Your Music Collector Idiosyncrasies

[Rooster_Ties]

4 hours ago, Rabshakeh said:

Same, although I add a third: Evil Jazz, which is the part of the jazz collection my wife knows to stay away from.

I’ll have to ask my wife if she thinks most of my jazz is ‘evil’ — but I suspect I already know the answer (hint: it’s “yes”).

But I do have a specific section that’s “jazz my wife likes” — about 50 discs that are mostly piano stuff (trios mostly), sans horns — but especially sans saxophone, which my wife truly regards as evil (I know that, for sure!).

But, bless her, she digs Mal Waldron (Free at Last, especially), and the Legendary Hasaan Ibn Ali trio album — and plenty of Stanley Cowell (she even ‘knows’ a few of his tunes enough to recognize him), and John Hicks too — and she’s been to see Brad Mehldau 3 or maybe 4 times, iirc, including one of his free-form solo concerts (and once without me, before I’d gotten moved to Washington, while I was still trying to sell our house).

Oh, and she really likes the solo piano disc of Lennie Tristano’s from the Tristano/Konitz/Marsh Mosaic, and its twin from the new Tristano Mosaic of Lennie’s personal recordings

I say she thinks saxophone is evil, but she’s fine with Dave Brubeck (we both love Jazz Impressions of Eurasia), and tolerates Lee Konitz pretty well.

Edited April 29, 2022 by Rooster_Ties

[Rabshakeh]

2 hours ago, Rooster_Ties said:

I’ll have to ask my wife if she thinks most of my jazz is ‘evil’ — but I suspect I already know the answer (hint: it’s “yes”).

But I do have a specific section that’s “jazz my wife likes” — about 50 discs that are mostly piano stuff (trios mostly), sans horns — but especially sans saxophone, which my wife truly regards as evil (I know that, for sure!).

But, bless her, she digs Mal Waldron (Free at Last, especially), and the Legendary Hasaan Ibn Ali trio album — and plenty of Stanley Cowell (she even ‘knows’ a few of his tunes enough to recognize him), and John Hicks too — and she’s been to see Brad Mehldau 3 or maybe 4 times, iirc, including one of his free-form solo concerts (and once without me, before I’d gotten moved to Washington, while I was still trying to sell our house).

Oh, and she really liked the solo piano disc of Lennie Tristano’s from the Tristano/Konitz/Marsh Mosaic, and its twin from the new Tristano Mosaic of Lennie’s personal recordings

I say she thinks saxophone is evil, but she’s fine with Dave Brubeck (we both love Jazz Impressions of Eurasia), and tolerates Lee Konitz pretty well.

Same. No 1970s 'The wife' humour here. The non-Evil Jazz and Not Jazz sections of my collection are bought and maintained with my wife in mind. If she doesn't like or doesn't play a record, and there's no strict sentimental attachment to it, then it's on the Out pile.

The Evil Jazz section is really there to make sure that she doesn't accidentally put Nonaah on during a dinner party.

Edited April 29, 2022 by Rabshakeh

[Teasing the Korean]

8 hours ago, felser said:

I only have two filing genres ("Jazz" and "Everything Else"), but do split my CD's by someone like Lou Rawls across those.  How many genres do you have his stuff in?

Probably about 16-18 genres.  Some sections are tiny, like the Zodiac and Disaster Films sections.  Other sections are huge, like the Now Sound/Groovy section.  A jazz artist who had a long and varied career could be alternately filed in Jazz, Now Sound/Groovy, Bossa/Brazil, Latin, Exotica, Crime Jazz, Space-Age Bachelor Pad.  

 

Edited April 29, 2022 by Teasing the Korean

[Rabshakeh]

12 minutes ago, Teasing the Korean said:

Probably about 16-18 genres.  Some sections are tiny, like the Zodiac and Disaster Films sections.  Other sections are huge, like the Now Sound/Groovy section.  A jazz artist who had a long and varied career could be alternately filed in Jazz, Now Sound/Groovy, Bossa/Brazil, Latin, Exotica, Crime Jazz, Space-Age Bachelor Pad.  

What goes in a Zodiac section?

[Teasing the Korean]

25 minutes ago, Rabshakeh said:

What goes in a Zodiac section?

