J.A.W.

I take it you're referring to the Quebec 45 Sessions, not the Quebec/Hardee Mosaic, which hasn't been reissued outside Japan, at least not in complete form as far as I know.

actually, that is exactly what a modern CD looks like. Problem is that it sez Britney Aguillera and that it is made for little girls with boom boxes who are listening while crying in their root beer over the first lost love of their life and pimples. There may not be any digital distortion, but there is hardly any dynamics. It's either loud or *real* loud all over the band from bass to treble all of the time. Of course you will hear some details you weren't able to hear on those nice fluffy discs from earlier days, simply because stuff is loud. But it is really very fatiguing to listen to. The loud peaks are not as loud anymore (relatively speaking) as they have had their guts limited out of them. If you look at the same wave form taken from the TOCJ, there is a lot of space all around, lots of dynamics, neat spikes and nice low volume passages. This extreme compression business is not good for the sound, bad for enjoyment and likely worse for your ears. To each his own of course. Agree completely, John! This especially pisses me off when it comes from Mosaic. Now i don't necessarily expect "audiophile" mastering from them, but you'd think they'd be a bit more respectful to the source and not have to smash the dynamics of the music to appeal to boom box-listening teens. I can understand why the latest U2 album is compressed, but acoustic jazz shouldn't be. Fortunately, Malcolm Addey's Mosaic masterings are usually excellent. And not all of Ron McMaster's Mosaic masterings are this bad, some of them are OK.

That one's already been mentioned. The Green Mosaic has dates with Ike Quebec that aren't on the Blue Note double; that set only has the sessions with Sonny Clark. The Quebec dates are (were?) available elsewhere.

Same here... But fortunately I managed to get them back later.

Ah yes, the Herbie Nichols is another Mosaic I prefer to the later Blue Note package.

Many Mosaics, like some of the ones mentioned (Paul Desmond, Grant Green, Andrew Hill and Jackie McLean), sound better to me than the various remasters.

I can! (the cut off corresponds to ~0dB, the RED zone we were taught the tape deck meter should not linger) Thanks John, it perfectly illustrates what I mean.

Remember that in the 1980s it was customary just to transfer recordings to digital. As far as I know hardly anyone, including mr McMaster, did any remastering. To my ears McMaster's mastering ranges from OK to sometimes very bad. Just listen to his Lou Donaldson Mosaic set; "Caravan" on that set is a case in point, it's been compressed/maximized like hell and sounds absolutely awful, bright, LOUD and no dynamics. You should see the sound wave... (Unfortunately, I can't reproduce that here).

The set is on hold.

Happy birthday!

I hate it when they do that, and it's one of the reasons I'm not "upgrading" anymore.

Sounds like it... Dont worry, I wasn't interested anyway I'm not "upgrading" anymore.

(I realize that this is probably not interesting to anyone outside Europe ) I'm selling this set from my own collection for $34 plus shipping: ON HOLD Art Pepper - 3CD-set, Mosaic Select Shipping: priority mail (at buyer's risk) $6.50 in the EU (except Italy, Greece and Slovakia) and to Norway and Switzerland, $13.50 to the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia registered priority mail: $9.50 in Europe, $16 outside Europe Payment: no cash, checks or money orders; PayPal accepted; in the euro zone: BIC/IBAN electronic bank transfer No trades Please PM me if interested.

All the best to your wife, Lon.

I've been getting these e-mails for weeks now. They're going straight to my wastebasket.

Happy birthday!

Most of it is free.

Looks like they don't have to play anymore, it's all been decided already

I second that, no more CAPS please.

Don't you like this one, Gökhan? To my ears Lupu's one of the better "modern" Schubert interpreters. I do Hans, and agree about Lupu more generally. I just got the 4 disc set of his Schubert recordings, that's why. He'll be performing Mozart's 20th Piano Concerto in Paris late May and we'll get our tickets soon (though I would've preferred a recital or a Romantic era concerto, but we'll see, I never heard him play Mozart). Ah, I see. I didn't buy that 4CD-set; I've heard parts of it, though, and I prefer the older separate discs, they have better sound to my ears. I've never heard Lupu in Mozart either. I love most of Perahia's performances of the concertos, and Lupu might be similarly minded. Which orchestra is it and who's conducting? Note to prospective buyers: get the Lupu, it's great.

So do I!

Don't you like this one, Gökhan? To my ears Lupu's one of the better "modern" Schubert interpreters.

Re: Hoffman -- I've been quite pleased with the sound of the Miles XRCDs and hadn't thought about investing in the DCC versions -- until, that is, a few days ago when I heard his Evans 'Interplay' re-mastering. Woah!! I might need to saddle up and start tracking down some of those Miles (and Evans) ones. You won't be disappointed, the Hoffman remasters smoke all other versions I've heard (OJC, K2, XRCD, etc.). They're pretty expensive, though - if you can find them, that is; they've been OOP since the demise of DCC and are getting scarcer by the day.