Talk:Miles Copeland Jr./Archives/2018

Glenn Miller
One claim from one book in which the author dislikes the subject isn't enough to convince me that Miles Copeland lied about playing for the Glenn Miller orchestra. More sources are needed. I wonder what his sons have said on that subject. The preceding sentence, moreover, creates doubt that he was a musician while simultaneously including a lukewarm quotation from the same biography that grudgingly admits he was one. This is the equivalent of damning with faint praise. It would be odd to lie about either of these facts: that he played trumpet and that he played trumpet briefly with Glenn Miller. What would be gained by such a lie? This article requires more sources, reliable ones if they can be found, and more impartiality. Vmavanti (talk) 18:22, 9 June 2018 (UTC)


 * A primary source is not equivalent to an academic historian; I know of no evidence that the historian in question, Hugh Wilford, "dislikes" Copeland personally or that his conclusions were motivated by any sort of irrational animus. It is manifestly silly to assert that equally hefty sourcing would be required to assert that a.) someone played the trumpet and b.) that someone played the trumpet with Glenn Miller.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 10:35, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Vmavanti (talk) 03:38, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
 * You're right that there is no equivalence between a primary source and an academic historian. The academic is usually wrong. It's silly to find sources that say he played trumpet and that he played trumpet with Glenn Miller ONLY if those facts have been called into question. Not only have they been called into question by this article, they have been announced "discredited" because of one book by one university professor. Delete that and we can mark progress. Otherwise, find a balance. Any "discredited claim" ought be defended by more than one source, regardless of what you conclude about that one source.

Vmavanti (talk) 00:46, 23 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Google Books has some excepts from the America's Great Game by Hugh Wilford. This is the source used for the claim that Copeland was lying about playing trumpet for Glenn Miller. Anyone who has read the whole book might want to inform us whether this subject comes up in the body text itself. The Google Books except is from the introduction: "In his memoirs, Copeland makes several impressive statements about his days as a jazz musician...that in September 1940 he spent a week playing fourth trumpet for the Glenn Miller orchestra on the Roosevelt Hotel roof in New Orleans...the nearest Glenn Miller orchestra got to New Orleans in the latter part of 1940 was Washington, D.C." I would like to see the proof of this assertion. There are some possibilities. Maybe Copeland got the date wrong. The peripatetic nature of the musician's life means that one's whereabouts are often in flux. Dates are notoriously difficult to pin down. Discographers know this as well as anyone. Nevertheless, and more to the point, it's bad form and bad policy to rely on one source for a fact, especially if the fact in question means calling the subject of the article a liar. There are sources that state Copeland did play trumpet for Glenn Miller. A Google search easily turns them up: The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and Der Spiegel. His son, also named Miles Copeland, concurs on the AND magazine site. Google Books has an excerpt from the book Lipstick on a Pig by Torie Clarke which concurs. So in a few minutes I found six sources saying the opposite of what Wilford says and what the Wikipedia article currently says.