I did a couple productive things this past weekend. 1) I alphabetized my Jazz collection (which took a few hours) and in the process I found I had a few duplicates (which can happen when you have over 1000 CDs). 2) From my organized collection, I pulled out 6 Tom Scott CDs, put them in my player, hit shuffle and started taping (muted the sound). This is great fun when I finally play the tape later in my car. I was pleasantly surprised by the outcome. I have also done the same with some Bob James CDs, but haven't listened to it yet. I love surprises. If it's not to my liking, back to the cassette recorder and shuffler. It's also fun to mix and match complementary artists/groups in the shuffler.

Lurch,

THAT is a great idea. Another idea is to record your own "Best Of" of a band or artist, and then set it aside for awhile.

Then try to guess the sequencing of the songs. It's fun, cause your memory of the way the songs track on the CD's always competes with your attempts to remember how YOU sequenced your tape.

By the way, with that shuffle and record silently thing, do you find it tough sometimes to pick the six CD's?
The Ripps have 12 cd's, including the live CD and the greatest hits CD.

With Spyro Gyra, it's even tougher to choose the five or six....they have 24 CD's!

Peace!
Paul

Paul,
I have made a few 'favorites' tapes of different artists and I tend to do them in either chronological order or countdown format (to my most favorite--which can be very tough).
It is very tough when an artist has more than 6 CDs, but I would then pick my 6 favorites(and that could take some soul searching).
One other shuffle/tape idea I want to try soon is to blindly select 6 out of my collection.

[This message has been edited by lurchtex (edited 09-30-99).]

Lurchtex,

I love making my own "best of's". I usually start all my tapes with my all time favorite track, theen my second all time, my third...ect. I usually try to intigrate my favorite track off all the cd's that the artist has released. This worked particularly well for my Ripps compliation, a bit less successfully when I did my Spyro Gyra and Pat Metheny compilations...my favorite songs fo those to bands seem to change more often than my favorites of the Ripps.
It's a fun thing to do...almost like you are playing DJ.

Peace!
Paul

Paul,
You betcha...be your own DJ without the chatter and commercials and all your favorite tunes. I like that combination. You have inspired me to put together a 'Jazz show' on tape. Thanks!!!