The Jazz.com Blog
March 12, 2009 · 0 comments
Building the World's Largest Online Jazz Encyclopedia
If I thought writing a blog was demanding, little did I guess how challenging it would be to construct an encyclopedia. But as regular visitors here know, jazz.com is in the process of building the world’s largest on-line encyclopedia of jazz musicians.
Fortunately for me, most of the heavy lifting on this project is handled by a knowledgeable group of experts under the direction of Tim Wilkins. Although we have more than 1,700 entries—including many artists not covered in Wikipedia or other jazz reference works—there are still many gaps, which Tim & Co. are working to fill. By my reckoning, we have several hundred more entries that need to be added before our reference can stand up as a comprehensive biographical guide to the art form. (If you would like to contribute to the endeavor contact Tim at reference@jazz.com.)
The Encyclopedia of Jazz Musicians was founded by Dr. Lewis Porter, who focused his efforts on currently active jazz musicians. In most instances, he contacted the musicians themselves for information—which gave his work a level of detail and accuracy that could not have been obtained any other way . In December 2007, the Encyclopedia moved to the jazz.com site, and began the next phase of its development.
Our current efforts aim at expanding the scope of the work to include historical figures from the past, as well as to add entries on important active musicians who, for one reason or another, were omitted in the past. Also, we hope to take advantage of the hyperlinking capability of the web, and integrate our encyclopedia entries into the thousands of other pages of related content on our site.
From time to time, I will give an update on the project in this column. Meanwhile I am providing links below to some of the recently published additions to the work.
Sidney Bechet
by Dean Alger
Louie Bellson
by Ted Gioia
Anthony Braxton
by Stuart Broomer
Marion Brown
by Brad Farberman
Kenny Burrell
by Eric Wendell
Paul Chambers
by Eric Wendell
Johnny Coles
by Matt Leskovic
Kenny Dorham
by Matt Leskovic
Roy Eldridge
by Dave Krikorian
Stéphane Grappelli
by Eric Wendell
Milford Graves
by Brad Farberman
Wardell Gray
by Gene Seymour
Hampton Hawes
by Eric Novod
Percy Heath
by Eric Wendell
Milt Jackson
by Eric Wendell
J.J. Johnson
by David Tenenholtz
Lee Konitz
by Thierry Quénum
Dave Lambert
by Gene Seymour
Eddie Lang
by Dean Alger
Bill Laswell
by Eric Wendell
Booker Little
by Matt Leskovic
Fats Navarro
by Dave Krikorian
Jimmie Noone
by John Clark
Joe Pass
by Eric Wendell
Danilo Perez
by Jared Pauley
Oscar Pettiford
by Eric Wendell
Astor Piazzolla
by Ricardo Quiñones
George Shearing
by Eric Wendell
This blog entry posted by Ted Gioia
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