Ricko

Glad everyone's still digging the set! Scott and I went down to the Satchmo Summerfest over the weekend and delivered a keynote address about the making of it, as well a WWOZ interview about it that I'll post to my blog in a day or so. Mosaic sent 20 boxes down to the festival and they sold out within a day! So keep spreading the word and keep digging Pops! Ricky

Hey Lee! Man, you should pick up your signed copy of the set and take a tour of Pops's House at the same time! Regardless, I'm happy you pulled the trigger and really hope you enjoy it (thanks for the kind words). The Archives at Queens College are my domain so if you ever want to come back, just say the word (I'm at dippermouth@msn.com). And Nixtamal's the greatest! Thanks , Gate, and to meet one day! Ricky

Thank you, Trevor and Lon! And to touch on Clunky's question about whether this is really "late" Armstrong, for many years, the majority of those in the jazz community seemed to feel that anything after 1928 constituted late Armstrong! And also that "later" meant "inferior." Fortunately, with sets like this one, that level of thinking is eroding (not entirely, but it's on its way….). Thanks again! Ricky

Quick note for those in the New York area: the Louis Armstrong House Museum in Corona, Queens (where I'm the Archivist) is now selling the Mosaic set in its gift shop. Same $149 price, but if you're in NY, want to see Pops's house and pick up the set without paying extra for shipping, come on down to 34-56 107th Street. (And when I get back next week, I'll sign all the liner notes booklets for the sets we're selling, if anyone's interested.) S'all for now...enjoy! Yours in Pops, Ricky

Glad everyone's digging it! Keep those comments coming...makes it all worth it for losing myself in the production of it for so many years! Thanks, all, Ricky

Yes it is. I still don't have an answer for why the track listing is not on the website. I wrote to Scott a few days ago and he said he'd look into it. Keep checking and if I see it first, I'll share the link. Thanks! Ricky

Glad to hear it, Greg! Thanks for the kind words….you still have about 10 hours of music to get through (lot of Teagarden on disc 2 and 3!) so let me know how it treats you when you're done, haha. Thanks! Yours in Pops, Ricky

Yeah, Lon! (And everyone else who ordered it.) Hope you all get as much enjoyment out of listening to it as I got in putting it all together! Yours in Pops, Ricky

Hi all. I'm not directly involved with this set like I am with the Armstrong one (by the way, the warehouse officially has booklets, CDs and boxes so it looks like a June 7 ship date!) but I know from Robert Bader of Bing Crosby Enterprises that yes, this is going to be similar in concept to the Bing Mosaic, a batch of radio transcriptions featuring Clooney with a jazz backing. Should be a great set if you like Rosie! The Crosby estate now represents Clooney as well and Bing's basement apparently contains pristine copies of all of their 1950s radio shows, together and separate. In fact, Robert produced a 2-CD set of Bing and Rosie radio duets just last year: http://www.amazon.com/Bing-Rosie-Crosby-Clooney-Radio-Sessions/dp/B00BCV3IE6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1400720843&sr=8-1&keywords=bing+rosie Ricky

I have the day off today and both my kids are taking a nap so I just knocked out this blog with links to all my previous writings on the Mosaic set and as a bonus, inspired by TedR, a little audio edit so you can compare how Newport 1956 sounded when all we had were the Columbia reels and how it sounds now after Andreas Meyer spliced the Voice of America vocals into them. Enjoy! http://dippermouth.blogspot.com/2014/05/jazz-times-profile-and-one-step-closer.html Yours in Pops, Ricky

I LOVE the Scandinavian set and have begged people to buy it for years. I still stand by that but the Mosaic set is different. For me, I feel the Armstrong-Trummy Young-Edmond Hall band was the finest edition of the All Stars. They have some great moments on the Storyville box but it's less than an hour. On the Mosaic, that band is front and center for 6 of the 9 discs, so if you like that edition, this is heaven. There's also all the stuff that went into the making of "Ambassador Satch," these kinds of "live-but-not-really-live" dates where the All Stars play songs that were never issued, sometimes existing in multiple takes. And while the Scandinavian concerts are all terrific, the Mosaic has more EVENTS: the historic 1947 Town Hall concert, 90 unissued minutes of a November 1947 Carnegie Hall concert, Newport 1956, Lewisohn Stadium with Leonard Bernstein (my favorite sequence on the box), Newport 1958 reunion with Teagarden and Hackett, the famous 1956 "Chicago Concert," etc. Throw in the offstage interviews of Louis by Edward R. Murrow and George Avakian and the Mosaic set presents a complete picture of Louis onstage and off during this prime period. If you can't afford the Mosaic box, the Scandinvian set is a great substitute (hell, every civilian should have both in a perfect world!) but this Mosaic box should be the last word on the 1947-58 All Stars and if you're looking for 75 unreleased tracks on an 11 hour set, well, it's the way to go! Yours in Pops, Ricky

