Go to the Orem Public Library. They have a huge cd collection, and you can check out as many cd's as you want for 2 weeks free. All you need is a letter or ID showing that you live in Orem or Provo, and they'll let you have library priveledges. I don't know if the library has everything I've talked about, but they do have a lot of it.

If you're just starting out, go for a compilation of Big-Band swing or *most anything with "War Years" on it. You'll get a few cd's with the popular songs from WWII for a less money than you would spend hunting down cd's that have those songs on them. You'll want cd's with artists like Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, and Louis Armstrong. There are a lot of Big-Band artists, so don't limit your selection to those few. The nice thing about compilation cd's is that you can listen to a wide variety and then decide which artists you like enough to buy more of their music.

If you want more modern swing cd's, check out Royal Crown Revue's "Mugsy's Move", and Indigo Swing (to name a couple popular ones off the top of my head.) The library has both of these.

Some semi-obvious ones you might want to out are Harry Connick Jr., Diana Krall, Michael Buble, Frank Sinatra, etc. These should be in the Jazz section.

Hope that helps.

Well it depends on what you are looking for... are you wanting Jazz music that really swings? or more for listening? Do you want to stay with the more "pop" jazz.. or are you mor einto the "be bop" jazz era.. then of course there's "R & B" and Jump blues.. so first I guess figure out what kind of music makes you want to get up and dance.. then go from there... For me it's Dixieland and pre WWII jazz... Duke's Early years, Basie, Webb, Al cooper, Erskine Hawkis and Fletcher Henderson as well as Louis Armstrong's Hot 5.. blah blah blah... but that's me, i know when I first started out trying to get a music collection I had a lot of hits and misses.. but that was part of the fun and it helped me get educated in Jazz and other forms of music as well

So I got a pair of headphones for work, but didn't have any music. After a while listening to classical stuff off iTunes radio, I got this bright idea to see if there were stations which play swing music.

Sure enough, Yehoodi has Yehoodi radio, which shows the group and song name, so I can familiarize myself with both. I started copying out the title, etc. into a file for prioritizing and starting a collection down the road.

I must admit I really have very little knowledge about what goes into swing music, but a few hours of listenting while I worked on FPGA FSM's got me a list of some people and songs that sounded fun to dance to. (I should probably have started a list of stuff I didn't like either).

This isn't the perfect solution. Like any radio, you just get the bias' and agenda of the DJ's and their station, but it seems like a good place to start, and a develop a taste for what gets me swingin'.

Does anybody else have experience on building up a music collection? Links to other good internet radio sites or essential Swing music repertoire? ASwingS tends to post their play lists for the night on their forum's, so I need to correlate some data.

Yehoodi radio is sweet.... most of the time. Some DJs play lot of music with vocals. I've recently decided I don't like jazz with female vocals... unless it's Ella.

popthestack:

I've recently decided I don't like jazz with female vocals... unless it's Ella.

Hmm... I'm going to have to ponder that and get back to you. I hope a generalization like that isn't true.

... How about Anita O'Day?

Okay...you can't just look at a CD cover and figure out if the CD is swingy or not. THat will usually work mostly with the usual mainstream artists you know that swing and recomendations from other music officianados

But apart from that it is alot of listening and buying...I know that costs alot of money but you do have to do it...for example I do not know a single DJ who has not spent countless amounts of time and every single penny they have got to go through music and build up a decent collection. Now I must say doing this is quite a pleasure...and you come up with some pretty surprising results (even discovering q few tunes that know one else actually though of swinging before).

An easy way to try to save some money on having to buy a whole lot of CDs is try to pal up with people who work at record stores...especially the specialised music stores that cater to other people like you. Now I do not know of any speacilty stores in Utah...but there are quite a few in Cali...actually David Frutos used to deal with music and he and his pals were quite good about you dropping by and listening to stuff and would talk hours about music and keep you up to date and let you know of new discoveries....so there...

During the day, they seemed to go through a list which repeated itself after a while. Manu had a show at 2PM central which was kind of fun. It was hard to work and pay attention, and it didn't scroll all the track information during his show, but it was fun to hear his opinions.

Oh yeah!! That's what I'm talking about baby!! Good picks Roach...

Well in that case. Come on down.. You will fit right in here