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Peter

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Mosaic eschewing the original artwork etc is an expression of "anti-Showbiz". But they still want your money.

Of course they do, because "anti-Showbiz" is just another form of Showbiz. :g

You follow my thought precisely, Jim :)

To make more money by selling something that is "uncommercial" is quite clever. It's like in the sixties, Columbia was marketing rock albums as anti-hype! And the wonderful thing was, people believed it!

MG

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No offense, and I know this has been said before, but isn't it about the music? Last time I checked, you can't listen to artwork.

Up over and out.

It IS about the music but, for some of us, it also about the complete aesthetic experience.

I agree on both counts, but I do lean more into the original artwork/aesthetic camp.

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"Complete aesthetic experiences" give me the heebie-jeebies. (Of course everyone enjoys a little h-j now & again, no?)

But on the artwork tip, those who are at all inclined to store &/or listen to music digitally always have the itunes option of importing the original artwork. I do this all the time. (I should say that most of my music listening happens in transit or in places not my home, so the ipod has become more or less essential.) Just spent a few hours last week breaking down the Braxton Mosaic back into the original albums & pasting the original artwork back onto them.

"Complete aesthetic experience" it's not, of course, but it's at least interesting (esp. for someone who wasn't there) to hear what the original document would have sounded like while looking at the original artwork. The experience of busting open the Montreux/Berlin set in 1977 & gently placing it on the turntable I will never, alas, have.

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I'd love to get the unissued tracks of the Duke Pearson session with Airto Moreira, but Michael Cuscuna refuses to issue them. Maybe a future reissue producer will put them out before the tapes crumble away to dust.

As far as reissues of the regular BN catalog go, you can easily scan the lists of the 1500 and 4000 series. There are only a finite number of albums. Pretty much all of it has been reissued.

Time to move on from BN, really. The subject is rather tired now.

As far as Mosaics of Blue Notes go, they can be useful, because some of the material is not readily available anywhere else. I much prefer reissues of the original albums, with the color artwork and liner notes. A lot of the flavor of the BN album experience is lost in the Mosaic versions. And some, but fortunately not all, of the Mosaics suffer from McMastering, so the sound is not good. They should use that guy who did the Mulligan set - he's great.

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No offense, and I know this has been said before, but isn't it about the music? Last time I checked, you can't listen to artwork.

Up over and out.

It IS about the music but, for some of us, it also about the complete aesthetic experience.

I agree on both counts, but I do lean more into the original artwork/aesthetic camp.

I have some sympathy for this view, historical context and all...

Then I thought: would you only buy books that reproduce the original jacket art? (Would you care?)

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Yes Peter "we" are sure about that. Artwork is not included only because of the pinting costs involved. Linernotes are sometimes included but mostly new ones are being written specifically for the sets by known authorities on the subject. This also because a lot of the sessions and tracks in the set are unissued in the first place.

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  • 3 weeks later...

No offense, and I know this has been said before, but isn't it about the music? Last time I checked, you can't listen to artwork.

Up over and out.

It IS about the music but, for some of us, it also about the complete aesthetic experience.

I agree on both counts, but I do lean more into the original artwork/aesthetic camp.

I have some sympathy for this view, historical context and all...

Then I thought: would you only buy books that reproduce the original jacket art? (Would you care?)

I might...

(But not usually.)

Giving it some thought, I'd have to say that the original cover of an album (vinyl) is a far more prominent and important part of the "complete aesthetic experience" of the album than any book cover is to the experience of reading a book.

And I say this as someone who's been known to be kind of into books.

This may all stem from the fact that you don't stare at a book's cover while reading it. But growing up and in college I almost always displayed an album's jacket while listening to it. In short, you know an album by it's cover (if the cover is any good), you know a book by it's text (what it's about.)

Edited by BruceH
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Giving it some thought, I'd have to say that the original cover of an album (vinyl) is a far more prominent and important part of the "complete aesthetic experience" of the album than any book cover is to the experience of reading a book.

And I say this as someone who's been known to be kind of into books.

This may all stem from the fact that you don't stare at a book's cover while reading it. But growing up and in college I almost always displayed an album's jacket while listening to it. In short, you know an album by it's cover (if the cover is any good), you know a book by it's text (what it's about.)

That is a very interesting observation, Bruce.

MG

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But growing up and in college I almost always displayed an album's jacket while listening to it. In short, you know an album by it's cover (if the cover is any good), you know a book by it's text (what it's about.)

I do the exact same thing, except with the cd booklet. For me, the album cover sets the tone for what music is inside and its part of the whole listening experience for me. Reid Miles has a lot to do with that along with other album cover artists that really had an uncanny ability to produce in art, what the musical artists were laying down in sound.

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I'd say the well is mostly dry. As other posters have noted there are a few sessions here and there that cry out for reissue, but most of the RVGs coming out lately seem either to be third-rate efforts or stuff that's been widely available for a long time now. Blue Note should probably discontinue the RVG series at this point, maybe come up with a different brand identity for bringing back seldom-heard music from the '50s through the '70s.

