Wikipedia:Peer review/List of jazz standards (before 1930)/archive1
List of jazz standards (before 1930)[edit]
- A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style; it can be found on the automated peer review page for May 2009.
This peer review discussion has been closed.
I don't know if this is ready to go to WP:FLC just yet, but since it's already gone through a lot of work, I'd like to get some input on it before I update the other articles (1930s, 1940s and later). Any comments on the language, use of references (the list basically has one online source and a lot of fakebooks), readability etc. are welcome. The article was previously in table format, and if someone has ideas on which format is better or how to improve the readability I'd like to hear it. Thanks, Jafeluv (talk) 21:40, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
- This is an impressive list. I know how time-consuming it is to compile such fiddly information. My concern would be the element of ambiguity in the title and in the way the lead describes these tunes. The first paragraph is written in the present tense, so I presume these songs are regarded as jazz standards today. And obviously a song written in, say, 1930, didn't have time to become a standard already. On the other hand, some of these songs were already old and established jazz standards by then. I think it would help if the definition of a jazz standard were clarified somewhat. For example, the last paragraph of the lead starts in the past tense and then drifts into the present tense, which blurs the information. Also, some of these tunes are pre-Jazz, but it's not clear when the phenomenon of jazz standards started. What's the difference, one wonders, between a popular standard and a jazz standard? qp10qp (talk) 19:21, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
- Excellent suggestions! This is the kind of feedback I'm looking for. I have made some changes to the lead to address some of the issues you mentioned. I don't know how to improve the definition of jazz standard, though. I thought the list could simply state the usual definition without going into too many details, and if the reader wants to find out more they can consult the main article, where more information can be found. I plan to expand the main article once I'm finished with the lists. Jafeluv (talk) 20:18, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
- Big Butter and Egg Man? qp10qp (talk) 15:27, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
- This omission points out one of the big problems in lists like this: the inclusion criteria. The list started out as an intersection of several unsourced lists (list of bebop jazz standards, list of swing jazz standards, etc), was merged into one huge list and then split into the current four. I tried to find sources for each of the songs listed using jazzstandards.com and several fakebooks, and the ones that I couldn't find a source for were discarded from the list. "(I Want A) Big Butter and Egg Man" was included in one of the lists, but as I couldn't find a source for it, it was dropped. The current inclusion criteria is problematic: if everything from the selected sources is included, the lists will become ridiculously long (jazzstandards.com lists 1000 entries, the combined volumes of The Real Book have 1200 entries, and so forth). On the other hand some often played songs are included in neither, such as the song you pointed out. Any ideas on how to better define the inclusion criteria would be very welcome. Jafeluv (talk) 20:18, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
- Well, I hope you don't think I combed through the list to nitpick for an omission, but I just happened to be listening to the Hot Fives and sensed I didn't remember this one being on the list—and it is performed a lot by Dixieland bands. Sourcewise, I've just tried typing in the title plus "standard" to Google Books and came up with this page (fourth para up on the right), amongst others. It's not a big deal, though, because short lists like this can never hope to be comprehensive. qp10qp (talk) 20:54, 31 May 2009 (UTC)