Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Jazz

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Articles for Deletion

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Knoel Scott. AllyD (talk) 07:00, 13 August 2017 (UTC)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hatano Jazz Band. AllyD (talk) 14:39, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

Ernie Wilkins Request for Comment (RfC)

An RfC opened on 04-SEP-2017 regarding the retention or deletion of the composer/arranger section for Ernie Wilkins. Your input at the link below is welcome and appreciated.

Talk:Ernie Wilkins

Should the article's "As composer/arranger" section be deleted or retained? Bubbatex (talk) 23:26, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

Request for an article: Gwigwi Mrwebi

Sorry for reiterating a request for an article, but I feel that "down there" it is hard to discern notability. I paste here the motivation. Thank you. Hope you will have the chance of listening to the beautiful Bra Gwigwi's "Mbaqanga Songs" aka "Kwela".

Gwigwi Mrwebi (d:Q1557878) was a relevant sax and clarinet player in South African jazz scene of the 50s, then narrator and clarinetist on landmark King Kong (1959 musical). Mrwebi recorded with Hugh Masekela, Coleridge Goode, Kippie Moeketsi, Chris McGregor, Dudu Pukwana, Laurie Allan etc. A main street in Newtown, Johannesburg is named after him. Sources: 1, 2, 3.

--Pequod (talk) 00:17, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Vmavanti delisting articles as jazz

Vmavanti has been making a large number of edits removing the WikiProject Jazz tag from article Talk pages, declaring they are "not jazz". This seems to me to be a unilateral and subjective act. Does the Project community have any views over what should be tagged and how it should be decided? Bondegezou (talk) 07:20, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

What is jazz? Sounds like a case for the jazz police. The project page states that we don't aim to "Act in an exclusionary way toward any particular styles of jazz or any jazz musicians." So, removing articles on one type of jazz, based on personal preferences, shouldn't be done. Often with talk pages, though, the categories have been copied and pasted from another talk page, so can be wrong. Some people also read "elements of jazz", "influenced by jazz", "jazzy ..." and so on in the article and think that means the topic is in the jazz genre; it doesn't. I looked through the 17 recent cullings of jazz tags (I think you're referring to those) and wouldn't disagree with many of them; several don't even have the word "jazz" anywhere in the article. With close to 30,000 articles tagged as jazz and not many people actively involved in the project, unilateral inclusion/removal is a good option, although, as you suggest, discussing what should be in/out requires occasional highlighting. EddieHugh (talk) 10:10, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

• (Edit clash) I have descoped several myself, usually triggered from seeing surprise entries on Wikipedia:WikiProject Jazz/Popular pages. There is inevitably an element of subjectivity involved though correspondingly there is often over-use of the term for pop and rock musicians. Functionally, the Jazz project tag is of use only if someone with a jazz interest is likely to have an interest/knowledge in maintaining and improving an article, and a lot of the time that simply isn't likely. My rule of thumb when considering a de-tag is to start from the article and whether (a) jazz is mentioned and (b) whether it is supported by references. AllyD (talk) 10:13, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

Hi. My ears were burning. I appreciate the poster's concern for the quality of articles. It's not surprising that people would be taken aback by my boldness. I've seen timidity prevent jazz articles from moving forward. I think this timidity derives in part from frequent disagreements and edit wars with anonymous people, many them not even registered with accounts. If we could speak face to face, things would be different. Nevertheless, often one concludes that one more fight isn't worth it, and it becomes necessary to choose one's battles. It's too bad, because Wikiproject Jazz contains a lot of junk. Although I've been working on it for a while, I've barely put a dent in it. Look at the Cleanup Listing. Keep in mind that this report card changes every week with new entries and new problems. One of my first goals, which I used to think was preliminary, is to shrink this list to articles that are actually related to jazz. I don't know who labels these articles for the Project, but some of them aren't even close to jazz.

