Building up your swing collection

[Bob the Builder]

I've been building up my Swing collection now for the past 3 years and am very close to the 300 mark.
In general, my selection of buying music has been very general with a bit of every style. However in the past few months it’s been a very specific aspect of swing, and even though I have an interest in other areas my biggest interest is one particular area.
Is this a good way to go with your CD collection, or should you try to keep my over all collection more general.

Bob

[Toon Town Dave]

I guess it depends what you're buying for. If you're buying to DJ, then it would seem logical to buy music that you would expect to use. If you DJ just swing (excluding WCS, Shag, etc) then you might direct your buying toward that but if you DJ anything and everything, then undoubtedly you'd probably buy stuff across the board ... although the current hits might come from a subscription to the top-20 of the month CDs that are available to DJs.

If you are buying for your personal listening pleasure then buy what you like and keep it varied ... too much of a good thing can get stale.

[Bob the Builder]

I'm just DJing to Lindy hoppers, and other wise I'm buying for me.

[Lawrence]

I've been building up my Swing collection now for the past 3 years and am very close to the 300 mark.
In general, my selection of buying music has been very general with a bit of every style. However in the past few months it’s been a very specific aspect of swing, and even though I have an interest in other areas my biggest interest is one particular area.
Is this a good way to go with your CD collection, or should you try to keep my over all collection more general.

You should keep your TASTES diverse, not just buy diverse CDs for the namesake of diversity. If you do the latter, you will substantially increase the chances of buying crap.

Nonetheless, I certainly understand the tendency to plow into a certain sub-genre with tunnel-visioned interest so as to really learn it and get excited by it. When I do so, I try to keep in mind that not everyone will necessarily follow me on my little obsessive tangent, and that I should still play "other stuff" besides what I feel particularly obsessed with at the moment.

[CafeSavoy]

What's the particular area?

[Bob the Builder]

For me at the moment I just can't get enough of Black Harlem/New York Big Band recordings during the 30's.

Bob

[Matthew]

For me at the moment I just can't get enough of Black Harlem/New York Big Band recordings during the 30's.

Yeah, same here. I really like the older recordings. To me, they feel as though they swing much harder than any later stuff. What, specifically, have you been buying?

[Bob the Builder]

I've been working hard on getting Savoy house bands. Amazon is nearly a five month waiting on some of them.
I'm getting a lot of Fletcher Henderson and will be looking for some Mills Blue Rhythm band over the next few months.
There is some kind of rawness that these bands have that makes them swing so hard. The syncopation is just unreal and the energy level. Ahh, it just kicks. It’s so easy to see how Lindy hop developed so much during this period, with that kind of music.

Bob