For the last few year at JazzGraphs I’ve depended on the MusicBrainz database to draw data that populates many of the network graphs and other visualizations on the site. It’s an immense dataset that can be downloaded (as I’ve previously done) or accessed via the MusicBrainz API (Application Programming Interface). For upcoming visualizations, I’ve elected to go the API route, but simply as a means to access data, not to use in traditional API fashion. This approach allows for querying the topics I choose – specific artists, genres, recordings, etc. and pull down only the data needed to create a visualization.
