing about Jarrett is that he recorded mostly for ECM, and ECM has its catalog online. The bad thing is that I'm not sure ECM is using US release dates or German release dates on their web site because it is a German label.
Vmavanti (talk) 02:16, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

We're not going to agree on which years to include in discographies. I maintain that we should use what discographies in the jazz world overwhelmingly use: recording dates. Infoboxes: the wording (last time I checked) doesn't state which year should be used; things get complicated if there's also a chronology in the infobox, because that should match the discography dates. Templates: I don't know what the advice/requirement is. I wouldn't mind having both release and recording years in a sortable table for jazz discographies, but it's a question of getting the information. Why not start with the Jarrett one if the recording dates are already there and you have the release dates? Just add "Year released" as a second column.

You and I need to be on the same page on this subject because we probably do more work on the jazz articles than anyone else. I'm not interested in debating what's best in some large abstract sense. Discographers and biographers have sensible reasons for their methods. I'm more interested in what works on Wikipedia, in what helps readers get the information they want. I'm also interested in maintaining consistency with the rest of Wikipedia and making editing clear and plain for contributors. Probably 90% of the music articles are about pop, rock, and rap. Those discographies use release dates. That's what people look for. There will be consequences of having one rule for jazz articles (recording dates) and one rule for everyone else (release dates). Why do you think we should follow the rules of the jazz world? I'm asking because I don't recall your reasons. Wikipedia is its own animal, with its own methods, habits, and quirks. We don't have to follow someone else's rules. Would it help to put yourself in the position of the reader? Maybe, if we conclude only jazz fans read jazz articles. As you know, there's a lot of overlap. Amy Winehouse, with perhaps good reason, is classified jazz, but probably few jazz fans read her article. Should her albums be classified by recording date? We need to establish a rule and then pass it along so that everyone can be on the same page speaking the same language. I'll look through the documentation again. To repeat the point: inconsistency will confuse people and cause information to be added incorrectly, and that means more busywork for us. We should dig into this subject a little more, not as a debate, but as how to present information consistently in a way that readers, all readers, can comprehend easily and quickly. My assumption from the beginning has been that readers are baffled by catalog numbers and matrix numbers, two aspects of jazz discographies and collectors that have no place in Wikipedia, and that these numbers are used rarely and so are inconsistent with other music articles. Does the overwhelming emphasis on release dates in existing music articles influence the way we write jazz articles? Is there a consensus on how music articles ought to be written?

Adding a second column for Jarrett's release dates in that table is OK with me. I'm more concerned about the template and the infobox and, as you mentioned, how these have to be consistent with the chronology of the discography. Are those dates on the ECM site release dates or recording dates?

Giving readers what they want/need: that is what it is (should be?) about. There's nothing wrong with being an exception in the Wikipedia world of standards: Wikipedia:WikiProject Classical music avoids biog infoboxes, or uses simple ones; discographies are supposed to have columns for charting positions, but including them would mean a lot of blank space in jazz discographies, so they aren't and I don't think anyone seriously advocates including them. Ideally, both dates should be given and could be used in infoboxes & templates (that would require a technical solution at a higher level, assuming it's even possible). Why I support recording dates: that's what jazz discographers do ('follow the sources' is a common refrain on here); jazz fans like to follow progress over time (e.g., how did Coltrane's tone change over the decade of his recordings? It's easy to listen online, but not easy to find what order his albums were recorded in; it's easier if that info is right there on each relevant page; the order of release is unlikely to be of interest to many, but of course also should be mentioned); the idea that an album released years after someone's death should be labelled as that person's release from that year is absurd... the person's dead! (e.g., Chet Baker, died 1988, Oh You Crazy Moon (album), can't be a 2003 album – maybe pop, rock, whatever producers have to do a lot of post-recording work before something's released, but there's not much post-production needed for most jazz recordings... clean up the audio a bit, do some editing, concentrate on not messing with how it sounded when it was recorded); if personnel are also listed, it's easy to follow changes in personnel over time if albums are listed by recording dates, but probably not if it's by release dates; similarly, for non-leader recordings, who the person played with over time can be followed if albums are listed by recording date; there might be more reasons.... And come on, it's jazz, not other music, it's supposed to be 'difficult' and 'disruptive'... I'm not sure if I'm serious about that...

So, given that most other Wikipedia music, as you say, does it by release date, the ideal solution would be to have both dates, including in infoboxes and templates, and allow the reader to switch between the two. As far as I know, that's not a possibility at the moment. EddieHugh (talk) 20:59, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

& which bit of the ECM site? The bits I've looked at clearly state which date is which. I'm suspicious of the idea that their first album was released on Jan 1, though, which is what they claim. But if they don't know, then it's likely that no one does, so we can just use whatever they report. EddieHugh (talk) 21:03, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

