Talk:Scott Yanow

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Scott Yanow may be a phenomenal trumpet player, but the language on this page reads like a press release. For example:

He is one of the most prolific and widely respected jazz journalists in the business, considered an expert on all eras of jazz from New Orleans, swing and bebop to fusion, the avant-garde and today’s jazz scene.

Outside reference for this?

dfrankow 21:52, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

I was not aware that he was a trumpet player. Did you actually read the entry? And his writings during the past 30 years show that he is an expert on all eras of jazz. After all, he has written quite a few well-reviewed books on the subject.

Good call. This was linked from the trumpet page (now from the talk page), but I didn't read carefully enough to see he was not a trumpet player. However, NPOV check tag probably still valid. dfrankow 04:27, 9 May 2006 (UTC)


Scott Yanow is so awful that when I read his reports I know that if he makes a bad report the CD is good and the opposite.From the way he writes, he neither does not know music or he does not listen to the recordings.I am very serious on this.In his comments always the "highlights of the session" is some beaten to death old standard.Obviously either he is not bothered to "waste" time to try to understand modern compositions with harmonic complexity, or he simply does not know music theory. Lacky

First, I'd like to thank Wikipedia for having an entry on me. I consider that an honor. In the case of the above comment, I'm always the first to say that critics are not above being criticized; that's only fair. My guess is that Lacky has either had a CD of his/her criticized or that of a spouse, friend or someone he/she really likes. Since there is no way to know which recording it was from his/her's anonymous name, I will just say that Lacky is certainly free to not read my reviews, or to follow the complete opposite of my advice, though if one's record collection consists purely of the recordings that I am negative about, it will be one of the oddest ones in creation! As far as listening to recordings all the way through (which I always do), my knowledge of music theory or my openness to innovative jazz, my writing speaks for itself. I do not take back anything that I've written since 1975. 207.200.116.14 17:57, 5 July 2006 (UTC)Scott Yanow

Well Scott, let me say that I have appreciated your articles on allmusic.com. I noticed that your ip address (207.200.116.14) and that of one of the previous editors (207.200.116.200) seem to be very similar which suggests that you added to the article which is ok according to Wikipedia policy as outline here Wikipedia:Autobiography as long as there is an outside source (your auto-biography on your site will suffice). I can see why the neutrality flag was raised since there things like "the invaluable All Music Guide website" and yes, that is not really neutral. I'll do my best to remove things that don't seem neutral, but Scott, thanks for expanding the article (if you did), and feel free to add to or change the article. Oh yeah, if you could add when you were born that would be cool too. dq 23:21, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Is the "citation needed" really required for the statement that SY's probably written more jazz record reviews than anyone else? I mean, such things aren't generally tabulated, but even a cursory look at the pages of the AMG, Yanow's various books, &c, puts this statement beyond a doubt. -- Kind of weird to have this much detail on SY versus, say, the minimal entries or non-entries for major critics like Whitney Balliett or Martin Williams, but then again I know almost nothing about them beyond their actual writing so it's hard to know where to begin.... ND 07:13, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Go ahead, take it out if you want. I put it there because it seemed like the statement needed to be backed-up. The only reason why this article is so extensive is because it was expanded by its namesake (see above comments). We cleaned it up to be a little less biased. Feel free to add your 2-cents; remember be BOLD. dq 03:00, 19 September 2006 (UTC)