Hi Ted! I'm happy to answer that YES, Andreas's results with Newport 1956 are stunning. In fact, if I didn't run my mouth so much about all the problems with the Columbia and Voice of America tapes, I'm not sure anyone would have ever noticed. I still have my reference copy of the Columbia tapes; perhaps I'll make a before-and-after edit for my blog so you can hear Andreas's handiwork. Stay tuned... Yours in Pops, Ricky

Hi Crisp. I actually think the Mosaic set isn't 100% ready yet. They made it go live yesterday but they still haven't sent out any announcements. I've noticed that the main pic of the box isn't up and the discography "thank-you's" are for an early draft. Keep checking and I'm sure it'll be straight soon. Thanks all! Ricky

You guys are quick! Haha…thanks for spreading the word. I was waiting for Mosaic to make the official announcement but they slipped it on their website overnight and I started getting people telling me on Facebook that they've already pre-ordered it this morning. So yeah……go crazy, folks, go crazy! http://www.mosaicrecords.com/prodinfo.asp?number=257-MD-CD Thanks for putting up with my breathless updates over the past year….hope the set lives up to it! Yours in Pops, Ricky

Hello folks! The Pops Mosaic set now has a pre-order date AND a cover design! Phew, we're getting there. Click here for the details: http://dippermouth.blogspot.com/2014/04/mosaic-update-we-have-pre-order-dateand.html Thanks, as always, for the interest! Won't be long now... Yours in Pops, Ricky

I wouldn't call them the core. They make up 2 of the 9 discs. It's a solid two-and-a-half hours of music, and maybe 20-30 minutes of it has ever been issued before. Great sets and if you're a vinyl collector, I've been assured that the vinyl will sound tremendous….but you'll be missing a LOT of the other gems (the core of the set is probably everything George Avakian recorded for "Ambassador Satch," unedited, stripped of fake applause (for the most part), with alternate takes and unissued performance…none of that is on the LP set). Ricky

Well, the LP edition is only going to be of the two Newport concerts, 1956 and 1958, making it a 4-LP set. The complete 9-CD set (which weighs in at 11 hours) won't be available as entire vinyl set. Sorry to break the news but hope it makes your decision easier! Ricky

Hi all! If anyone's still following the saga of the upcoming Louis Armstrong Mosaic set I'm co-producing, Scott Wenzel told me that they're putting a June 1 street date on it. My blog has all the grisly details (including some stories I've already told in this forum). But since I posted it, I submitted the corrections to the booklet galley (50 in all!) and Scott and I agreed that there's only two tweaks to make from an audio standpoint, so we're really, really close. Thanks for all the interest! http://dippermouth.blogspot.com/2014/03/here-and-now-and-looking-ahead-to.html Yours in Pops, Ricky