I don't know about ECM dates: they give recording dates as month and year only and I've never found their website easy to use. It's now set up for phone use; and why have the main artist search based on photos?? EddieHugh (talk) 12:20, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Let's take this page at the ECM site as an example. As I read I come to The Koln Concert (1975) in the biographical text, does this refer to release or recording? Read the text and as you come to examples like this, do you think release or recording? What would a jazz fan think reading that text? Is there a default position so that whenever one sees The Koln Concert (1975), i.e. an album with the year in parentheses, one knows right away what this refers to? Scrolling down, say I click on the album A Multitude of Angels. That takes me to a page that gives the catalog number, release date (listed "04.11.2016"), and a paragraph about the the circumstances of the recording. So that's nice and clear. It's a nice site. Could we explore a little more about would interest the reader? You believe jazz readers are more interested in a discography that is more like biography. Would a pop reader be more interested in release date because of the possibility of purchase? Perhaps. I find it confusing when I'm looking at a discography that is listed by recording date and I come across an album that was released last year but it appears early in the list. Immediately I wonder if this is something I can buy new or find a copy of, or whether it is old and out of print. I'm conscious now that my listening habits are well out of date and that many or perhaps most people in my neck of the woods buy neither CDs nor mp3s. My neighbor's 20 year old son subscribes to a monthly service to stream music through the internet. He gets a discount as a student. This is a different world from those of us who grew up building record collections. So you see I have my own assumptions, too.

On another point, I dislike special rules for Wikiprojects. I like infoboxes. I know they are debated in silly ways, but some pages are nothing but text, and this is the internet after all where the infobox at least adds a little bit of color. It may seem lowbrow to some, but I think it's good to break up text with color, pictures, and so on, to a small degree because that's what readers are used to, esp. on the internet. So many articles have infoboxes that their absence makes me think something is wrong. The Wikiproject Jazz page says all jazz musicians should have an infobox. I can see how infoboxes get complicated in classical music, but a pop or jazz composer like Cole Porter ought to have an infobox. Regardless, album infoboxes have to take the reader through a chronology. Is it possible to use both recording and release dates in album infoboxes? Which have you been using so far?

I agree that posthumous releases present problems. My understanding was that usually we exclude compilations from discographies, right? This becomes even more a matter in the pop world with all those Best of, Very Best, Greatest Hits releases. Many posthumous releases are compilations and probably don't need to be mentioned, but of course some people will continue to want to include them in the interest of "thoroughness". On the other hand, when you think of some recent Wes Montgomery releases and all those Miles Dave box sets, then some of them are worth mentioning. One thing we do as editors, whether people like it or not, is separate the wheat from the chaff. Are problems solved by adding a "Posthumous releases" header? To repeat: I don't want discographies to grow out of control because of all the repetitive re-releases out there. There's a certain kind of thoroughness and attention to detail that makes sense and is helpful, and then there's a certain kind that's a waste of time with the addition of busywork for all of us.
Vmavanti (talk) 01:05, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

One other point regarding posthumous releases and your Chet Baker example. Language use is involved here. As you know, I have a long list of disagreements with how journalists write. One of my quibbles is "on the Columbia label" as though the choice were only up to the musician. In fact, in the past, everything was far more up the label. Unless the musician owns the label, there's nothing to lose by saying "Columbia released the album" or "released by Columbia" rather than "released on Columbia" or worst of all "released through Columbia". I especially loathe that last one. It's common sense to avoid saying something like "Chet Baker's latest album" after he's dead. Let's keep it simple. Record labels release albums. It's one of their jobs. But it's not Chet Baker's interests they have in mind, it's their own. That's fine. I try to avoid taking sides. A label is a company. Musicians sign contracts with labels. Both parties want to make money and need to make money to survive. Labels need musicians and musicians need labels. The language we use shouldn't be idealized. It should reflect the practical process of making music. All of us benefit from language that accurately reflects how music is made and sold.
Vmavanti (talk) 01:20, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

ECM's site: labels probably refer to release dates, because that's what matters to them. Although that page is more about their relationship with Jarrett ("Jarrett's association with ECM dates from November 1971, when he and producer Manfred Eicher first collaborated on the hugely influential solo piano album Facing You", with 1971 being recording, not release), so maybe they use either, depending on the point they want to make. Availability: there's not a strong relationship between when something was released and if it is available (in physical form) to purchase; it's more about what each label does. Maybe pop fans don't care about dates: an approximation (80s, mid-90s, whatever) is probably good enough.

Compilations: depends on the type. If it's just Coltrane's Love Songs or similar, picking issued tracks from other albums, then it's not worth covering (unless it had chart success I suppose). If it's something with newly released material, then maybe. The Coltrane discog (on his biog page) gives only releases he approved of, so ignores most posthumous releases.

