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Complete Capitol Recordings Krupa/James


wesbed

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  • 2 weeks later...

I've finally capitulated. Looking forward to it - it's been like Chinese water torture reading the posts above this. Can't be too many of this set left in Stamford now..

The more I play the Krupa/James box, the more I like it. It's the kind of Mosaic set that, on the first listen, you might think, "Great! But, also, just okay."

Recently, I've caught myself on many-a-night, playing on the computer while enjoying the Krupa/James disks. Each disk presents a nice mixture of vocal and non-vocal jazz. To my ears, the music in the box gets better as the music progresses from the first disk to the last.

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Lovely - sounds like a great set to have. All of the big band Mosaics that I have have been memorable and I'd hate to miss out on a 'sleeper'. The comments both in this thread and on the Mosaic site from reviewers have been pretty favourable all round.

I wonder if I might get set # 3000. I'm due for one of those.. :lol:

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Glad to hear that, Alfred. This might just be a set that I pass on.

In the interest of my wallet, absolutely no more :tup reviews, please... :D

Nevertheless, here's a partial review of the James material most of which I have on LP. I do not own the Mosaic box. The first two sides he made for Capital by and large consist of material previously recorded for Columbia. Not essential, although for Helen Forrest fans, you might enjoy hearing her circa 1955. The later Capital sides have a distinct modern Basie sound, the result no doubt of using arrangers such as Ernie Wilkins and Neal Hefti. While quite a few of the charts do swing and are well done, in my view, this material is not essential. If you're a completist of either Krupa or James, then it's a different story.

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This is one of the sets that Mosaic released for retail sale a couple of years ago so there could be a number floating around the various on-line places. I picked my set up when it went retail a few years ago and got one of those nice new release discounts a la CD Universe.

:w

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Sent in my order :w

...and got my box today! No customs this time! Cool, very cool! Would have cost me around 25$ if I had to pay them, but it seems this time they did believe the total value of "35$" on the custom-sticker... (last time, when I ordered the VeeJays, they kept them at customs, and asked me to send them the full invoice, and I had to send them a photocopy of the yellow thing. It took even longer with that shit, and I had to pay a mighty customs fee...)

ubu

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Sent in my order

...and got my box today! No customs this time! Cool, very cool!

Only a month and a half till you received your Mosaic box? :mellow:

The shipment gets stuck going into your country? It simply sits in the customs building? For what? Till somebody looks at it and passes it on through?

I ordered something from Belgium in the Spring of 2003. It was at my front door in Arizona, courtesy of UPS, in five days.

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Sent in my order

...and got my box today! No customs this time! Cool, very cool!

Only a month and a half till you received your Mosaic box? :mellow:

The shipment gets stuck going into your country? It simply sits in the customs building? For what? Till somebody looks at it and passes it on through?

I ordered something from Belgium in the Spring of 2003. It was at my front door in Arizona, courtesy of UPS, in five days.

No no, I went the surface way - chances are much smaller that the custom guys look close! There was a time they opened almost each airmail package I ordered from the US... quite a pain. And besides, my backlog is outgrowing me, at this moment, thus I can wait a bit.

Airmail can arrive within four or five days, however a large Mosaic package would probably take around two weeks, too, if not more. The Shorter/Kelly VeeJays took six weeks with airmail, due to the custom fellows, thus I gladly wait six week for surface delivery AND safe possible custom fees.

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No no, I went the surface way - chances are much smaller that the custom guys look close!

Does 'surface' mean it goes by ship versus by airplane?

Do you know why the customs people are more apt to check the package if it's airmailed versus the surface route? I'm just wondering...

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No no, I went the surface way - chances are much smaller that the custom guys look close!

Does 'surface' mean it goes by ship versus by airplane?

Do you know why the customs people are more apt to check the package if it's airmailed versus the surface route? I'm just wondering...

Surface, I suppose, means by ship, yes, thus it is 6-10 weeks (I waited 10 on a couple of big orders, yes!).

And no, I have no idea why they scan air-transported goods closer. It's just my personal experience.

Thing is, if you order CDs for more than 50 Franks (+/- 35$), you have to pay customs, and usually around 20 Franks. So either you go big (I had Mosaic/Trueblue orders for 1000 Franks, if you have 40 Franks customs on that, it doesn't hurt), or you go small (which often sucks becasue of the high shipping rates of CDUniverse and the likes), or you just try and order an amount of discs that makes sense (say 50$ for four discs, or five discs), and hope the custom folks won't look too close... that's the deal.

Then there are nice stores (Cadence, for instance) who mark the gift option, which means that you don't have to pay taxes at 50 Franks, but, as far as I know, only with goods starting at 100 Franks.

(With books it's a whole different story, again, though they're a bit more generous, there.)

Well, main thing is I have another black box I won't be able to listen to earlier than... say, April 2005... ;)

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  • 2 years later...

Played all four of the Krupa discs plus the 1945/46 Krupa Classics (only Classics I have, recently found on sale) - very nice stuff!

Some of the singing I could live without, but there's plenty of good playing by Charlie Ventura (yeah, got to take the Ventura/Phillips out of the shelf again soon!), Red Rodney and Charlie Kennedy. The arrangements and tunes and all are nice, good quality stuff in many cases, I assume... and Krupa is great, most of the time!

Glad I got this one (still have yet to play the James stuff all the way through... Willie Smith is the main reason some of it may really be interesting, I gues...)

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  • 1 month later...

Finally came around playing the Harry James parts, and guess what: I like it! Not just the few solos by the great Willie Smith, but most of James' own soloing is a joy to hear, the arrangements are nice (some good Ernie Wilkins, some almost new testament Basie stuff), some kitschy stuff with mandolins and whistling (ok, just two tunes really), some nice tenor by rather little known guys, a couple of good spots by the likes of Juan Tizol and Buddy Rich, some sugary sweet Helen Forrest (from one of the Hi-Fi albums) - nothing of it heavy-weight, but all of it rather pleasant.

And see, I got my set almost 3 years ago... no wonder no one noticed the wrong tracklisting or track sequence of disc 7 in time... ;)

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