Thanks for all the great feedback, everyone! I hear ya, Paul; I sure didn't think the process would be so complicated! If anyone's read my original blog on the subject, I nagged Scott to do the set about once a year every year from 2007 until he gave in in 2011. I knew what the set would be comprised of because I knew the Armstrong discography backwards (and I had some of the unissued stuff on bootlegs given to me by European collectors). But I really thought that I'd lay it out, Scott would order it all from Sony, we'd lounge around in a studio for a few days listening to everything and finally throw the final choices over to the engineer and just sit and wait for it to be done. Well, as the above tales show, it wasn't remotely like that. After our first trip to Sony when they only had about half the things I thought would be there, I knew this was going to be a bumpy ride. And it has been but like I said, we keep narrowly escaping disaster! One more story because it seems like everyone is enjoying them: Columbia released about three tracks from Louis's 1958 Newport set on an old 2-LP sampler from the 80s. This included a big band version of "Sunny Side of the Street." When we ordered all the tapes from Sony, we got Louis's 1958 Newport set with the All Stars, but it didn't include "Sunny Side." Then Sony found the tapes that were made of the 1980s Newport sampler and there it was. Great. Andreas transferred it and it sounded good enough for me. Well, then we got to Louis's set with the All Stars. The original reels from the concert had some microphone issues--a little distortion when Louis sang but nothing horrifying--but otherwise , it was beautiful stereo sound. I don't know if I've mentioned this, but Mosaic is also doing a 4-LP set of just the 1956 and 1958 Newport shows. Watching Andreas transfer everything using these analog machines was like going to engineering school. We finished the All Stars' set and I thought that was that...but Andreas was hung up on "Sunny Side." Because it was from the 1980s compilation, it didn't sound quite as good as the All Stars's set and he was afraid it would be noticeable on the high quality LP set. My ears aren't that nuanced so I left it in his hands. He didn't want to quit so he called Sony and asked them to double check. They did and nothing was coming up. So he told them that the Armstrong set reel number ended, I think, with 32. Did they have 31? They did but it said Chico Hamilton. He ordered it and Sony overnighted it. And sure enough, after Hamilton's entire set, the last six minutes on the reel included "Sunny Side" as originally recorded, in perfect sound! Another eleventh hour miracle. So there you have it...again. This is was Mosaic does; I know I'll never complain about their prices, haha. And thanks for letting me share these types of stories. My gigantic notes focus on Louis and the music, nothing about the process of putting the set together so I'm glad to be able to share some of my battle stories! Andreas is returning from vacation tomorrow so I expect the final masters to start appearing at my doorstep in the next week or two. Once Scott and I approve, it's go time! Stay tuned... Yours in Pops, Ricky

Thanks, Trevor! Well, since you asked, here's a quick story or two to demonstrate some of the crazy experiences we've had in putting the Armstrong set together. A big chunk of the set consists of trying to reassemble the material George Avakian recorded for the "Ambassador Satch" album. Though the album was supposed to be "live," George recorded some of it in the studio. "Twelfth Street Rag" was one such number, done in a Los Angeles studio on January 24, 1956. We had the original recording sheets, which designated Take 6 as the "Master." Great. So we're listening, Take 1, 2, 3, 4, 5….then George calls, "Twelfth Street Rag, Take 6"….and there's silence! We almost had a heart attack but realized oh well, there's nothing we could do if it was removed, we'll have to use the version with fake applause from the album. But our engineer Andreas Meyer say a mysterious number on the tape box. He called in Sony and they had a reel that matched the number so they shipped it over. Andreas played it….it was Liberace! BUT when the Liberace ended, the tape contained a Columbia "best-of" compilation of some sort and I kid you not, there was take 6 of "Twelfth Street Rag," unedited, no fake applause. It was a miracle. Like I said, this stuff has been happening the entire time. We contacted Sony first to get all the session tapes for an "Ambassador Satch" in Milan but they only had 1 of 4 reels. I panicked but I remembered George had a sizable private collection in his basement. I called him….and we found two more reels in his basement, along with unissued songs from an Amsterdam concert, and some soundtrack material from "Satchmo the Great" without any of Edward R. Murrow'd narration. All of it is previously unreleased….but not for long! And for years, I complained about Sony's refusal to issue Louis's 1956 Newport set. Well, as Scott Wenzel taught me, Michael Cuscuna has a favorite phrase: "Sometimes things remain unissued for a reason." George achieved an absolute perfect recording balance for the band at Newport but if you know your Newport history, there were two microphones on stage: the Columbia mike and one belonging to the Voice of America. Unfortunately, on every vocal, Louis sang into the Voice of America mike so he sounds like he's about 20 feet away! Ugh. Well, that explains why it was unissued! There were also sound problems on stage during Louis's set as you can hear him calling for someone to come up and "Fix the mike" after "Ole Miss." So it was a mess and George couldn't issue it. And if you know the Ellington at Newport album recorded the following night, Paul Gonzalves played his historic "Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue" solo into the Voice of America mike so it was obviously a recurring problem that weekend. When we first heard it, we cringed and Scott realized he'd have to issue a heavy disclaimer for this portion of the set because people would complain about Louis sounding like he's singing from backstage. But here comes the Mosaic difference: we contacted Sony and they had the VOA tapes! If you have the 1999 Ellington at Newport reissue, they just synced the Columbia and VOA tapes to make a kind of stereo version of the album. Could we do the same? Of course not! Whoever was manning the VOA tapes wasn't paying attention and recorded it way too hot. In fact, we knew were in trouble when the tapes came in and the boxes said, "Distortion throughout." And sure enough, every time a horn blows, the thing is unlistenable. BUT during the quieter vocals, it's actually quite nice. So here's the plan: Louis only sings on four songs (thank goodness it wasn't more). For those four numbers, we're going to use the Columbia reels but Andreas is going to have to splice the VOA vocals and insert them back into the Columbia performances. Note: this still hasn't been done yet but Andreas is confident it can be done. He already EQ'd the VOA tapes when he transferred them so the balance of the band was very similar to the Columbia balance. Thus, though there might be a subtle shift in the sound as it changes from one source to the other, it shouldn't be very noticeable. More importantly, once and for all, you should be able to hear the vocals in crystal clear sound! As you can see, stuff like this gave ulcers, but we also realized that if we didn't go these extra miles, no one else was going to do it. That's the Mosaic difference. I know I sound like a cheerleader but remember, I'm just a hired gun for this project; when it comes out, I go back to being a Mosaic fan and listener. But having been on the inside lines with them for this process, all I can say is thank God they exist because the things they do to make sure they're putting out the best possible product would make your head spin. I could keep going for about another hour but I'll save some more war stories for a future time. More updates to come once I get a release date and other fun stuff. Thanks all for the interest! Yours in Pops, Ricky