I agree that there is some degree of subjectivity when it comes to defining jazz, but let's not get carried away. Not everything is jazz, despite many people wanting to claim the title. In our time jazz has become a subject of academic study, college degrees, and elevated with the kind of reverence we usually see in classical music. The latest American Idol winner who is at best a mediocre pop singer wants to put jazz on their Wikipedia entry (résumé) so that they can say, "Me too! Look at how profound I am!" That goes double or triple for the new Idol's fans who see Wikipedia as the new Tiger Beat, or as a way to become the Idol's unofficial promoter, always ready to tell you what happened in Season 47, episode 13, and which judges were mean and unfair. Put simply, this is the kind of thing that gets mixed up with Wikiproject Jazz.

When it comes to weeding out articles for Wikiproject Jazz, I have several assumptions. One is that I know what I'm doing. I have some knowledge of jazz (and editing) and when called out to explain, I have sources and resources that I can cite in addition to my own headbone. I don't edit arbitrarily, nor do I mind making mistakes, because that's one way to learn. So if someone has a question, or more likely a revert accompanied by a curt "You're wrong" or a prissy "Good heavens! What have you done?", I am capable of saying "OK", admitting I was wrong, and leaving the revert alone. It isn't life or death to me, and my ego can take it. At the risk of blowing my own horn, I have to say that my percentage has been remarkable. Compared to the number of edits I've done, I have had a relatively small number of disagreements over "not jazz", and only one that could be construed as an edit war. That was over Jakko Jakszyk, an obscure figure who I continue to believe is progressive rock, and progressive rock doesn't have much to do with jazz. I was unable to persuade my my mustache-twirling nemesis of my case. Shocking, right? So I walked away from it, as I have many times on Wikipedia. So what? Compared to what? Pistols at dawn?
–Vmavanti (talk) 15:54, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

These are the ones I removed from Wikiproject Jazz last night:

Indigo (Matt Bianco album)

Kevin Drumm

Lara & Reyes

Laurie Allan

Mickey Bones

Margaret Bonds

Nihilist Spasm Band

Rambo Amadeus

Petr Skoumal

Pearls II

The Story of the Blues

The Spasm Band

Soft Heap

Tika and The Dissidents

Thomas Ankersmit

The Swimming Hour

The Battle of Hastings (album)

Something Wicked This Way Comes (The Herbaliser album)

Two of 18 have been reverted. That's 11%. That gives me a batting average last night of 89% over 30 minutes. Imagine what the Cubs could do with a hitter like that. Maybe I can make it 100%. Let's watch and find out.

Revert 1: Laurie Allan – "Laurie Allan (born 19 February 1943, London) is an English drummer, best known for stints in Delivery and Gong. He has also played with Robert Wyatt."

Delivery, Gong, and Robert Wyatt are British progressive rock musicians. Wyatt is the founder of progressive rock group Soft Machine. I know that there are people who say progressive rock musicians borrow from jazz, but that's quite a distance from equating progressive rock with jazz. Progressive rock also borrows from classical, but we don't categorize progressive rock as classical. I think I was right to say this article is "not jazz".

Revert 2: Soft Heap. "Canterbury scene supergroup founded in January 1978". Canterbury scene refers to British progressive rock musicians of the last 1960s. "Soft" refers to "Soft Machine".

I sense a similarity here. I had the same problem when I said Jakko Jakszyk (who was playing with King Crimson) wasn't jazz. A Brit tried to tell me that progressive rock is jazz. I continue to believe that these are not jazz entries, that they are of no interest to Wikiproject Jazz when so many other entries demand attention, and that they should be reverted to "not jazz".
–Vmavanti (talk) 17:48, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Vmavanti, there are vast swathes of jazz and progressive rock that overlapped, as per the cited text at Jazz_fusion#Jazz-rock. If you think that "progressive rock doesn't have much to do with jazz", yet RS citations say otherwise, perhaps you should re-consider your position.

