LF: Sortable Blue Note Album listing

[felser]

Looking for a listing of Blue Note albums I can sort by artist, by catalog number, possibly by recording date.  Something I can stick into Excel and play with.  Does anyone have any leads on this?  I've done a few google searches over the years without success.  Thanks.

[Peter Johnson]

Following!

[bertrand]

This sounds like a group project several of us could collaborate on!

The basic data is at jazzdisco.org, need to figure out how to import it. Maybe creating an excel from there is the way to go.

[felser]

 Copying in the rows from the site into an Excel file is easy enough.  Some excel wizard may know how to parse those rows of data from there into columns - I don't.

[JSngry]

7 hours ago, felser said:

 Copying in the rows from the site into an Excel file is easy enough.  Some excel wizard may know how to parse those rows of data from there into columns - I don't.

No idea what you're working with, but your Text-to-Columns tool might come into play here at some point.

[Eric]

5 hours ago, JSngry said:

No idea what you're working with, but your Text-to-Columns tool might come into play here at some point.

Not an Excel guru here.  I grabbed one of the files from jazzdisco.org and pasted to Excel.  Here is an example:

• BLP 1519   Herbie Nichols Trio   1956

I am able to use text to columns to separate the "BLP" from "1519" and "1519" from "Herbie."  Not sure how to separate the "Trio" from "1956."  I mean, easy enough for one row, but not sure how to do it for 400-500 rows.

[JSngry]

Text to Columns, use a Delimited function, and specify "Space" as your delimiter. That will separate everything at once.

One thing, though - with stuff like this, work with numbers as text. Remove all variable outcomes, as much as possible.

Generally speaking (and with the data I work with, which is not necessarily data such as this), I use text to columns to take everything apart and then use the Concatenate function to put it back into a single cell the way I want it.

Using Concatenate, you'll probably find it easier to use a blank row at the farthest right empty cell of your list. But play with that to see what's easiest for you, the user.

Again generally speaking, you can find a function/formula that works for you in one row and then drag it down all rows once you get it set up in such a way that that will get you what you want. That's probably not going to be at the beginning of the process, though.

Probably easier to use a database program or to get some freakyfast macro writer to make it work quick, but if you're in the mood for old school "under the hood" shit, you can do it.

I do something sorta similar when Tommy's Jazz sends out those massive label-catalogue mailing lists to get them queued up in such a way that I can quickishly decide what I already have, what I want, and what I'm gonna pass on. It is more than a bit manual, but I enjoy that type of stuff, so it's fun for me, at least for a while.

[Teasing the Korean]

Waiting for Chuck to say "Buy a discography."  It's like Chinese water torture.

[mjazzg]

He may just treat us again to his favourite...

"sigh"

[bertrand]

An old school discography will not allow the manipulations that Felser wants to do.

 I will play around with Jim's suggestions.

[mikeweil]

Either way, someone has to type the data into an excel table or a database. Do the work first.

[JSngry]

41 minutes ago, mikeweil said:

Do the work first.

Yeah, get them all into your spreadsheet first. Then you can work on all the rows or columns in as big a chunk as possible.

Just watch out for trailing or leading spaces when copying/pasting. That stuff will jack you up in a big hurry 

This could be fun for somebody wanting to play with Excel, to advance from rudimental or basic level skills to a notch or two higher. I work with people who are true Excel power users, and it's such a powerful tool that the type of stuff we're looking at here is not at all "advanced" - unless you're never done it before. But you can get the answer to damn near any quandary on Google, and after a while... it's fun, if you like it.

[felser]

2 hours ago, Teasing the Korean said:

Waiting for Chuck to say "Buy a discography."  It's like Chinese water torture.

I already own two BN discographies, Vol. 1 of the Ruppli (by session) and  Vol. 2 of the Malott (by album release).  What I want to be able to do is sort the albums by artist and check against my collection to see what holes I may have.  I had thought there would be a good chance someone somewhere had already done this. 

Edited December 30, 2021 by felser

[JSngry]

Doesn't Lord sell some kind of database version of his stuff.

If I hear you right, you want one list of all product to bump up against a similarly formatted list of you existing collection, right? V-lookup time, right?

If you want to keep it super simple, just use catalog numbers, find you matches or misses and then paste in the other relevant data from that site.

It's do-able as a project, especially if you have an existing set of data on which to model a new one.

[felser]

2 hours ago, JSngry said:

Doesn't Lord sell some kind of database version of his stuff.

If I hear you right, you want one list of all product to bump up against a similarly formatted list of you existing collection, right? V-lookup time, right?

If you want to keep it super simple, just use catalog numbers, find you matches or misses and then paste in the other relevant data from that site.

It's do-able as a project, especially if you have an existing set of data on which to model a new one.

I actually don't have a list of my collection, never got around to it.  Was supposed to be one of my first retirement projects, but I didn't expect to be taking care of a (lovable) 3 year old!  Still hope to get to that someday.

[Teasing the Korean]

3 hours ago, felser said:

I already own two BN discographies, Vol. 1 of the Ruppli (by session) and  Vol. 2 of the Malott (by album release).  What I want to be able to do is sort the albums by artist and check against my collection to see what holes I may have.  I had thought there would be a good chance someone somewhere had already done this. 

Then Chuck would say, "Buy a digital sortable discography."  

[mikeweil]

You could share the work. Set up an excel file or a database, type in the first fifty sessions and issues and pass it on to the next person. Open Office can handle and save Microsift files as well. You could type all into a new Brian file as well and limit it to Blue Note sessions. As different compilations exist this could be an advantage. Share the files, share th work.

[felser]

10 hours ago, Teasing the Korean said:

Then Chuck would say, "Buy a digital sortable discography."  

If he sends me the link, I'll do that!

1 hour ago, mikeweil said:

You could share the work. Set up an excel file or a database, type in the first fifty sessions and issues and pass it on to the next person. Open Office can handle and save Microsift files as well. You could type all into a new Brian file as well and limit it to Blue Note sessions. As different compilations exist this could be an advantage. Share the files, share th work.

I can easily get the issues into a spreadsheet (can copy in from Wikipedia) if someone else is willing to work on parsing out the columns using text to columns tool.  I'm interested in the original  releases rather than the sessions.