Sounds good, Lon, but I think Dave's been following my every move as we're already Facebok friends, haha. I've been posting every few days on the Mosaic set and he always makes sure to mention how badly he can't wait to pre-order it. It'll be soon enough! I hope both of you guys can make it to NY one day so I can show you around the Armstrong House and then we can get "Satch-urated" at the Armstrong Archives (my domain). S'all for now....more updates to come! Ricky

Glad to hear you feel that way, Gslade! In case anyone's still wondering on the progress of this set....we're getting there! We got hit with some delays in January mostly because of problems with the sources. Believe me when I tell you that I think I can get a license to be a detective just from working on this project. When it's out and all is well in the world I might write a blog on how it came together because we've been in some pretty sticky situations....but every time, we've managed to escape in good shape. It's not easy. Engineer Andreas Meyer is pulling off some incredible feats putting this thing together from so many different sources. But I've received the final master reference copies of Discs 1 and 2 and Scott Wenzel sent over a PDF of the layout for the first five pages of the booklet and so far, everything is a knock (yes, I'm biased but if you remember me blasting the Sony set I wrote the notes for, I'm not a shill and will be honest if something's wrong). Anyway, Mosaic has been holding off from putting it up for pre-order until we really have a target release date set. Right now, it's looking like it could be late March/early April but the way this set has been coming along, nothing would surprise me anymore. Scott did say that there's been a tremendous buzz around it, with this thread, my blog updates, lots of stuff on Facebook, people calling to inquire about it, etc., so that makes me feel good. Keep watching this space for more updates and I have a feeling I'll be back sooner rather than later with more good news about a release date. Til then, thanks everyone for your interest! Yours in Pops, Ricky Riccardi dippermouth.blogspot.com

Hi Eric! The answer is somewhere in the middle as George recorded multiple takes of some numbers and we've chosen not to include EVERY take because of the similarity between some of them. Here's what we're including from Milan from the standpoint of the original four reels: Reel 1 Indiana Clarinet Marmalade - Introduction and Take 5 Someday You'll Be Sorry - Takes 2 and 4 Reel 2 (This is the reel missing so we need to issue these three as they originally sounded on the finished album) West End Blues Royal Garden Blues The Faithful Hussar Also including a Philips single of "The Faithful Hussar" with a different piano solo and no fake applause. Reel 3 Tiger Rag - Takes 1 and 2, with encore You Can Depend On Me The Lonesome Road Reel 4 That's a Plenty - Takes 3 and 4 Dardanella - Takes 2 and 3 Not a bad night of recording considering Louis played two concerts with the All Stars beforehand! Ricky

Hi all and Happy New Year! I've been deep in Mosaic land for the past few weeks and am happy to report that the Armstrong box is just about there and is probably heading for a late-February/early-March release. Here's the latest news from my blog....enjoy! http://dippermouth.blogspot.com/2014/01/record-makingwith-mosaic-records-latest.html Ricky

Oops! Try this one: http://dippermouth.blogspot.com/2013/12/satchmo-in-east-berlin-march-22-1965.html?m=1 Ricky