Thanks EddieHugh for your comments and pointing out the project's stated non-exclusionary stance. I was prompted to post here by Vmavanti's recent 17 cullings (and reverted 2 myself), but there were another 20 on 27 August, 11 on 24 August, 6 on 18 July, and numerous others scattered in between. Many of these are sensible. Some suggest an idiosyncratic definition. Bondegezou (talk) 17:55, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

Vmavanti, I argued that Jakszyk should be tagged because he's done jazz projects that are described as such by reliable sources. Bondegezou (talk) 17:58, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

Er, not quite the truth, is it, sport?
–Vmavanti (talk) 18:07, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

I don't need to reconsider my position. I gave it quite a bit of thought the last time I encountered disagreement over this topic. Perhaps you should educate yourself about music. "Vast swathes" strikes me as hyperbolic and redundant. Prudence keeps me from calling it wrong. I'm not sure why this is such a big deal. There's so much against your opinion that it's difficult to know where to begin.
–Vmavanti (talk) 18:07, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

It looks like ground is being re-tread here. I suggest: anyone deletes the project tags from an article if they have good reason to (AllyD's 2-step check is straightforward); if someone reverts it, then everyone leaves it reverted.

And if the project tags are removed from the talk page, remove the relevant 'jazz' categories from the main page, too.

Alternative suggestion: succumb to a higher, fixed authority. e.g., if the person/album is in the Penguin Guide to Jazz, then it gets the jazz tags; if a Brit is in the Who's Who of British Jazz (another book), then that person gets the tags. I don't recommend this option, because almost no one will know about it or remember it, and a fixed source is or will quickly be out of date. EddieHugh (talk) 19:43, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

I don't know why I should change what I'm doing when I didn't make a mistake last night in the ones I deleted. Any reasonable person will conclude that progressive rock is not jazz. I could list many sources, but let's start with the three-volume print edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Jazz. Although I haven't read every word, I have spent a lot of time with it, and I can say confidently that there are no entries about progressive rock musicians and there is no entry about progressive rock. Not in three heavy volumes. Let's not change change the rules, or make new ones, because of one person.
–Vmavanti (talk) 23:09, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

No-one is suggesting that progressive rock is jazz, Vmavanti, so I don't know why you persist with that straw man. There is some overlap, as attested by reliable sources already cited on Wikipedia.

Wrong.
–Vmavanti (talk) 20:15, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Keith Tippett and Bill Bruford played on King Crimson albums, but I presume everyone agrees they still come under WikiProject Jazz.

King Crimson doesn't. Not even close. Bill Bruford comes closer to jazz fusion than others you have cited because of the kinds of work he did with certain musicians. He is debatable but an easier argument than others you mention.
–Vmavanti (talk) 20:15, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

A band like Soft Machine is somewhere between progressive rock and jazz ("soft machine" and "jazz" gives over 2000 hits on Google News; Soft Machine are referenced multiple times in Who's Who of British Jazz). Wikipedia follows reliable sources: that's what I'm suggesting we do. Bondegezou (talk) 08:11, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

So, for a more recent example, Laurie Allan was one of the articles de-jazz-ed recently. He's a relatively minor figure, but Allan performed with Chris McGregor, Dudu Pukwana, Gunter Hampel, Barbara Thompson and Peter Lemer. Does anyone other than Vmavanti think he doesn't come under WikiProject Jazz? Bondegezou (talk) 08:38, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

How can progressive rock be the straw man when the musicians you insist are jazz musicians are really progressive rock musicians? Far from being a straw man, it's the crux of the argument. You could argue that Wikiproject Jazz should cover progressive rock, but that's a different subject. There are plenty of articles to do already that obviously belong to jazz without having to add more articles which don't even belong. I continue to be astonished that this is even being debated. How are old are you? Are you American? How do you explain that in the three heavy, hardcover volumes of the New Grove Dictionary of Jazz there isn't one mention of progressive rock? Or in two other books I have with me at the moment, the third edition of AllMusic Guide, and the History of Jazz by Ted Gioia? Isn't that proof enough? If not, what kind of proof would satisfy you? I would really like some answers to my questions so we can't put this to rest. By the way, 2000 hits on Google is minuscule, and it's not a reliable standard for judging because it includes all kinds of websites with all kinds of opinions. On the contrary, I've offered you three authoritative, substantial sources.
–Vmavanti (talk) 20:03, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

If there are articles in Wikipedia that confuse jazz with progresssive rock, then those articles need to be corrected.
–Vmavanti (talk) 20:15, 15 September 2017 (UTC)