tranemonk

I lean toward getting the Stitt set myself.. but here's my dilemma... The larger Mosaic boxes seem to have much more variation in them than the smaller sets.. (e.g., albums that could have been left out and were of questionable quality...) For example... I have the... Sarah Vaughn set (8CD's)... several of those records could have been left out... (even Mosaic in their liner notes admits that some of the material is not great... "Not every track will be to every taste – Roulette was a label built on hits and chased them with material that ranged from cotton candy to near-legit.") To me they could have left out at least 2 or 3 CD's worth of material and had a MUCH more consistent set of excellent material... Similar complaint on the Complete Roulette Live Count Basie (8CD's).... How many versions of "One O'Clock Jump" can I hear??? (I know this is as much Basie's repetition of his repetoire as anything else...) However, Mosaic could have been more selective... Yet on the opposite side... The Blue Note Elvin Jones Sessions (8CD's) I find absolutely marvelous... I wouldn't delete one track!!!!!!!!!! So my experience is that Mosaic's smaller sets (4-5 even 6Cd's) tend to have a more consistent high quality with few "questionable" tracks included, whereas the 8 or 9 CD sets are hit or miss in that category... Which all brings me to say - that this is why I've hestitated on the 9CD Stitt set... Your thoughts??? (Particularly about this issue of their larger vs. smaller sets...) I may just beg my wife to buy it for me.... thanks for the feedback.

taken from the 1-8 update on jazzmatazz.com "The Jazz Crusaders - The Pacific Jazz Studio Sessions (Mosaic) late 2005 " anybody got any more info????