Talk:Jazz/Band Disambiguation

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Revision as of 19:11, 15 March 2009 by Nikki (talk | contribs) (New page: please also add outside links! ~mo (no, that isn't a discussion topic >_<) I think this noble tidying task may have to tackle a major problem: most people think the proper re...)
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please also add outside links! ~mo (no, that isn't a discussion topic >_<)

I think this noble tidying task may have to tackle a major problem: most people think the proper release artist is what is printed on the cover. Which is wrong (for jazz) in a good number of cases for the following reasons:

  • most time, covers print the name of the artist, plus what I call "a numerical indication of the number of people involved in the recording session" (eg: trio), which most time (sometimes) doesn't refer to a group in the traditionnal meaning of it.
  • successive strictly identical releases of an album may simply alter, strip, extend, or completely change the release artist name

For a stupid flame war on my own on this topic, for a ridiculous change, see this It's even more problematic when dealing with VA compilations, as these usually don't mention the name of the release artist of the originating release, but complete session details (and sometime bogus :p). Some of these battles can't be win. "Cannonball Adderley" "Quintet in Chicago" and "John Coltrane & Cannonball Adderley" "Cannonball and Coltrane" are bound to be separated forever, or resurface each time we try a merge. Now, some we can win. IMO we need to have a special Jazz thing (I would love, official) stating that formations names may not always be used extensively as stated on covers, and should preferably be stripped out (unless of course they are a legit group, which can happen...), and that in jazz, covers are definitely not the ultimate and trustable source of information to determine a release artist name. Now the question is what exactly to do: maybe I can write a wikipage, (say, Jazz), with a paragraph explaining this so that we can refer to it in moderations (after of course most moderators agree on it) -- dmppanda

cat, a suggestion - now that we have a preliminary "top" directory for jazz stuff Jazz, what about moving this one under it? Like Jazz/SwingJazzBandDisambiguation or possibly just Jazz/BandDisambiguation? Just a "tidying" thought, though - dmppanda

It's also a fact opinions diverge on how we should handle things. Some respected editors think successive identical reissues with (even slightly) different release name or release artist should be added separately. To me this sounds insane, and this would drive MB more far away from being what I call "serious discographic tools" (although it's a known fact I'm totally biased by session based/composition based solutions) -- dmppanda 19:06, 08 August 2006 (UTC)