Talk:Zodiac Suite/GA1

GA Review
The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.''

Reviewer: Amitchell125 (talk · contribs) 17:07, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

Happy to review this article.

Lead section / infobox

 * Unlink music in jazz music.
 * Mary Lou Williams needs to be introduced, for instance by saying ‘the American jazz pianist and composer Mary Lou Williams’. Throughout the article, other people are also lacking any kind of introduction. I will list these but you will need to check through the article yourself.
 * Amend a symphony orchestra to ‘an orchestra’.
 * I would amend Carnegie Hall to ‘Carnegie Hall, New York’.
 * Link history of jazz; critic.
 * Milton Orent, or Milt?
 * The last two paragraphs relate to the early performance and recording of the work, with only the initial paragraph describing the music itself. The lead needs to be rewritten to reflect more about the music, as, unusually for a jazz article, the topic is not about an album or a song (see MOS:LEAD).

1 Composition and first performances

 * Link orchestral; jazz. Check for any any other unlinked terms linked in the lead section (e.g. suite).
 * Duke Ellington needs to be introduced.
 * It needs to be clearer to readers that WNEW is a radio station. Ditto that NBC is a television and radio network.
 * Consider linking modernist composer (List of modernist composers).

1.1 Composition and Asch recording

 * Link Critical reaction (Critic).
 * Williams went to considerable efforts to arrange the concert, having to borrow money, pay considerable sums herself – as considerable is subjective, consider amending to something like	'Williams had to borrow money to stage the concert.’ (see MOS:PEACOCK about subjective terms).
 * She arranged for Timme Rosenkrantz should read ‘She arranged for Rosenkrantz. See MOS:SURNAME for more information about using only surnames once people have been introduced.
 * not particularly strong – I would avoid strong, which is idiomatic (see MOS:IDIOM) and vague-sounding.
 * and talk Barney Josephson into renting Town Hall seems unnecessarily detailed.

1.2 Town Hall and Carnegie Hall performances

 * Reading Kernodle and Dahl, it seems the article is misinterpreting what the authors say about some of the the events surrounding the Town Hall concert. For example: The musicians employed were not particularly strong. The musicians in these sources are actually described as playing sloppily, losing their places, being under-rehearsed, and the orchestral players being said to have played fearfully. There are gaps in the text, e.g. Williams’ performance, which is criticised by Dahl, but not mentioned in the article. You may need to revisit your sources.
 * Seventy-member – consider amending to ‘70-member’ (see MOS:NUMERAL).
 * Introduce Norman Granz; Dan Morgenstern; Timme Rosenkrantz.
 * pirate records in Europe – the citations following this need to be in numerical order. It's a minor point, but I would check the article for other examples where this occurs.
 * Williams was happy with her performance at the concert but the orchestra was slightly disappointing. This is not what it says in Dahl p. 174.
 * considerable, is imo redundant and can be omitted.

2 Subsequent performances

 * The image is unnecessarily enlarged (see MOS:IMGSIZE).

2.1 Performances by Williams

 * Consider expanding NAACP, as readers may not be familiar with the term (MOS:ABBR).
 * Add a comma after of the suite.
 * performed with Dizzy Gillespie - ‘performed with Gillespie’. Also, the suite for Thelonious Monk – ‘the suite for Monk’.
 * Link Gillespie in the caption.

2.2 Performances by others

 * Link choreographed (Choreography); New York Philharmonic.
 * Pearl Primus, Katherine Dunham – ‘Primus, Dunham’.
 * ❌ Checking online, the music is available to buy, or to borrow (from university libraries in the US, for example, and including Duke University, where Williams taught, and which I think holds the manuscripts of the suite). I would mention this, or at least mention that the performances described in the section do not constitute an exhaustive list.

3 Critical reception

 * third stream genre – although there is a link here, readers might appreciate a brief explanation (in brackets).
 * The suite was seen – by whom? Also, at the time – at what time?
 * The suite's composer being a woman also added to its import. - I would include who said this, as it is perhaps to some readers controversial.
 * I would add a comma after from jazz critics.
 * classical music critics were less sympathetic – all of them or just some?

5 Recordings

 * (Geri Allen, Andrew Cyrille, Billy Hart, Buster Williams) should be unlinked, as they are within a title, although I'm not sure they need to be listed.
 * The section lacks any citations.

6 Notes

 * The text requires a citation. Imo this information would be better within the text of the Structure section, and not here.

7 References

 * Ref 4 (Walls) is a subscription website (add 'url-access=subscription').
 * Ref 28 (Witkowski); Ref 29 (Cramer); Ref 35 (Lawn). etc. are not listed in the sources section. Most GA articles have consistently formatted reference sections, and I would ensure the books are all listed together in the Sources section. See MOS:REFERENCES for more information.

7.1 Sources

 * Link University of Illinois Press; Basic Civitas (Basic Books) for the sake of consistency within the section.
 * The title of this section would normally be a ‘level 2’ (i.e. ==Sources==, not ===Sources===).