• The Astrological series on GWP Records
• John Dankworth -  The Zodiac Variations
• Jerry Butler - The Sagittarius Movement
• Rick Holmes/Adderleys - Soul Zodiac
• Eddie Henderson - Realization

And, an album that I consider to be one of the greatest albums ever made:

• Zodiac: Cosmic Sounds by Mort Garson on Elektra.  I keep both a mono and stereo copy of this one.

 

Edited April 29, 2022 by Teasing the Korean

[Rabshakeh]

16 minutes ago, Teasing the Korean said:

• Eddie Harris - Realization

I briefly got excited, but I assume that this is Henderson rather than Harris.

36 minutes ago, Teasing the Korean said:

A jazz artist who had a long and varied career could be alternately filed in Jazz, Now Sound/Groovy, Bossa/Brazil, Latin, Exotica, Crime Jazz, Space-Age Bachelor Pad.  

Where is Big Band Bossa Nova by Quincy Jones filed?

[Teasing the Korean]

2 minutes ago, Rabshakeh said:

I briefly got excited, but I assume that this is Henderson rather than Harris.

Yes, corrected.

2 minutes ago, Rabshakeh said:

Where is Big Band Bossa Nova by Quincy Jones filed?

Bossa/Brasil.

[Rooster_Ties]

1 hour ago, Rabshakeh said:

No 1970s 'The wife' humour here. The non-Evil Jazz and Not Jazz sections of my collection are bought and maintained with my wife in mind.

I’m constantly keeping my eyes out for interesting mostly-piano-centric jazz that my wife will like — and there are easily 15 obscure, unknown jazz artists’ discs I’ve also picked up from Dusty Groove that I’ve bought entirely because I try and find online samples of anything I think will really pique her interest.

She likes some Bad Plus, and a little GoGo Penguin. And I’ve found some other more modern piano jazz with more ‘indie-rock’-style production values. I’ll have to look, and find (and post) some samples to better explain.

Edited April 29, 2022 by Rooster_Ties

[Pim]

Well I have the same thing with vol1. vol.2 etc. Might be able to live with only vol.1 but seeing only vol.2 without 1…. The horror!

All my cds are catalogued alphabetically. Seeing all Trane’s Impulse! Cd’s next to each other is a compulsive dream 

[Teasing the Korean]

18 minutes ago, Pim said:

All my cds are catalogued alphabetically. Seeing all Trane’s Impulse! Cd’s next to each other is a compulsive dream 

I file Trane's Le Chat Dans le Sac in the French Jazz section, so there is one impulse! spine not with the others.

Edited April 29, 2022 by Teasing the Korean

[Rabshakeh]

12 minutes ago, Teasing the Korean said:

I file Trane's Le Chat Dans le Sac in the French Jazz section, so there is one impulse! spine not with the others.

Is it a Canadian film? We may have found another section.

18 minutes ago, Pim said:

All my cds are catalogued alphabetically. Seeing all Trane’s Impulse! Cd’s next to each other is a compulsive dream 

Back in my CD days, I used alphabetical, but my collection was too diffuse. It was seeing the black and orange Coltranes next to Company Flow and Converge that made me reorganise by genre.

[Teasing the Korean]

13 minutes ago, Rabshakeh said:

Is it a Canadian film? We may have found another section.

French Canadian.

Cronenberg scores are filed in the Gothic/Macabre/Horror/Sci-Fi/Fantasy section.

[mjazzg]

I've just worked out I have 15 or so sections...I need help! That's just the LPs. And that's without a 'Zodiac' section (although I do have the Dankworth, great album)

CDs are a little less diffuse

Edited April 29, 2022 by mjazzg

[jazzbo]

Most would consider the layout of my entire collection to be idiosyncratic, or weird. 

It's mostly chaotic. No rhyme or reason. About a third is in a climate-controlled storage unit, much of which has not been rooted through or listened to for seven years. Just a situational thing. I did choose that third to be stored wisely.

The rest is jammed back into two different areas of my house much to my wife's chagrin and uneasy tolerance. For some reason most of my Miles Davis collection, nearly every single Blue Note and Japanese EMI releases, the entirety of my Bethlehem label collection (nearly every title) and nearly all of my Impulse collection are separate and together but the rest are willy-nilly.

I like it this way. I go through my shelves over and over again and shift things around and pull out handfuls to play.

[HutchFan]

10 hours ago, felser said:

I only have two filing genres ("Jazz" and "Everything Else"), but do split my CD's by someone like Lou Rawls across those.  How many genres do you have his stuff in?

