The Jazz.com Blog
June 22, 2008 · 1 comment
Behind the Scenes at the Jazz Encyclopedia Project
Regular site visitors to jazz.com are probably familiar with our Encyclopedia of Jazz Musicians. But they might not be aware of the constant flurry of activity behind the scenes at the Encyclopedia. Under the leadership of editor Tim Wilkins, this on-line reference work is constantly evolving, expanding its scope and improving its coverage.
The encyclopedia was founded by Dr. Lewis Porter, and originally focused on currently active jazz musicians. Porter made great strides by actually approaching the musicians themselves, and thus achieved a level of accuracy and depth of coverage that set his work apart. When the encyclopedia moved to jazz.com this last December, it was comprised of around 1,500 entries, and included many artists not covered adequately – or sometimes not dealt with at all – in other reference works. In short, the encyclopedia was a unique and valuable resource, and we were delighted to be able to share it with jazz.com's visitors.
The web allows publishers to constantly tinker and improve in a way that would not be possible with a printed work, and we were determined from the out-set to continue to develop and expand Porter's pioneering project. In particular, we planned to expand the focus beyond currently active jazz musicians. To help in that effort, jazz.com has enlisted the assistance of a team of outside scholars and experts to help us fill these gaps. Tim and his crew are now gradually covering important historical figures as well as current day artists who, for one reason or another, had not provided biographical info for inclusion in earlier versions of the encyclopedia. This group has added around one hundred entries so far this year, and Tim hopes to incorporate 200-300 more over the next 12 months.
The team’s goal is to provide more than just standard biographical sketches. We are especially excited by the potential benefits of integrating the encyclopedia material with the thousands of reviews, interviews, photos, paintings and other content on the jazz.com site – seamlessly linking everything together to provide an unique overview of artists. In other words, a visitor to the entry on Billie Holiday will find that songs mentioned in the entry link to our various critics' analyses of the specific tracks; or that other relevant material on jazz.com is just a click away.
Below are links to a small sampling of the recently published entries in the Encyclopedia of Jazz Musicians. Feel free to send your comments or queries to Tim Wilkins, at reference@jazz.com.
Albert Ayler by Eric Wendell
Count Basie by David Tenenholz
Tina Brooks by Eric Novod
Jaki Byard by Jared Pauley
Charlie Christian by Darren Mueller
Stanley Clarke by Jared Pauley
Nat King Cole by Jared Pauley
John Coltrane by Darren Mueller
Peter Erskine by Jared Pauley
Bill Evans by Jared Pauley
Maynard Ferguson by Dave Krikorian
Bill Frisell by Eric Novod
Stan Getz by Jonathan Dryden
Dizzy Gillespie by Mark Lomanno
Benny Goodman by Jared Pauley
Grant Green by Scott Homewood
Herbie Hancock by Jared Pauley
Andrew Hill by Eric Novod
Earl Hines by Jared Pauley
Keith Jarrett by Eric Wendell
Elvin Jones by Eric Novod
Carmen McRae by Sue Russell
Brad Mehldau by Jared Pauley
Thelonious Monk by Jared Pauley
Wes Montgomery by John DeCarlo
Lee Morgan by Dave Krikorian
Paul Motian by Eric Novod
Jim Pepper by Ratzo B. Harris
Sam Rivers by Matt Miller
Archie Shepp by Brad Farberman
Cecil Taylor by Jim Allen
Henry Threadgill by Greg Campbell
Cootie Williams by Dave Krikorian
Teddy Wilson by Jared Pauley
John Zorn by Eric Wendell
This blog entry posted by Ted Gioia
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This looks like a very good site - love the colors.