Released. I think I use "released by".... EddieHugh (talk) 15:28, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

'Salt Peanuts" and jazzy presidents

How does one go about proving the claim: "As of 2018, Salt Peanuts is the only jazz tune to have been performed by a U.S. President during their term in office, having been sung by Jimmy Carter at a concert in 1978." One would have to know much about every president. I do have books about presidents. I don't have any books about the musical talents of presidents or whether they performed jazz while in office. I suspect the number is small. Generally speaking, entertainers don't run for office. Although I lack a source, I recall Bill Clinton played the saxophone on the Arsenio Hall TV show, so he must have played jazz in office, thus rendering the claim false. I tried deleting this claim a while back because, as I said, I don't know how one would prove it, but course someone reverted it. By the way, I loathe the "As of" template and I loathe being advised about articles that "need updating". Shall I list the reasons? Don't make me list the reasons. Suffice it to say Wikipedia is not a newspaper. I find that the more current Wikipedia tries to be, the more useless it is—and the more combative. If I want combat, I'll join the military. Arguing about current events is a waste of time when there are some many more important things to do.
Vmavanti (talk) 18:20, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

I saw that and also thought of Clinton. Here he is playing 'in concert'. I assume he was in office at the time. There's also this one. The source for the assertion actually states "the only jazz composition known to be sung": "known"... but now we know that it wasn't the only one, unless we want to dwell on "sung". EddieHugh (talk) 19:00, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Right. Who sings "Salt Peanuts"? I recall the old Carol Burnett TV show where she did a comic skit in which she attempted to sing it with someone. That would have been the Carter era, too. Recently I read a biography of Sarah Vaughan. Bob Shad at Mainstream wanted her to do a disco arrangement of "Send in the Clowns". She liked the song but, stating the obvious, said it was too fast. She asked, "Who dances to Send in the Clowns"? Indeed. Reminds me of high school when a couple friends of mine changed the lyrics of "Stairway to Heaven" to "The Ballad of Gilligan's Island". Except everyone knew it was joke.
Vmavanti (talk) 23:32, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Assessments

I've never paid much attention to assessments and importance, but I realized I probably should. I've read the documentation. Are you the person who has done most of the ratings for Wikiproject Jazz? What are your criteria? That's a lot of articles. Not surprising that many are unrated. I assume Kenny G was given a "High" importance rating because of his popularity rather than his significance to jazz. On quality I know that there has to some kind of consensus and discussion for articles to become Good or Featured. To me a Stub is essentially crap, a half-assed effort. If an article has at least one reliable source and some substantial content, with signs of honest effort, it deserves a rating of Start or better. I understand these matters are subjective and can therefore yield to flexible discussion and debate.
Vmavanti (talk) 16:12, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Not most (I hope). When the number of unassessed ones stacks up, it's possible to get a bot to rate them automatically based on length. I kind of use the gloss and examples at Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Assessment and Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Assessment, but also concentrate more on sourcing. It's unusual for me to come across something that's unrated and merits more than Start, but at articles for creation they tend to give the same things C, so maybe I'm mean. Importance: too subjective, but very worth doing for the project. Years ago every album given a crown in the Penguin Guide was assigned Top, as a way of introducing something objective (although that's really just using the opinion of the book's authors, so it's published subjectivity). I'd love to see all of them rated, but, like your cleanup efforts, it's fighting the tide, and there are 20,000 of them. EddieHugh (talk) 16:42, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Importance can be helped by the passage of time. Impact is more difficult to gauge with younger musicians. The big names are not tough, but there will always people who think their favorite is more significant. I don't have strong feelings about any of this. There's probably a surprising amount of agreement in the books. I was thinking more of providing a guide for editors and potential editors. Using the popular pages list as a guide, I marked some that were unassessed.
Vmavanti (talk) 01:59, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps listing examples of well-known people at each level would help, assuming anyone would find and read that. I once discussed another editor's placing of a not very prominent pianist as "top" importance and pointed out that even Jarrett was rated only "high" by the jazz project. EddieHugh (talk) 16:12, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

Yes. I'm not sure about all three levels, which will be debatable, but I was thinking of compiling a casual list of major figures after looking through some books, if only for my benefit. What about divided by instrument? A year end issue of DownBeat would help. I could put it on my User page. Or on the Wikiproject Jazz page. I would like like to do more with that page, as in guidance, but I would run it by you first. It would be nice to have a place that mediates between the individual editor and the labyrinthine Wikipedia documentation. Some place to send people for more immediate accessible help.
Vmavanti (talk) 18:47, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

What kind of help are you thinking of? EddieHugh (talk) 18:50, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

"Salt Peanuts" comment

Hi Eddie,

You mentioned in an edit summary on the Salt Peanuts article that you had sources about President Clinton playing jazz in public while in office – do you think you could share those sources/post them in the relevant article(s)? Thanks! --Chumash11 (talk) 15:16, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

A couple of them are above, in the "Salt Peanuts and jazzy presidents" section. Not ideal for adding to articles, but proof that Clinton did play in public. I expect there are plenty more on Clinton's sax, but it's on the edge of the internet era. EddieHugh (talk) 15:20, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks! Chumash11 (talk) 02:57, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

