SwingItTrev

Unfortunate that they sound overly processed, but I guess they can only work with what's available.

Do you still have the Bix?

Now that the Clooney set has been announced, any rumours on what's next?

Still waiting. Seems a natural fit... It would get my vote. Mine too

I've only just started delving into this set, but I have to say that the notes are really making it for me. I have a far greater appreciation of the music knowing the context of how they came about, how Louis was perceived at the time, and the roles of Glaser and Avakian. Looking forward to the rest of the set.

More evidence: Jazz can be cool again because it's not mainstream. It can be the hip alternative. You just have to connect with them somehow. Make them dance. Make it a party.

You just have to look in the right places... 2000 (mostly 20-somethings) at last month's Frankie 100 Festival in NYC:

I guess they want to avoid issues with dodgy folk who request extra discs and then on-sell them. For what it's worth, if the disc plays fine now, it's not likely to deteriorate over time, unless you are in the habit of using it as a coaster. If you are a bit computer savvy you can easy make a duplicate yourself for safety.

Great story. I guess the tape was precious or scarce enough that they would fill them all up. Who knows what's out there that got thrown on the end of something else! and then mislabelled.

Thanks again for the stories Ricky. I just relistened to the Ellington at Newport release - Damn, they did a good job of making a nice stereo set out of that. I know your VOA track is not as usable, but it's got me excited about what Andreas might be able to do. (or it could just be Diminuendo In Blue And Crescendo In Blue making me excited, not sure)

Thanks for the update Ricky. I think the insight into the behind-the-scenes process of putting one of these sets together really helps with the 'buzz'. I find the research and technology involved fascinating and I think Mosaic could do well to highlight and share this process more - After all, it's this effort that really separates them from the anonymous bargain box sets from questionable sources.

The Chu Berry set was a good choice. I keep telling folks to jump on this while they can... Enjoy!

Just bumping this thread. Best options for the Okeh Ellington recordings? I have the disappointing JSP Vol. 2: The Cotton Club To Sweden, and I've heard the existing "Okeh Ellington" is pretty ordinary.

Haha, file those under "Seemed like a good idea at the time"?

Also agreed. But from the ones I have, the source material is usually good and I feel like their noise reduction choices are within the realm of reasonable.

Just found this thread. Some excellent releases here. I recommend GRP GRD-2-629 Anthology of Big Band Swing 1930-1955 to just about anyone interested in Big Band.

There's some hope of newcomers to early jazz through the burgeoning swing dance communities and school jazz music programs. I'm trying share the joys, but it's hard to persuade younger folks the value of an [expensive] nicely done box set when they can download [poor] versions of the same tracks for virtually nothing.

As a graphic designer, allow me to suggest using a 5pt font

Haha, I thought you were aiming for 10,000 - 15,000 words. How does Scott feel about that? (No complaints here though!)

And there could well be a revolution in this area in the near future. I read somewhere that they are experimenting with 3D scans of vinyl that allow them to extract the recording without even touching the surface of the record.

The Mosaic set uses that Complete Masters set for some of its source material, so It must be pretty decent.

Just a quick follow-up mini review of the Ella/Webb set: I've managed to do a little bit of A/B listening and it's interesting stuff. For most tracks this Mosaic set has better audio quality than other Ella/Webb CDs out there. Because of the large variety of source material (including other CD releases) the quality does vary subtly between tracks. It's mostly very good. In my opinion the tracks on here sound better than on the John R. T. Davies remastered Strictly Jive set from HEP. I prefer some tracks ("Dipsy Doodle" for example) on the GRP Decca "Early Years" sets - I suspect because they had access to metal parts back when they were made. They are generally slightly on the "bright" side, but I'm okay with that. As with all Mosaic releases, they have been pitch-corrected, so there were some surprises for me - such as "Lindy Hoppers Delight" coming in slower than before at 188bpm. For those not familiar with the material, the set has a large number of vocal tracks. Many of of them are novelty songs or have twee lyrics. Chick Webb had his sights firmly set on mainstream commercial success when he went into the studio, and that stuff was in. But overall, recommended!

I just received my set and so far I'm pretty happy with it. I've only heard a few tracks and haven't done an A/B comparison yet, but I like what I'm hearing. There's a tiny bit of distortion on the high notes, which seems to be typical with these sets, but otherwise the detail is good. I'll report more when I've listened to it all more thoroughly.

Anyone received their set yet? Thoughts?

I have mixed feelings about the CD transfers. It's great that they're not too proud to use the best available source whatever the media. But since I have those original CDs anyway, there's much less incentive to buy these for improved audio quality (one of Mosaic's main strengths). I'm curious about the back story to why they didn't wait for the metal parts, considering they are extant.