Brad

Disc 7 from the Complete Live at the Plugged Nickel.

Mosaic Records sent the following email this afternoon: First of all, we thank you for your support and belief in us. Without you, Mosaic would not have survived. We feel we owe you an explanation for what has happened given our sub-par customer service performance over the past 18 months. We take full responsibility for all the bumps in the road that delayed our new Woody Herman and Hank Mobley sets beyond reason. At the risk of boring you, here’s what happened. 2019 was the year that Murphy’s Law morphed into Mosaic’s Law. Everything that could go wrong did. We solicited advance orders on two sets that were to be shipped in 6 to 8 months at the latest. Our system of soliciting a set before investing in production was borne of necessity a few years ago when it became evident that in our shrinking universe one misstep in choice or judgment could set us on the short road to ruin. Pre-solicitation is our safety net that Mosaic would enable to continue on. Just 15 years ago, we had a staff of 12 and a facility that housed a warehouse, a loading dock and offices. We could make purchase orders, pay royalties and process orders from the same office. We could receive CDs, boxes and booklets and collate and ship our orders all over the world. Now we are in a much smaller office with a staff of 2 and our sets are collated and shipped from a fulfillment center upstate. In the fall of 2018, we announced our new Woody Herman set and then our Hank Mobley set was to follow in the summer. Our expectations and timelines were reasonable. Box sets are built in stages. They require legal licensing and research of discography, photography and source material. Those areas can be done simultaneously and usually take three months. The next phase is getting the studio work done and the masters to the pressing plant – a month or so if you’re lucky. Then comes the artwork stage: writers have to get their liner notes in on deadline, then notes, credits and photos have to go to the design house where the booklets, paper components for the CDs and outer boxes have to be created, approved and sent to the individual manufacturers of each. Then the printed elements must converge at the fulfillment house where sets are collated and orders filled. Doesn’t sound like splitting the atom, does it? Well, this past year was a tragedy of errors. Printing plants lost the files that they needed to print. CD paper components were sent to the wrong pressing plants. And the ones that did arrive at the right plant were printed to the wrong specs. Days, weeks, months went by with one apologetic email after another from frustrated people along the production line. The Labor Day came and went, followed by Canadian Thanksgiving, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Internet Monday, Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa and even Festivus. We even tried a couple of True Blue offers midyear for new Elemental and Verve-Impulse releases. But given Mosaic’s Law of 2019, the distributor ran out of product, leaving us waiting over two months for some of the titles. Then of course our computers aged out software-wise and we had to get used to new ones and set three dozen new passwords. I could go on…. We thank you sincerely for all your support and understanding. Thanks to you we have our heads above water and our next offering will not be solicited until the set is in our warehouse and ready to ship. - Michael

Bingo!

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, the Houston players were given immunity because the Houston GM never passed on or discussed Manfred’s 2017 memo with them. I suppose Beltran was punished because he was no longer a player.

It doesn’t matter if it’s an acronym or not; correct rules of usage still apply.

Green Acres was a forgettable show. Will you be watching My Mother the Car next?

Sounds like potentially a good hire. He’s probably the safest choice. Apparently, the Mets execs are nervous about making a hire that the new owner to be may not like. He’s said to be a very hands on kind of person.

Not sure about a hit but it’s got a great groove. I read that his masters were destroyed in the Universal fire. What a shame.

Can’t believe he didn’t get signed until now.

Terrific album although it’s hard to say between 68 and 70, which album is better. They are all so good.

I’m sure there are more books written about non jazz musicians but that isn’t the title of the thread, is it?

Just released by the Owsley Stanley Foundation, Dawn of the New Riders of the Purple Sage, a five cd set. Disc 1.

Not really. The latter refers to someone as in “Rooster’s (fill in the blank).” It’s possessive whereas CDs refers to more than one of something.

I don’t agree because you like — or at least I do — things to look like new or in good condition. Maybe it’s an analysis retentive thing but that would bug me.

JazzTimes is reporting that Claudio Roditi has passed. A shame. RIP. I was fortunate to see him once.

Hardbopjazz, Happy Birthday. Hope you spin and get some good discs today

In the same way we remember and listen to the greats who were no longer alive when we first started to listen to them.

What John said. A long life. What more can one ask for? RIP.

Fascinating. I never heard that Malcolm and Booker were related and couldn’t find anything on the web. He was a hero of mine when I was in high school. I think I still have the paper I wrote.

I haven’t had that issue but since Mosaic now makes lift off tops, I’m sure it has been an issue in the past.

Courtesy of JazzWax, the poet Billy Collins wrote a poem on Hank Mobley: Listening to Hank Mobley around 11 O’Clock After a Long Fun Boozy Dinner, the Four of Us, at Captain Pig’s, Our Favorite Restaurant in Town I’m lying down now, solo on a couch, imagining along with the music that if I were, say, 15 or 16 tonight and in possession of a fresh can of pink or orange spray paint, I would climb the 4th Street overpass and write in big letters HANK MOBLEY SWINGS for all to see on their morning drive to work. But having sailed some time ago into the quiet cardigan harbor of my life out of earshot of the siren songs that lure men onto reefs of foolishness not to mention the bridges of bravado, it’s enough to let the soap bubble of that Hank Mobley thought drift slowly across the living room and burst with no warning, much to the amazement of the cat. https://www.jazzwax.com/2020/01/billy-collins-on-hank-mobley.html?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=FeedBlitzRss&utm_content=Billy+Collins+on+Hank+Mobley

Belated Happy Birthday