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Noah K up for Deletion

Dear EddieHugh, I'm writing to see if you might be able to help weigh in on the deletion discussion for the article I wrote about Noah K: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Noah_K It and I myself were attacked early on from editor RoySmith who clearly has no familiarity with jazz or music sources in general. As soon as the IMDb sources and accompanying material were removed from the article, he put a deletion tag on it. I posted on WikiProjects/Television recently and they advised to use the episodes themselves as sources rather than IMDb so I have restored the Once and Again material to the article. I have made my case for the article and the sources here on the deletion page. I cannot see how 2 records as a leader on HatHut that were widely reviewed in addition to several other well reviewed recordings with notable musicians, having composed and performed music for a major television series and having features and articles in a wide variety of jazz and pop publications doesn't make him easily pass WP:MUSICBIO #5, #10 and #1. Thank you very much for any advice or assistance you might have, Artaria195 (talk) 18:11, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Done. He meets criterion 5 of WP:MUSICBIO, which is enough by itself. I'll see what other sources I can find & will keep an eye on the AfD page too. EddieHugh (talk) 19:11, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Thank you! very much appreciated. Best regards, Artaria195 (talk) 21:15, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Under 5000 before January 1

This seems like a nice goal: getting the Cleanup Listing under 5000 before January 1. Now it's 5245. What do you think?
Vmavanti (talk) 19:40, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

I've been doing a few recently, mostly for sourcing problems. If we get everyone else to stop editing & adding to the problem, it can be done. Without that... maybe. I'll look at doing more. What's the best thing to target? EddieHugh (talk) 19:54, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

And is it necessary to get rid of all the templates/tags on an article to get that listing count down, or is each template/tag counted separately? EddieHugh (talk) 20:09, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

The best thing to target? People who get in the way. People who don't know what they're doing and have their own reasons, methods, and ideas about what Wikipedia is and how it should work. But to be more practical...I don't know. I don't have anything specific in mind at the moment. I used to think step one would be easy: Reducing the Jazz Cleanup Listing to, oh, I don't know, let's say...jazz, before doing anything else. But that has proved a real bear. It makes sense to continue proposing articles for deletion or merging them. There's still a lot of junk that ought not to be defended when I propose it for deletion or when I inform people it isn't jazz. There's an odd, entrenched bias against deleting. In favor of, what, hoarding? How can an editor, a real editor, be against deleting? It's a reaction, not a reason, so those discussions are always difficult. Trying to reason someone out of a position into which reason has not put them.
Vmavanti (talk) 20:56, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

I did think of something. It would be nice to finish the articles still hanging around from 2007. As we approach 2019, I have to adjust how I describe the backlog: ten year backlog, eleven year backlog, twelve year backlog...Every week I download the Cleanup Listing .csv to a spreadsheet so I can get a better look at it. Sorting by year, I see 33 articles at the moment that are stuck in 2007. One is Gypsy jazz, which I can work on because I have a book coming in at the library for me about that. I already worked on Narada Productions, so I might still have some material to use. I proposed Jazz waltz for deletion, so far no response. I proposed Raymond Berthiaume, so far no response. I proposed Nuages Jazz and Curfew (band) and both were deprodded, but I'm not very happy with how that was done. People don't answer my questions. I proposed Teppo Hauta-aho, and it was deprodded, but the person did add some sourced material. The Auburn Knights Orchestra and Stark Reality should be deleted but I haven't proposed either. Jazz improvisation is another whack a mole. Maybe you can look at that one with your expertise. I can work on Lew Tabackin because I already worked on his wife Toshiko Akiyoshi. Do you know anything about real books and the Real Book? I don't but I worked on that a little. Curious. There should be some sources about that. It's a semi-popular subject among young musicians. I'm not sure Steve Lawson (musician) is jazz, but I don't know anything about him. Bill Le Sage is bordlerine notable and so are Jimmy Amadie, Kynan Robinson, Richard Iles, John Burch (musician), Roger Neumann, and Harry Carney. History of Lindy Hop. Dance articles are always hard. They are poorly written and sources are few. I don't know anything about dance. Jazz (word) I haven't looked at yet. Possible crossfire. What to do with Whitley Bay International Jazz Festival? Is that something you hear about?
Vmavanti (talk) 19:32, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

I did one that had been unsourced since its creation in 2006 (the tag was added a few years later). I see that the list is updated once a week, so I should have been more systematic in my approach: I just jumped at the ones I thought I could fix. I'm now looking at the alphabetical list... and it's a sortable table, so I can look by date: 34 from 2007. I'll see what I can do. Real Book: yes, but finding sources might be difficult; I'll look. I'll look at the musicians you mentioned first; Carney is definitely ok. And the legendary Whitley Bay International Jazz Festival? No, I don't know that one either. EddieHugh (talk) 19:42, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Update: Jazz festival now prod. Carney done. Le Sage done. I suggest AfD for Nuages Jazz and Curfew (band). Burch is in Brit Jazz Who's Who, so I should be able to do that. EddieHugh (talk) 20:32, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

List of jazz musicians

Are there any categories on the List of jazz musicians that you aren't going to delete?
Vmavanti (talk) 23:16, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

I've stopped. I didn't delete the categories, only the lists of people when there is a main article for that instrument. Some of them are redirects, so I just left those. EddieHugh (talk) 23:21, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

The Cat Empire

Do you know anything about this band The Cat Empire? Is this a jazz band? Ska and jazz?
Vmavanti (talk) 14:36, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