8 External links

 * The album is copyright and so the YouTube link is not allowed, as per WP:COPYVIOEL.

On hold
The article requires some work to be done on it before it can be passed. I am concerned that there is little in the text about the music itself, seeing as the topic is about a musical composition. I understand there may not be much out there, but similar articles do explore the music more than has been done here. Other articles have an introduction section (that includes, for example, the composer's influences when writing the piece).

I'm putting it on hold for a week until 6 January 16 January to allow time for the issues raised to be addressed. I will cross out the addressed issues, and add a small cross (❌) if I don't agree that an issue has been sorted Regards, Amitchell125 (talk) 13:55, 29 December 2022 (UTC)


 * @Amitchell125 Many thanks for this thorough review and the time you have spent on it - I hope you found the subject matter interesting enough. I've now dealt with the bulk of the more minor issues you had listed. There is no way I will have everything else done by 16 Jan - in the next 2 weeks or so I'll probably get to the end of it. As I said, I've been on holidays and had lots of other real world stuff happening. If you want to reject this nom and move on, I won't be offended. I'll happily keep working on your recs and resubmit when it's ready. (Side note: The GA nom system is slightly disjointed in that you wait 4 months for a reviewer, forget everything about the topic and then only have a couple of weeks to fix everything! Not much we can do about that though.)
 * I really appreciate your suggestions and am quite horrified by my massive omission of actually talking about the music. Some stuff about influences and style is in the article but it is nowhere near explored fully enough - I got caught up in the story I think. I'll need to revisit the main sources to come up with a section which will take a week or so. I've give a response to some of the other suggestions below.
 * Lede
 * Amend a symphony orchestra to ‘an orchestra’. I'm specifying symphony here to indicate a full size orchestra as oppose to a chamber orchestra.
 * Understood. AM
 * Composition and first performances
 * not particularly strong I remember struggling with how to best summarise this when first writing it. I'll need some time to revisit the sources to fully digest this one. Similarly with Dahl's criticisms of Williams' performance. Now done.
 * pirate records in Europe – the citations following this need to be in numerical order. It's a minor point, but I would check the article for other examples where this occurs. The citations are not in numerical order as this is the second time I am using this ref. I didn't think this was an issue? If it is, I have no idea how to fix it as I used Template:Sfn and this was done automatically.
 * I can do this quite easily for you, as I edit manually. Not GA though. AM
 * Subsequent performances
 * performed with Dizzy Gillespie - ‘performed with Gillespie’. Also, the suite for Thelonious Monk – ‘the suite for Monk’. I understand the guidelines, but as Gillespie and Monk are only mentioned in passing earlier in the article I think it's worth fulling introducing them again - what do you think? We actually do this as well with the dancers in the following paragraph.
 * Understood, tco. AM
 * Checking online, the music is available to buy, or to borrow (from university libraries in the US, for example, and including Duke University, where Williams taught, and which I think holds the manuscripts of the suite). I would mention this, or at least mention that the performances described in the section do not constitute an exhaustive list. Sorry, I don't fully understand this one. Could you reexplain this?
 * Apologies for this fuzzy comment, which was an optional idea. If I recall correctly, i simply meant to it might be worth including that the manuscript score is held at Duke University (because Williams was employed there), and that the score and parts are available so groups can perform the piece. see here and here. Amitchell125 (talk) 16:15, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Critical reception
 * The suite's composer being a woman also added to its import. - I would include who said this, as it is perhaps to some readers controversial. Let me revisit these sources. There is probably a better way to phrase this. Rephrased this now.
 * Recordings
 * (Geri Allen, Andrew Cyrille, Billy Hart, Buster Williams) should be unlinked, as they are within a title, althoughI'm not sure they need to be listed. I've unbolded these names but kept the ones linked who are appearing for the first time. This group is basically a single purpose group who came together just to record this album (as far as I'm aware) so I think it's good to let readers have this information.
 * Understood. AM
 * References and Sources
 * I will sort out the outstanding issues in these sections in the next couple of days.
 * Thanks again! A thorough review is a good review. Vladimir.copic (talk) 11:39, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your kind words. Please ignore the current deadline for now, as just as you struggle when an article is picked up several months after it was nominated, as a reviewer I struggle to remember everything I talked about in the review if the process is prolonged by a few weeks. I'll check what's been done to date, answer your queries, and then ask you for your date for the completion of the GAN. Regards, Amitchell125 (talk) 16:39, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
 * @Amitchell125 I've now made edits based on your review and have included a section on the music of the suite. Going over it again I've made tweaks all over so I may have created additional issues (hopefully not though). The only remaining issues from your initial review are those listed above - I've crossed out the ones I sorted. Thanks again. Vladimir.copic (talk) 03:19, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Passing
The article is now easily GA, so I'm now passing it. I've added a Further reading section with an article that describes each part of the suite. Feel free to keep it there or include the information it contains in the text. Congratulations! Amitchell125 (talk) 16:54, 7 February 2023 (UTC)