morte100 wrote:I think what I mostly need to do now is distill the number of song classifications that I have down to several essential categories. A few of you (Ron, Roy, Greg, etc) listed the categories you use. Anyone else out there use such categories? _david
If only out of habit (but also because of volume), Basie and Ellington are at the front of the book, no matter the genre or size of the band in the recording. Then I try to burn compilations by musician--or by genre if I don't have enough of any given musician (each CD-R compilation cherry-picks the best stuff from 5-7 CDs, so I need that many to fill it). I also try to organize by slowest to fastest on each CD (if I have the time while burning). I then loosely organize by genre as follows:
Swing Era Big Band
Hi-Fi Big Band
Mainstream Jazz (Small group swing)
Male Singer-fronted jazz (including Sinatra, Nat King Cole...)
Female Singer-Fronted Jazz (Ella, Carmen McRae...)
Groove Swing
Jump Blues
Blues (Stevie Ray Vaughn, Snooky Pryor; not "slow dances," which are mixed in throughout)
Neo Swing
Westie
Hip-Hop/Rap/Funk
I suspect that the method you use would depend on how large your DJ book is and how you burn your compilations: by artist, by genre, or just randomly. Larger collections call for more fine-tuned distinctions.
Also, I would probably have more genres if I didn't need to organize by CD: say, if I had everything on a computer with a database allowing for easy shuffling.