I know nothing. "a fusion of jazz, ska, funk and rock with heavy Latin influences", and there are images from a folk festival and a blues and roots festival. That covers almost everything. EddieHugh (talk) 14:40, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Buddy's knife jazzedition

I don't know what to do with this, starting with the lowercase letters. As we all know, lowercase letters are always a sign of profundity. This is a European publisher, so I thought you might be familiar with it. I've never heard of it.
Vmavanti (talk) 14:54, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

I specialise in books I can get for nothing. Cutting the lists of names of people covered in their books would help. It kind of survived Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Buddy´s knife jazzedition AfD a while ago, so probably isn't worth the bother of trying that again. EddieHugh (talk) 15:10, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

"Long-term female companion"

This seemed like really getting onto a tangent so I figured I'd bring it here - by long-term female companion (with speculation of it being "romantic") are you referring to Turner? Even Balmer, with his bizarre conjecture that Turner was an Englishwoman whom Grappelli pined over for his whole life, doesn't present this as long-term, I don't think. I'm not aware of anyone who believes that his friendship with Jean Barclay was romantic, but perhaps I've missed something. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 00:02, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Actually "a romance" (so I'll change what I put on the talk page): Jean Barclay's sister is quoted in Balmer: "Their relationship was a great friendship. I think it was a romance at first, perhaps later." EddieHugh (talk) 00:43, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Following on, you preferred "for whom he felt a deep brotherly affection" and cited the French (auto)biography. The very limited googlebooks access I can get to has just "mon amie Jean Barclay". Do you have access to the original for "a deep brotherly affection"? EddieHugh (talk) 00:54, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

The French book (this bit is by Lucienne Gély, a neighbor and friend) suggests that Barclay may have been in love with Grappelli, but that "du côté de Stéphane, on sentait une grande affection, une tendresse très profonde, quelque chose comme un sentiment qu'on porte à une soeur." I don't have full access to the book either (and unfortunately the digital rendering isn't great so it's not very searchable), but I do read French, if you turn anything else up. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 02:14, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Are you able to get anything in the book about Joseph Oldenhove (other than that he is an editor of it)? It's been brought to my attention that a number of sources, including Balmer, refer to Oldenhove as Grappell's "companion", and Oldenhove, along with Evelyne, represents the estate. But I'd like more info. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 02:25, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the fuller version; if it's quoting a friend, then it's the equivalent of Barclay's sister, so we can conclude that interpretations varied (unsurprisingly). Oldenhove as "companion" I've seen elsewhere... we can't jump from "companion" to this was his "lover"/"partner". EddieHugh (talk) 11:36, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

It's not a jump any more than "partner" would be (how do we know it wasn't his business partner, eh?) This is one of the common and accepted terms pre-same-sex marriage in English, and in French is specifically the word of choice that means "partner". –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 15:07, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

With regard to the sister, again, I don't think you're really taking this discussion seriously. You can't possibly make the argument that this is about due weight and Wikipedia standards when you're elevating the word of one person who's like "maaaaaybe it was a romance" over the plural people who say it was certainly or almost certainly not and over the other sources which note that he was gay. It is not Wikipedia policy that claims of heterosexuality are given greater weight or lower sourcing standards. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 15:11, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

I usually get accused of taking things too seriously! Barclay is described as a "companion"; her sister speculated that there could have been "romance". Oldenhove is described as a "companion", but no source that I'm aware of hints that it was a romance etc. Yes, "companion" was often a euphemism, but it was an effective one, because it could be used by people who were lovers or by people who were not. We're actually using largely the same argument – follow the sources – but reaching a different conclusion. To me, you are jumping when you see "companion" with a man, but side-stepping when you see "companion" with a woman (and, I think, to you, I am jumping when I see "a romance" with a woman, but side-stepping when I see "companion" + "gay" with a man). We can use the wording in the sources: propose something all-embracing on the talk page and it can get worked out. EddieHugh (talk) 15:20, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Eddie, "life partner" (compagnon de vie) is not generally considered an ambiguous term. This sort of thing is why I'm saying you're treating this as a joke. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 15:24, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

That's the first time you've mentioned that term. EddieHugh (talk) 15:26, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Please post further things on this topic on the Grappelli talk page. EddieHugh (talk) 15:26, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Rob van Kreeveld

Will you take a look at this and let me know what you think? Thanks.
–Vmavanti (talk) 20:46, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

The source sounds ok based on a google translation of this. He's not in any of my Penguin Guides, even as a sideman. It looks like the Dutch Wikipedia version was done as a translation of the English one, with that source then added. In any case, one source is not enough. EddieHugh (talk) 21:02, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Which Penguin Guide do you like best? Can you tell me about them?
Vmavanti (talk) 19:34, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

It's Time (Michael Bublé album)

This one's been showing up on the Cleanup Listing for weeks as "Web citation with no URL". I've tried, but I have no idea how to fix it.
Vmavanti (talk) 00:46, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

I found the background to it. The award began in 2009, so "2008" was impossible; it's not listed in 2009–11 either, so I cut the whole thing. EddieHugh (talk) 11:20, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Bradenton Blues Festival

