Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/James Isaacs


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 16:16, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

James Isaacs

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Doesn't meet WP:BIO or WP:GNG Boleyn (talk) 18:19, 12 August 2016 (UTC)
 * del no independent evidence of notability. Staszek Lem (talk) 18:50, 12 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Bands and musicians-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 15:48, 17 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Massachusetts-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 15:48, 17 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Journalism-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 15:48, 17 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete: Not merely a strictly local music writer, but something of an obscure one. Hell, I was an avid reader of those two alternative papers, back in the day, and I don't remember his name.  No evidence of notability proffered, could dig up none.   Ravenswing   17:51, 17 August 2016 (UTC)
 * keep' my Proquest search turns up massive amount of coverage of him and his career in the Boston Globe, Search is dominate by Globe (the Boston alt. weeklies don't appear) but other papers do. Here's a Nat Hentoff review (long) is the Wall Street Journal praising Isaac's "illuminating liner notes" for an album, and discussing them in depth (New on disk: Sinatra in Paris with small combo, 1962, Hentoff, Nat. Wall Street Journal,  19 Jan 1995 ).  Here the New York Times phones him for a comment when one of the greats died,, here the Washington Post quotes him on (Powerful Reminders Of Miles Davis: Playing New Jazz Records For Fall,  Hollie I. West. The Washington Post, 02 Dec 1979).  Lots more - that Proquest search on "James Isaacs" + jazz goes on for pages.  Looks like a notable music writer to me.E.M.Gregory (talk) 22:53, 17 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment: You do realize that sources consisting solely of quotes from a subject cannot be used to sustain the notability of a subject, right?   Ravenswing   02:01, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I should have made clear that the coverage in the Boston Globe is of his career. The story I cited in the Wall street Journal engages with his liner notes, in a substantive manner, but when I see major national media such as the Washington Post, New York Times and other papers seek his opinions it does establish that an individual is a recognized authority.  I do think finding this sort of thing in a search run to determine if notability exists is very persuasive.  But the article should of course be sourced to substantive discussions of his life and work.E.M.Gregory (talk) 03:22, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  MBisanz  talk 21:23, 21 August 2016 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Details of career need to source an article are available in archived stories about his career in the Boston Globe; and probably in other media as wall.E.M.Gregory (talk) 11:43, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep He had written eloquently, and he was a disk jockey at a major Boston radio station for several years. By contrast, there are people on Wikipedia that are far less significant personalities with pages, often appearing very self-promoting.Dogru144 (talk) 13:33, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Jujutacular (talk) 22:43, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete Sorry, but this is far from notable. Also coverage in the sources is so minuscule that I actually had to go line by line to find it..
 * "New on disk: Sinatra in Paris with small combo, 1962, Hentoff, Nat. Wall Street Journal, 19 Jan 1995" - I managed to retrieve this article and this is at most a trivial mention. Here is the actual coverage One of the sidemen on this date, guitarist Al Viola, told James Isaacs, who wrote the illuminating liner notes, that there are times when Sinatra sounded "almost like an instrument. The guys in the band thought of Frank as our tenor man." along with a quote by Isaacs He even makes "Ol' Man River" an extension of his own life and times. As James Isaacs notes: "That a multi-millionaire white entertainer would dare attempt to portray a black stevedore . . . during the present era of heightened racial awareness and sensitivity may seem foolhardy at best. But Sinatra's `River' is as much the Hudson (in New Jersey) as the Mississippi.". That's it. The first sentence mentions Isaacs in passing and the second a quote. None of it is significant coverage.
 * The NYTimes article is a trivial mention.
 * A search on Proquest for "James Isaacs" + jazz shows a total of 15 results when I searched across all databases. The articles I find are the WSJ and the NYTimes one and a bunch of other mentions by name only (some of which I am not sure if the same James Isaacs).
 * A web search shows not a single sources which I would count as significant coverage.
 * This is someone pretty obscure and there are many reporters who report for radio stations. That doesn't mean they are notable. This is far from GNG and I don't see anything to pass WP:ENT or WP:CREATIVE either. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 15:04, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus. Relisting comment: Re-listing (probably one final time) to allow more eyes on the final significant Delete assertion... Lourdes 04:24, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Lourdes  04:24, 6 September 2016 (UTC)
 * He had a long career, as a respected jazz writer, journalist and critic whose work is widely cited by other writers. He was widely quoted, cited, in national sources (I am colonizing Canada for the length  of this AFD), like this  Montreal Gazette obit of Elvin Jones, " "My experience with Coltrane," he told the writer James Isaacs in 1973, "was that John was a catalyst in my finding the way that drums could be played most musically..." (Ground-breaking jazz drummer, Montreal Gazette 20 May 2004 ), or this one on National Public Radio, Fresh Air profile of Ramsey Lewis, "Ramsey Lewis told James Isaacs..." yada yada ('The In Crowd': An Audience-Fueled Jazz-Pop Crossover Hit; Fresh Air Philadelphia: NPR. (May 13, 2015)) Lots more like these, including  lots more period.E.M.Gregory (talk) 12:23, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
 * The thing is a lot of people are journalists, and there will usually be trivial mentions of the person in multiple sources. Now if there are something like > 200 trivial mentions, I might consider that the subject has some claim of significance. But the mentions here are very few (15 in proquest). This is pretty less. I don't see any evidence that their work is "highly cited". --Lemongirl942 (talk) 17:05, 15 September 2016 (UTC)


 * revisitng this jazz critic, journalist, DJ with mostly regional notability, but whose work is fairly widely cited. However, there is at least one profile of his work, in the Boston Globe,  WBUR's Isaacs Is Anything but Predictable,Kahn, Joseph P. Boston Globe [Boston Globe] 11 April 1989.  So I will stand by my keep iVote (above).E.M.Gregory (talk) 12:45, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Radio-related deletion discussions.  WC  Quidditch   &#9742;   &#9998;  05:26, 13 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete as the Keep votes are still simply citing thin or trivial sources, certainly nothing actually confirming his own substance as an independent article; the current article simply states information about connections, not how there's enough for his own information. SwisterTwister   talk  00:20, 18 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete. The model of improper sourcing, for all of these are mere obligatory mentions that a particular journalist has written about something. That does not make the journalist notable.  DGG ( talk ) 05:01, 18 September 2016 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.