Comments on: How To Organize Your Jazz Vinyl . . . Who Knows!!??!!?

By: jjay

jjay — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 01:38:55 +0000

It is more than obvious we vinyl hoarder are different sort of breed, I organize by very haphazardly, Blue Notes in one place, Then Big Band in one place, Progressive rock in one place, Sound Tracks R&B and funk etc… all alphabetized, it works for me. But my Blue Notes are about to bleed over into another shelf, Now what? I can not stand to not have them all together, I guess I will just have to buy more Blue Notes and take over the Big Band shelf.

By: Mattyman

Mattyman — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 14:37:37 +0000

My collection of seventies funk, disco, r&b and basically all other styles that I’ve acquired over the years is in alphabetical order. The modest collection of Blue Notes that I have is stored by number, starting with BLP 1501. The one BN 10″ from Sydney Bechet that I have is placed right before 1501. And while I write this I suddenly wonder why Alfred Lion didn’t just start with 1500 instead of 1501. And why continue with 4000 after 1600? 😉

By: ADAMSKI

ADAMSKI — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 11:00:32 +0000

All the Impulses together, a nice block of orange spines….All the original Blue Notes together, then the Japs etc, etc, still chaos though, can never really find what I want when I want it but thats the point right?, an Aladdin’s cave….you want to find one record then bump into another whilst searching and you go off musically in another direction…A dot for dot musical montage! Anyhow who has the time to organise (Queen’s English, no z!)
Don’t organise just play them beauties…..

By: Rudolf

Rudolf — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 10:31:36 +0000

I have Dutch, English, French, Italian, Japanese and Swedish/Danish sections, next to the US section.
In each section storage according to labels or group of labels (Prestige, NJ, SV, Status) etc.
The small labels ( < 5 ) are in a miscellaneous section, alphabetically.
By organizing by artist or instrument, one gets stuck with the anthologies.

By: ceedee

ceedee — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 06:53:05 +0000

It’s really simple,folks. Just sort them alphabetically! But then…when you have a pile that you ‘promise to play first’ before you pull anything ELSE off the wall,the section of lps to be sold on Ebay,the ones you WON on Ebay that you’ve haven’ played yet-and the stack to trade in at the local shop that never sell(which you’re tired of relisting). Now put those records on oversized shelves in two different rooms,stir in equal amounts of cds with a liberal sprinkling of laserdiscs and…there you have it!
I’m not quite sure what ‘it’ is,but as the Beatles sang-“I can’t tell you,but I know it’s mine”.

By: Lennib

Lennib — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 02:34:00 +0000

“Not necessarily in number order — then I’d feel compelled to fill in every number —”
A long time and several moves ago I lived in Chicago and was a 78 collector, mostly bop and I had the Prestige/Blue Note/Savoy discos and I began to collect every bop 78 I could in addition to collecting all the Prestige 78’s. New Jazz, TruSound, all of ’em. Well, I got a run of 98% at least and then realized that I was searching for 78’s that may not have sold more than 5 copies, all to the artist’s family back in the day, and I was competing with doo-wop collectors for those. So passion abated and before we moved from Chicago I sold all my 78’s, all stored by number, then label. And then I sold most of my reocrds.
And I am still doing that, selling my records. Wish I would have Kept those 30 Blue Note 10″, though.
Is there a moral in this, maybe not. Collecting by number got frustrating for me and so I quit. Now the records I have left are stored by artists. Except the 20 or so items that I classify as Free Jazz by American Muslims, all on strnge esoteric labels from the ’60’s, a most personal and weird category. I guess you could say whatever way you sort ’em out, it’s still great to have ’em. Records, that is.

By: Tim

Tim — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:13:09 +0000

Mine are alphabetical, separated by genre. Jazz being the biggest group–Rock/R&B/Soul in a section–Country LP’s in a section etc…

May consider spitting the Jazz section up by label–that’s a good idea.

By: Cazoon

Cazoon — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 23:24:16 +0000

Re: Mike F
I think you’re right, “Japan using an roman character alphabetical system doesn’t really make sense”. I’m in Florida, Tampa Bay Area. Never been to Japan. Instrumentally just make sense to me. 🙂

By: bill

bill — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 23:07:41 +0000

Hi Al. I think John Cusack had a good idea in the movie High Fidelity. He organized his records biographically. He had to remember what happened the day he acquired the record. For me that would mean Dave Brubeck Take Five at the front of the line, so I settled for alphabetically with the various artists at the end (labels alphabetically). Have fun with your organizing.

By: Mike F

Mike F — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 21:50:27 +0000

My organization philosophy is similar to others. Major labels(or any label I have more that say 25 records) are all together. I put them in label number order. The remaining lps I organize alphabetically. I don’t think there is a wrong way to do it, like MaartenKools says “it’s all irrational behaviour”. I do enjoy hearing how others do it though.
Cazoon, when I was digging through record shops in Japan they tend to organize by instrument as well. I had never seen that before. It does make sense, sometimes I just want hear a trumpet player. And, in Japan using an roman character alphabetical system doesn’t really make sense. Where are you from?