I cringe whenever I see "needs to be updated" because it makes me feel like a reporter, which I am not. Do I need to give more reasons? Here's one. Not encyclopedic. Sure, sometimes there are inventions, discoveries, modifications that require correction. Nor do I mind adding an album, a death date, or a significant accomplishment. But I'm not interested in keeping a yearly diary of who has appeared at the Bradenton Blues Festival in Bradenton, Florida. I've never even heard of Bradenton, Florida, and I've heard of a lot of cities in Florida, as have most Americans. I've seen a lot of these festival articles and many are crap. Yes, it can be difficult to know what to say about a festival without promoting it, but doesn't that make one question their notability? Nearly every time I see these articles, my first thought is that it was written by someone trying to sell tickets. That's not what Wikipedia is for. They can pay the local newspaper or TV station for that. People make a living selling advertising. They need the work. Wikipedia isn't the place for free advertising. So when it comes to these festivals, my instinct is it's OK to list some (some) of the names who have been there. But I would rather not have "Last year Billy Joe Bob was with us!" and "Next year his wife and kids will be performing, too! With free corn dogs!" Now it's possible that some people want to read an article about a festival with a list of all the people who have ever performed. But I don't care for that. Though of course I have nothing against corn dogs.
Vmavanti (talk)

You should go: it's great! Maybe. I see it's sold out this year; maybe that's why no one has bothered to update the article. Having 'done' quite a few cleanup articles now, I can see where the frustration comes from. I get annoyed by people who've clearly paraphrased from a common source (Grove, AllMusic, etc) but couldn't be bothered (didn't know how?) to add a citation, so now another person has to dig around for sources and check that every line is covered. EddieHugh (talk) 19:38, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Yes, it certainly is frustrating. There's no excuse. All of us learned about citations in school, often repeatedly. Sometimes if you copy a passage, put it around quotation marks, and paste it into an internet search, you can find the source easily. Often: AllMusic, Google Books, or the official site. I'm also annoyed by the number of people who don't add sources and citations, but they go out of their way to added a "use my dates" template. Nice. In the context of half-assed music articles, paid editors are easy to spot. Their sourcing is meticulous and their prose is rah rah rah. It's amazing what people think they can get away with.
Vmavanti (talk) 18:44, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Dominant seventh sharp ninth chord

Do you know enough about the dominant seventh sharp ninth chord to work on the article? I don't.
Vmavanti (talk) 19:35, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

I have a theory book; I'll check if it has anything useable. EddieHugh (talk) 19:40, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

...and, it doesn't. EddieHugh (talk) 20:33, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

Jerry Bergonzi

Dear EddieHugh,

I recently stumbled over some of my old edits in which I had tagged a section, which appeared to be too long. You removed the tag and wrote "Too long for what? I've seen bigger. Why not formally propose a split (better than tagging and running away)?)".

I still think that the section is too long to comfortably read and wanted to therefore ask your advice on improving it - since you've been around many articles in the field of jazz from what I saw - and I haven't (and since I'm comparably new to Wiki also don't know how to "formally propose a split"). Maybe you can help me out?

In either case - thank you for your edits. They definitely made the article better! --Ruhri Jörg (talk) 08:50, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Ruhri Jörg, thanks for the message and sorry for being blunt in the edit summary. I've been doing a lot of cleanup things recently, so get more curt in editing and edit summaries. A split of that is probably uncontroversial, so you could just do it without discussion, but if you haven't done one before then it might be better to propose it, which allows other editors to give their views. The procedure is explained at WP:PROSPLIT. I'd skip the "Notify involved users (optional)" bit. After doing steps 1–2 (3 if needed), wait a week and if there's no opposition, go on to the next stages. The standard title for the new page would be "Jerry Bergonzi discography" (lower case "d"). There's unlikely to be any opposition. The process is a bit fiddly, with posting different things on different pages, but follow the instructions and you should be fine. And let me know if I can help. EddieHugh (talk) 12:47, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Re: Cites

Hello -

Yes, I've always concentrated on article creation and notability establishment, ever since I began editing. Years ago, I noticed that the site was lacking information on thousands of jazz musicians - often American musicians, often musicians that, inexplicably, had articles in German and not in English. I tried to set up articles on as many of these as I could, given limited time constraints, both for writing the articles themselves and for reading extensively in jazz biography. I did this work primarily in two tranches, one about ten years ago, one about a year ago, both when I had access to the Grove online database. I had always thought of this as simply groundwork-laying; I wanted to establish that something notable existed that the site didn't cover, and leave article perfection to the next wave of editors. I guess that next wave of editors is here; there are a few editors in jazz who seem to be very active of late, and at least one of them (who's on my talk page a lot) isn't too happy about what I did.