I file my music collection similarly -- but I have three categories: Jazz, Classical, and Everything Else.

 

[Larry Kart]

8 minutes ago, HutchFan said:

I file my music collection similarly -- but I have three categories: Jazz, Classical, and Everything Else.

 

Classical -- chronological at first, then, as time marches on, by country of origin (French, German, English,American etc.)  then for each country an eventual  modern wing. Jazz -- traditional, Swing, modern, avant grade (alphabetical within categories).

[Rabshakeh]

I’m always interested to hear about this stuff.

2 minutes ago, Larry Kart said:

Jazz -- traditional, Swing, modern, avant grade (alphabetical within categories).

Does this reflect a distaste for fusion or is it dispersed within Modern and Avant Garde?

[Teasing the Korean]

6 minutes ago, Larry Kart said:

Classical -- chronological at first, then, as time marches on, by country of origin (French, German, English,American etc.)  then for each country an eventual  modern wing. 

So within those sections, do you file by composer, and how do you file classical albums with two or more composers included?

[Larry Kart]

9 hours ago, Rabshakeh said:

I’m always interested to hear about this stuff.

Does this reflect a distaste for fusion or is it dispersed within Modern and Avant Garde?

Little or no fusion, based on distaste/indifference.

9 hours ago, Teasing the Korean said:

So within those sections, do you file by composer, and how do you file classical albums with two or more composers included?

By composer; two or more composers, I use my version of common sense, i.e. which composer is the more notable one in my reckoning.

[JSngry]

For classical, I'm getting enough inventory to do the filing thing and I THINK I'm going to go with with filing by performer if the performer is in fact the "star" of the record. Otherwise, by composer. And if it gets too wonky, there will be a group for little children who don't follow the rules.

No matter how you do it though, allow me to reiterate my overriding rule - put your shit where you can find it. Even if you forget it for 10-15 years, when you finally DO remember it, have it where you know you'll find it.

It's so much easier that way!

[Rooster_Ties]

I’ve never filed classical under anything other than composer — realizing I do have plenty of discs with multiple composers.

That said, my wife has a big interest in Scandinavian composers (Norwegian and Swedish especially) — and for all those multi-composer discs of ‘Scandihoovian’ stuff, all that goes in a separate section all by itself, along with some Scandinavian folk music stuff too.

That all works for me — but then I rarely ever think of my classical discs in terms of who the conductor or soloist is. My brain only has room for composers in it, at least in terms of my ‘memory’. I do remember a few here and there, but usually only ensemble names — and even more rarely, conductors. (And practically never soloists.)

[JSngry]

The modern string quartets (and there's a lot of them!) almost never do records with single composers. So they get filed by group. Arditti Quartet, don't care if they do 20 records of the same composer, it's an Arditti Quartet record in my book.

Caroline Shaw is on some of these records, but she makes her own records of her compositions, so she gets filed by her.

I look at it like, who is the real focus of this record for me, why am i bringing it into my house. Tie goes to the composer, but there's seldom a tie, really.

[Peter Friedman]

People that come to my house and see many thousands of CDs on shelves in about 4 rooms in my house frequently ask me if I am able to find CDs easily. I actually do know where almost every Cd is located with only the very very rare exception.

Things are filed in 3 categories.

1.Classical CDs are filed by composer in alphabetical order.

2. Jazz and blues vocalists are filed  in alpha order by last name of singer.

3. Jazz instrumentals, which make up 80% of my collection are filed by label, with labels in alpha order. Within each label CDs are filed in alpha order by leader.

As has been mentioned by others, there are a few filing issues that are not always easy to resolve.

When it comes to record/CD labels, sometimes the label originally used has been changed for some reason. For example, some recordings originally released on Riverside may have been reissued on Landmark or on Milestone. 

Classical recordings might be divided into music by 2 or more composers, say a String Quartet by both Dvorak and Schubert on the same CD. So it becomes a value judgement as to where it should be filed. The same kind of thing existed on some vocal recordings.

 

 

[Teasing the Korean]

6 hours ago, JSngry said:

No matter how you do it though, allow me to reiterate my overriding rule - put your shit where you can find it.

This.

[Teasing the Korean]

6 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

By composer; two or more composers, I use my version of common sense, i.e. which composer is the more notable one in my reckoning.

I do something similar, but based more on the piece that I really care about.

That said, I equally love the Debussy and Ravel string quartets, and because they are usually paired together, I file some copies under D and others under R.