Item talk:Q2

The Linked Jazz Project Wikibase Project Page

Project Description

Linked Jazz is an ongoing Semantic Lab project focusing on the application of semantic web technologies to the history of American jazz. Started in 2011, Linked Jazz has branched into a variety of subprojects each centered around either a resource type (oral histories, union lists), a specific archival collection (the Weeksville Lost Jazz Shrines of Brooklyn collection), or a community segment (women jazz musicians, all women bands).

More specific information about each project, including scope and data models, can be found under each project page:

• The Linked Jazz Oral History Project: The original Linked Jazz project that mapped social networks and affiliations in the jazz world using transcribed oral histories as data sources. Legacy data from this project was imported into Semantic Lab’s Wikibase in 2019.
• Linking Lost Jazz Shrines: A collaboration that began in 2018 between the archives at Weeksville Heritage and Semantic Lab to create linked open data from oral history transcripts covering the Brooklyn, New York jazz scene. Data from this project was modeled for Semantic Lab’s Wikibase. (project page in progress)
• Women of Jazz: A Linked Jazz project spanning various topics that engage and promote the history of women in jazz and their contributions. This project began in 2020.
• International Sweethearts of Rhythm: A specific historical case study, graphing the musicians and early performances of this famous all-women swing band. Based on bibliographic materials: monographs, scholarly publications, newspaper event listings, and photographs. Records for ISR musicians and other all-women bands are interlinked with records newly created on Wikidata. This project began in 2020.
• Local 496: A collaboration between Tulane University’s Hogan Jazz Archive and Semantic Lab to represent members of the Local 496 African American musician labor union in New Orleans based on the official 1940s roster. This project began in 2019. (project page pending)

These distinct projects are interlinked through their shared use of properties and the entities they have in common, such as people and places. Please see the section Project Data below for examples that query across Linked Jazz projects.

Project Data

Note: If you would like to read a general description about data on Semantic Lab's Wikibase and various ways to query data, please see the home page for Semantic Lab’s Wikibase.

Network Visualization
A visualization of musicians and their relationships to each other can be viewed here.

Example SPARQL Queries

Retrieve the list of all people across Linked Jazz projects:
https://tinyurl.com/y2mm6lhw

Retrieve a list of all people across Linked Jazz projects and the number of projects (note: count may include non-Linked Jazz projects)
https://tinyurl.com/y3jdbkz6

Property usage across all Linked Jazz Projects
https://tinyurl.com/yaelene6