I don't think it would have been much help for me to inline-cite the basic stubs I was putting up. For one thing, I was almost always working only from one or two sources - biographies from Allmusic or from the Grove Dictionary of Jazz. Inline-citing everything would have been a lot of extra formatting work with little purpose; everything was coming from a single source, so the non-inline reference basically served as verification passim. More importantly, it would have drastically slowed me down, with the result of a lot fewer articles created. Since no one can edit an article that doesn't exist, I thought it much more important to get many articles up and running for others to work on than to write a few impeccable articles all by myself, particularly if I did not expect swift notability challenges (I have to do a lot more work on pop music articles because people are so much more suspicious of pop musicians' notability than they are of jazz musicians'). There's only so much time in the day - plus, my experience has actually made me a little wary in general of the value of scrupulous and exhaustive inline-citation on this site, though I certainly don't want to discourage editors from doing it.

It's unlikely that I will be doing another tranche of mass article creation in jazz. I actually don't edit a ton these days - just an article created here or there when I see one needed and I have the time, and I try to make sure articles I created don't end up worse at the end of the day than they were at its start. So I have no plans to add to your to-do list =) but I wish you well on article improvement! Chubbles (talk) 22:28, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. Yeah: personal and project priorities vary over time. At the moment, my thinking is that sourcing is the biggest thing to be dealt with regarding Wikipedia and readers' trust (when I see something with no citation attached to it, I've no way of knowing anything about its provenance, so no way of checking it). I suppose that will change too. EddieHugh (talk) 22:21, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

I know that Chubbles has done a lot of work, and I know that many people appreciate it. He deserves everyone's respect. He and I disagreed on determining the notability of record labels, and these weren't jazz labels. I dropped the subject and turned my attention back to jazz. He believes the notability of labels can't be judged the way other companies are judged. I also questioned a certain amount of red linking which is certainly not alone to him. My guess is it's mainly IP editors who view Wikipedia editors as Santa Claus, or perhaps his elves, who will grant their every wish. I see it all over the site. But editors have limits (Santa Claus has none). There ought to be some consideration when someone creates a red link. There ought to be some thought about whether that link is realistically going to become an article. I don't like to see red links sit for years like abandoned buildings, waiting from a good Samaritan to come along and save them. It's curious to me, this use of "save" and "rescue" about inanimate objects, data on a computer screen. I associate those words with people, perhaps people who are drowning. "Saving articles from deletion", that's what they say, that's what some people on Wikipedia believe they are doing, as though deletion were a terrible thing. It's an odd belief for an editor to have. The rough draft of everything is crap. Wikipedia is always in flux, and flux includes creation and deletion. I have many of the same goals as Chubbles does, but possibly I am more interested in problem solving than in keeping the wheels spinning. There's a lot to do. That's the point I keep returning to.
Vmavanti (talk) 21:14, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

KUNV

I don't know what to do about KUNV. The whole thing is a copy paste.
Vmavanti (talk) 21:29, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

If it's a definite copy and paste then all the text should be cut. After that... EddieHugh (talk) 21:31, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Italics for old records

I recently got a copy of the Blackwell Guide to Recorded Jazz in paperback from 1995. I noticed some old jazz recordings, the earliest recordings, are put in italics. I guess these are 78s, but at the time you could only fit one song on a side. More importantly, on Wikipedia what's the rule? I've been treating these records with a song on each side as singles, putting them in quotation marks. I never saw them in italics before. What you think about this? Italics or quotation marks for early recorded jazz? To me, it's a single, but Blackwell uses italics.

I've been using the word "album" for a collection of songs and "single" for any disc with one song on each side. So even if it's a 78 rather than a 45, it's a single. In my time, it was easy enough to judge: 33s were bigger than 45s and could hold more music. There was no dispute about what album meant. Some people still use "LP' for album, but that's an antiquated term because "long play" was used to distinguish new technology which is no longer new. In the 21st century, we don't need to be reminded that a 12 inch vinyl record can hold more music than a 78 because there are no 78s anymore, in a manner of speaking. So the use of "LP" strikes me as pointless and maybe confusing. "EP" I learned from the Pretenders long ago. They had an EP called Extended Play. What a title. I had never seen one before. But I still call that an album. It's not a single.

Some people say "CD" instead of album, but that's misleading and I change it often on Wikipedia because it suggests the music has been released only on CD, and that is unlikely, not just today but always. Vinyl has never really disappeared. Plus, you had cassette, DVD-A, SACD, for which you could use the word "album". I was looking at the Avalon Jazz Band web site. They don't sell CDs. Their music is download only. But I still call those albums although they are nonphysical computer files. A collection of songs (released together?) with a title is an album, even if there there is no physical disc. I think of a photo album, a large book with a collection of photos.
Vmavanti (talk) 18:31, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

You nailed it in the last two sentences. Apparently the original music albums were collections of physical 'singles' in individual sleeves that were stuck/bound together. If the song release predates albums (multiple tracks on a physical disc), then treat it as a single, so use quotation marks. It's just a house style thing. EddieHugh (talk) 18:45, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Art Tatum and better sources

Why are there so many "better source needed" templates (et al) on the Art Tatum page? Has that article become a battlefield? A better source needed template next to Leonard Feather? Really?
Vmavanti (talk) 02:43, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

I see four, but not for Feather. Most sourcing tags were 'fair warning' to the IP editor who complained that things were being removed. I'll deal with the whole article. Eventually. EddieHugh (talk) 13:14, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

