John L

Yes, the Savory set is a no brainer if you like swing era jazz at all.

I think that an early recordings of Mary Lou Williams set that includes everything with Andy Kirk would work in that regard. It could also include her 1940s recordings on Asch that are not widely known.

This will probably give more information about the age distribution of people here at the forum than about people who buy Mosaic boxes.

Sounds great. Congrats!

What I had in mind was something a bit different. The database would have a better, clearer and more elaborate format than discogs. One of the reasons for having a jazz database is the ability to search by musicians, arrangers, and composers as well as a headline artist or group. It can potentially call up sessions as well as albums, and also search (call up) artists and musicians in that medium. I now have a database like that, but I had to invest more time than I would have liked into entering artists, arrangers, sessions, session dates, etc. (Discogs does not offer these functions. It does not even have a listing of musicians, recording dates, or session information for every album). What I was suggesting is that it would be beautiful if you could buy such a database that is not just an empty shell but already populated for a large number of albums. That would allow us to mold it into representing our collections with a minimal amount of effort. Yes, I would think that it could certainly be done.

Yes. The easiest database to use would be one where there is already a preloaded comprehensive set of entries of albums with detailed discographical information. Then there could be a way to quickly create a subset of albums that are held one's collection from that base, including the option of adding manually sessions or concerts that might have been left out. That would save hours and hours of work that we probably duplicate with each other over and over again.

The English trad jazz scene was a bit different than on the continent due partly to the fact that the UK had tougher restrictions on allowing foreign musicians to come and work there. A central figure in the French trad jazz scene was Claude Luter, who continued the tradition into the 21st century. The scene received a big boost when Sidney Bechet moved to Paris.

Wow. That is.great site. Thanks

They are also on the earlier McMaster version. That trio session has always been one of my favorites, and as much for Philly Joe Jones as for Sonny Clark.

I mean that versions of these concerts have been circulating. I don't mean that Elemental bootlegged them. Sorry if the wording was ambiguous.

Looks good. From the track listing, it looks like LP 3 comes from Copenhagen 10/24/66 (Side 1) and Arhus 11/21/69 (Side 2). Those concerts have been bootlegged.

Very interesting! I look forward to seeing a discography.

I wish I had known you were going. We could have met there.

I would highly suggest getting the Monk in Philadelphia compilation. There are quite a number of great rare and unusual tracks on that one from various periods in Monk's career. I don't see Stockholm 1961 on your list. Maybe you already have it. That is a favorite of mine, released in good sound by Dragon. I really like the Palais Des Beaux-Arts & Copenhagen (M.O.N.K.) recordings from the 1963 Europe tour. They are in great (professional) sound and Monk is in very good form (IMO). If you only get one of them, I would recommend Palais Des Beaux-Arts. I am less thrilled by the Paris concert on this tour. The Village Gate 1963 is in somewhat muffled sound. But I have always really liked what Monk plays on this date. Paris Olympia 1965 is also not to be missed. But beware of the so-called "volume 4" which is actually tracks from some of the Riverside Europe 1961 records. I really like a lot of music that Monk played on the 1966 Europe tour. His approach to many of the songs was notably different to the previous tours. I have a difficult time recalling which of the many concerts from that tour are the best. But I would suggest getting a representative sample. John

RIP to one of the great original artists of his time. 😔

Not awful, but damn am I sick of Hotel California. Having lived and worked all over the globe, I can say that there doesn't seem to be a single place left that hasn't been infected with that song. When I would go to see my favorite highlife and Afro-beat bands in Nigeria, they would be sure and dedicate one song to me (their "white brother from another mother"), and it would always be frickin' Hotel California. When I was living in Alma-Aty, Kazakhstan, we created the only blues band in the country and had a regular gig every Saturday. One night, a heavily drunk teenager came up to us and requested Hotel California. We told him that we don't play that song. After we finished that night, the manager told us that we were fired. The drunk kid was the son of an Akim (regional political leader) and demanded that we never appear again. I could really enjoy the rest of my life without ever coming into contact with that song again.

Wow - a living legend songwriter of the 20th century. RIP Mr. Bacharach

Nice. I hope that this won't be one of those LP only deals.

That also puzzled me at first. But if you look at the fine print in the discography, you will see the explanation. It is apparently J.C. Heard's solo on The Challenges. So the discography lists only the challenges. I guess that they don't have a version that wasn't spliced by Norman Granz. The other drum solo tracks are similar.

I have always loved that first concert on the Mosaic box ever since I picked it up this LP when it came out in the 1970s. I was waiting for decades for it to finally be released on CD.

It is a distillation of the material on the Mosaic, which covers Brunswick and Columbia recordings from 1932-1940. There is nothing from RCA. The Ellington orchestra recorded almost exclusively for Brunswick and Columbia in the latter half of the 1930s.

While I concur with the other additional recommendations above, I think that the most glaring omission in your collection is the 1930s orchestra. I consider that to be some of the very greatest Duke Ellington. The best purchase that you could make, in my opinion (if you can find it), is the Mosaic 1932-1940 Brunswick / Columbia collection. That is a large and astounding collection of music that has almost no duplication with what you listed above. Chronological classics from this period is another way to go, although the sound quality is inferior, they duplicate the Mosaic small group set, and include a lot of secondary pop vocal tracks.

If Mosaic can't even make us happy with their service, the are not going to get anywhere with the general public.

Well, I have listened through the box already and it is pretty incredible. I was surprised at how little of this music I had previously. It turns out that the vast majority of my previous JATP recordings from this period were unofficial and therefore not even included on this set. I think that Mosaic is under-selling this set a bit in its advertisements. Most of this music is rare. Nothing much of it was ever released on CD with the exception of the Krupa/Rich Drum Battle and the Opera House recordings of Hawkins/Eldridge, Getz/J.J. Johnson and Ella Fitzgerald (A track was actually omitted from the Hawkins/Eldridge CD for space reasons that is restored here). Hell, there is some Pres and Bean here that is previously unreleased in any form! I seem to recall that Larry Kart posted here that he was at the September 1957 concert at the Chicago Opera House that included Lester Young, Sonny Stitt, and Illinois Jacquet. Interestingly, it would appear that the LP that was released as the "The JATP All-Stars At The Opera House" included music not from that concert but from a performance done one month later at the Shine in LA. This set presents the known music from both concerts, including previously unreleased performances from Chicago. I am VERY SATISFIED with this set. Bravo, Mosaic!

Almost like magic, after I wrote that post, I got a shipping notification.