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But growing up and in college I almost always displayed an album's jacket while listening to it. In short, you know an album by it's cover (if the cover is any good), you know a book by it's text (what it's about.)

I do the exact same thing, except with the cd booklet. For me, the album cover sets the tone for what music is inside and its part of the whole listening experience for me. Reid Miles has a lot to do with that along with other album cover artists that really had an uncanny ability to produce in art, what the musical artists were laying down in sound.

I heartily agree with these statements.

I know its off the original topic, but I find this discussion regarding the importance (or lack of) original album art very interesting. As a child of the 70's (and 60's to some extent) I came of age during the vinyl era. At first, we thumbed through crates of albums front to back to select one, viewing the art on each album as we went. Viewing the cover was part of the "gestalt" of choosing one to listen to, and for familiar music, subliminally reminding us of contexts and associations in which we'd listened to it before.

As time went on and lp collections grew, we started to store them bookshelf style and selected them by title printed on the spine. We lost the ability to view each cover as we searched, and I learned to make sure to select a copy on which the title lined up with the spine, which was not always the case. But even then, once an album was chosen, the cover was on display. The cover art was an art form unto itself, and while not the main focus, still a part of the listening experience and conveying the artist's "vision" for the music and/or the "image" of the artist or group and also to some extent the record label, e.g. Blue Note.

With the switch to CDs, the art got a lot smaller, but retaining the original art remained and remains important to me. Some of the cheesiest CDs to me are ones that do not retain the original art, regardless of the recording quality. Don't get me wrong, this does not make or break a decision to buy a CD but quality original art adds value to what I'm willing to pay.

Now that we find ourselves on the brink of a wholesale switch to storing our music in complete virtual fashion, completely free of any physical copy, I'm trying to figure out how to retain the album art in my music files. I know itunes and various other media players can help with this, but I hate itunes and do not use it. So I need to figure out a solution. Among the myriad different options for digital music servers and PC-based playback, the only options I will consider as a semi-permanent solution will have to include a screen and capability to view the album art in decent size.

I'd love to find an option that displayed a small, high quality image of the album art as part of the filename for each recording I have stored as a digital file, so that I could retain my old process of triggering memories and seeing the art when choosing music. Ideally, these icons would be "clickable" to bring up a larger version of the cover art, and additional content such as the back cover art (if any) liner notes, reviews, etc and other info regarding the recording.

I have 1200+ CDs worth of CD-quality music files at my fingertips. It is incredibly convenient, and clearly the wave of the future. But something is definitely lost when all I get to look at while selecting one is hundreds of identical little yellow file icons...

Edited by riverrat
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But growing up and in college I almost always displayed an album's jacket while listening to it. In short, you know an album by it's cover (if the cover is any good), you know a book by it's text (what it's about.)

I do the exact same thing, except with the cd booklet. For me, the album cover sets the tone for what music is inside and its part of the whole listening experience for me. Reid Miles has a lot to do with that along with other album cover artists that really had an uncanny ability to produce in art, what the musical artists were laying down in sound.

I heartily agree with these statements.

I know its off the original topic, but I find this discussion regarding the importance (or lack of) original album art very interesting. As a child of the 70's (and 60's to some extent) I came of age during the vinyl era. At first, we thumbed through crates of albums front to back to select one, viewing the art on each album as we went. Viewing the cover was part of the "gestalt" of choosing one to listen to, and for familiar music, subliminally reminding us of contexts and associations in which we'd listened to it before.

As time went on and lp collections grew, we started to store them bookshelf style and selected them by title printed on the spine. We lost the ability to view each cover as we searched, and I learned to make sure to select a copy on which the title lined up with the spine, which was not always the case. But even then, once an album was chosen, the cover was on display. The cover art was an art form unto itself, and while not the main focus, still a part of the listening experience and conveying the artist's "vision" for the music and/or the "image" of the artist or group and also to some extent the record label, e.g. Blue Note.

With the switch to CDs, the art got a lot smaller, but retaining the original art remained and remains important to me. Some of the cheesiest CDs to me are ones that do not retain the original art, regardless of the recording quality. Don't get me wrong, this does not make or break a decision to buy a CD but quality original art adds value to what I'm willing to pay.

Now that we find ourselves on the brink of a wholesale switch to storing our music in complete virtual fashion, completely free of any physical copy, I'm trying to figure out how to retain the album art in my music files. I know itunes and various other media players can help with this, but I hate itunes and do not use it. So I need to figure out a solution. Among the myriad different options for digital music servers and PC-based playback, the only options I will consider as a semi-permanent solution will have to include a screen and capability to view the album art in decent size.

I'd love to find an option that displayed a small, high quality image of the album art as part of the filename for each recording I have stored as a digital file, so that I could retain my old process of triggering memories and seeing the art when choosing music. Ideally, these icons would be "clickable" to bring up a larger version of the cover art, and additional content such as the back cover art (if any) liner notes, reviews, etc and other info regarding the recording.

