I had the 20 LP Basie Columbia set by CBS France and sold it, as the many alternates made it a rather unpleasant listening experience. On LP having only three titles on one side gets tiring. If they do a complete CD edition, I'd prefer different CDs for masters and alternates, or a separate master take edition.
On the other hand, I sure wouldn't get tired of listening to four different Prez solos over one theme ....
Mike, I really like the Columbia set - but: I think the octet sides from 1950/51 are pretty unessential, and I am not so sure I like them, neither that they really make sense, musically (DeFranco and Grey being too far out for the acutal context).
Then, there's various sessions where they just took one or two cuts (sure they did include some highlights, I think, but I find that not that cool, as long as there's no complete edition around).
They could do good if they would release a series of single discs, too. I don't need a box absolutely. How about doing it like they did the single Louis Armstrong hot fives & hot sevens? They could go on at an easy pace, release two or three CDs a year, and in two or three years we would have all that stuff, nicely packaged and remastered as Legacy usually does things... wouldn't that be nice? (Alright, I dream...)
ubu