You're right. It was a quotation by Leonard Feather, not a source by him. The source was eNotes, which I don't know anything about. Well, you know how I feel about POV cheerleading. If you don't own the Blackwell Guide to Recorded Jazz, I recommend it. The analysis is specific. I have the second edition. I wonder if the first is better.
Vmavanti (talk) 14:48, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

Praise and complaint

First, good job on the Cleanup Listing. You really made an impact this week. New articles 16, Resolve articles 375. Wow. That's excellent. Well under the 5000 mark. That's a lot of work. But as for those 16, where did all those one-sentence articles come from. Really? One sentence? And an infobox with one entry? What kind, generous person volunteered us for a generous amount of work to do? Unless I'm missing some larger point, that's a real pisser, right?
Vmavanti (talk) 14:48, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

Thanks; I targeted the easy ones. The half-sentence 'articles' are from Another Believer, who has close to 300,000 edits and 35,000 articles created. Half a line is taking article creation to extremes: I often don't bother adding all of the available information from sources, but when the bare minimum for an album is/should be track listing, personnel, label, a date or two, then not including them, but linking to sources that do contain them... yes, that's undercooking it. EddieHugh (talk) 17:16, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

Musics

Can you find anything about Musics (magazine) on your end? Otherwise I would propose it for deletion.
Vmavanti (talk) 18:45, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

It definitely existed; the only (numbered) source is a summary of the published book that contained all issues. The existence of that book is a good start for notability. I'll have a quick look online and report back here, but having to search for a "magazine" named "musics" isn't an encouraging start. EddieHugh (talk) 18:56, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

So, there's plenty of publicity information for the book's publication. Otherwise, there's a bit here at David Toop's blog. And videos of John Russell (musician) and Thurston Moore talking about it here. So, I see mostly insiders commenting on it, which isn't necessarily a problem, as they're independently notable, but finding more info could be a struggle and the current article was clearly written by/from the perspective of an insider. EddieHugh (talk) 19:29, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

Many songs by one user

One user has created two hundred song articles which are either poorly sourced or unsourced. Most of them were created ten years ago. In most cases, the article is v. brief, containing a list of "notable versions". But the list is usually unsourced, so there's no way to know why the are considered notable. The author of these articles sent me a message a few months ago calling me a wrecking ball and pleading for civility—my favorite kind of message, by the way, the call for civility combined with an insult. Here's some civility. This is bullshit. These articles attract vandalism and unsourced trivia like flies to bullshit. Think of all the wasted hours spent by editors because of this one lazy, inconsiderate user. How can that kind of thing be acceptable? Why hasn't anyone tried to stop this person in ten years? Or at least ask them? There's another user I mentioned to you last week doing something similar. I did ask an admin about that, and the admin responded diplomatically and probably accurately, though I was unconvinced by the claim that progress has different meanings on Wikipedia. My point wan't about different work methods, and I know I have no business telling people what they should work on. But a person who decreases the Cleanup Listing is making progress, and a person who increases it needlessly is not. I must insist on this point, particularly when it comes to experienced editors. At least with strangers or IP editors it's possible to say, "Well, they don't know any better" or "They don't know the rules yet". But experienced editors? Educated people who know better? I don't have strong feelings about any subject on Wikipedia. I have no cause to promote. But I do have strong feelings and opinions about ethics and rules. This affects me and you and all the other editors out there. I would really like to talk to an admin who is in a position to do something about this problem—the problem of lazy editors and the crappy articles they create, piling needless work onto the shoulders of busy editors, wasting their time. It's hard for me to believe that Wikipedia editors would disagree with me. They may dislike how I express myself, but surely they would like to spend their time more productively, time being the most valuable currency of all. Any ideas you have are welcome as to how to take care of this problem.
Vmavanti (talk) 16:43, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

Brian Setzer

You don't consider Brian Setzer's big band a swing band?
Vmavanti (talk) 23:39, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

I was cutting 'Jazz' from articles that didn't support the assertion. I don't know him, so I was going by what was written... just undo if I got it wrong: no problem. EddieHugh (talk) 23:43, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

I'm not sure. I'll do some research. I know him from the Stray Cats. He's played rockabilly his whole life, but he formed a swing band which was, I think, before the swing revival of the late 1990s. Big Louis Prima influence.
Vmavanti (talk) 23:49, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

List of Romanian Musicians

Is there a reason to have this List of Romanian jazz musicians when lists of musicians are generated automatically through categories at the bottom of articles? If not, I'll propose it for deletion.
Vmavanti (talk) 00:51, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

I tried a few 'list of [nationality] jazz musicians' and didn't find any others. I haven't fully grasped the category/list distinction, as I find a lot of duplication but others are fine with that. I suggest the deletion approach and see what happens. EddieHugh (talk) 16:26, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I read some of the documentation about Lists again. Clear as mud.
Vmavanti (talk) 18:16, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

Tried deletion but someone "saved" it. That person is so moral for protecting a piece of inert data.
Vmavanti (talk) 02:17, 1 January 2019 (UTC)