Jazzing the Data

Jazzing the Data – Jazz Discographies in the Digital Age takes place at McGill University on Friday, January 29. Organized by the Columbia Center for Jazz Studies J-Disc task force, in partnership with IICSI, the Institute for the Public Life of Arts and Ideas, and the Schulich School of Music, a group of leading scholars in jazz discographies, Music Information Retrieval (MIR) and jazz studies will discuss possible futures for jazz discographies.

Full and accurate discographies form the most basic research data for those investigating jazz and its legacy. But what constitutes a discography—what should it contain, and/or omit? How can it best serve its potential users? How does it in and of itself shape the nature of jazz research? Who and what should be included in an inclusive jazz discography? When is a seemingly “neutral decision” actually anything but—and, in our digital age, how should the traditional text-based information a discography contains be enriched via relations to the recorded artifact itself, in all its forms, and with its assorted historical, cultural, social, and political significance? How can and should MIR developments be used to extract information from such a discography, and what information need it contain in order to best facilitate present, and imaginable future, use by MIR technologies?
 

Participants include Krin Gabbard, Lisa Barg and David Brackett, John Szwed, Laura Risk, Gabriel Solis, Tad Shull, Cynthia Leive and Robert O’Meally. The colloquium takes place from 9-4 in A832/833, Elizabeth Wirth Music Building, 527 Sherbrooke St. West, Montreal.

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