I have 1200+ CDs worth of CD-quality music files at my fingertips. It is incredibly convenient, and clearly the wave of the future. But something is definitely lost when all I get to look at while selecting one is hundreds of identical little yellow file icons...

You know what? I feel this is all very personal because though I like artwork, it's not essential in any way to my musical enjoyment or the ritual of the listening process. I like it, I even make a lot of my OWN artwork for items without artwork or without original artwork. I was born in 1955 and so lps were my first listening lifeblood, but even then, artwork was not that important to the experience to me.

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Although I was a quick convert to CD and am very happy with the move to downloads, I do miss the old LP sleeves and agree with those above that they were part of the experience and enjoyment...not essential, but something that added an extra layer of pleasure. Many's the time I sat on a bus returning from town, lost in the glories of the packaging! I certainly remember gazing into the record shop in Newquay, Cornwall, at the start of the 70s, longing for these mysterious, unattainable (on my pocket money!) discs. And those sleeves still have an iconic status that can transport me back 35 years when I see them.

Two examples of how influential they could be:

a) When I started buying classical records many of them used famous paintings as the artwork. Got me interested in the history of painting and visiting galleries (nothing else in my upbringing or education would have brought me there!).

b) In 1972 I bought Fairport Convention's 'Liege and Lief'. Inside the gatefold were some curious images and texts about British customs like Pace-egging and Mummers' Plays. That sleeve got my attention and made me curious about a world that was as foreign to me as the cottonfields of Mississippi.

So sleeves didn't just enhance the music you were listening to; they could take you to quite other areas of experience.

I'd prefer Mosaics with original art but can see why they don't do it. As has been said before, it's not too hard to find it online these days. A quick copy, paste and print and you can create your own alternative sleeve for the black and white boxes.

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isn't it about the music?

No; it's Showbiz. Customers buying a (musical) product for reasons that seem good to them.

Mosaic eschewing the original artwork etc is an expression of "anti-Showbiz". But they still want your money.

MG

same as Music Matters. Officially, they are just here for the Love of Music, the Protection of the Art, and to Save the Humanity from barbary and ignorancy. Their customers are Hghly Knowledgable Gentlemen who settle at the highest level of the Occidental Culture ; basically they are Renaissance Men in the XXIème century. But they still want their money.

I have no Mosaic box. I do not like this kind of product. :beee:

But i know it is bad to think that. -_-

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Michel,

No, it's not bad to think that if that's what you think, but I'll bet you right here and now that if, in spite of your convictions, you went ahead and got the Mosaic box that was most interesting to you musically, I'd be surprised if you weren't at least willing to reconsider your position. There's a very good reason these are widely viewed as the Holy Grail of jazz reissues even without the original artwork.

Here's another thought. Let's say Mosaic decided that the inclusion of the original artwork was viable. Even if they did, they certainly could not do so in a manner that in any way replicated the visual experience of an LP album cover. All they could do is reprint the covers at a much reduced size inside the booklet. Frankly, I think there's more nostalgia for the LP era going on here than anything else. And this is coming from someone who was as into LP's as one could possibly be. I still have 3,000 of these bad boys from the '60's and '70's sitting on shelves in my garage. I haven't listened to them in years, but I can't bring myself to get rid of them either.

Up over and out.

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  • 7 months later...

Good to see this topic being dug up, if only for the OT cover art aspect. ;)

At any rate, I FULLY agree with what BruceH, Riverrat and Bev Stapleton had to say about the importance of the (original) cover artwork.

I came up during the LP era too and still am a HUGE vinyl nut, and to me it's not so much a question of strict authenticity (after all you can have several "correct" period artworks for any LP, cf. the Brit Esquire and French Vogue etc. covers that may differ totally from U.S. Prestige, Atlantic, etc. releases) but more so a matter of "period-CORRECT" artwork of an LP. The visual appearance DOES reflect the music to some extent, at least in the case of the more thoughtfully produced albums.

To those who cannot see the importance of the album cover artwork that goes with the LP itself, just remember all those 70s/80s reissues of 50s music that were thrown onto the marked with totally incongruous, sometimes nondescript, sometimes forcibly "updated"/modernized artwork that really ruined the experience of obtaining a FIRST impression of the music via the visual experience of looking at the cover before putting the platter onto the turntable.

I cannot even remember how often I HAD to go along with those shoddy cover jobs in the 70s/early 80s just beause I wanted the music and there were no other reissues available (not to mention originals) and yet the covers often really made me cringe and sometimes I really had to FORCE myself to buying the records anyway.

And yes, in cases where originals or facsimile reissues were out of reach I've been known to getting color photocopies of the original artwork made (whenever I could borrow an original cover) and pasting them over the "modernized" reissue covers of my 70s/early 80s reissues - just to grasp a maximum of the original visual experience. :D :D :D

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