Stompin at the Savoy

I am able to keep all my dozens of Mosaic sets in lossless files and photos of the booklets, along with a sizable part of my other jazz records on one of these cards. Of course I still have all the hard copy sets in a storage unit. I can't quite bring myself to sell them, especially the Basie sets😕

This arrived in the mail today and I am enjoying it now. Yeah! discography here: http://web.archive.org/web/20051226172905/http://mosaicrecords.com/discography.asp?number=200-MD-CD Check it out!

Take a look at the sets currently in print: Classic Jazz At The Philharmonic Jam Sessions 1950-1957 The Complete Freddie Hubbard Blue Note & Impulse Studio Sessions Classic Black & White Jazz Sessions Lennie Tristano Personal Recordings The Complete Joe Henderson Blue Note Studio Sessions The Savory Collection 1935-1940 The Complete Louis Armstrong Columbia & RCA Victor Studio Sessions 1946-66 and recently out of print sets: #260 The Complete Dial Modern Jazz Sessions (9 CDs) #261 The Complete Bee Hive Sessions (12 CDs) #262 Classic James P. Johnson Sessions (6 CDs) #263 Classic Columbia, OKeh and Vocalion Lester Young With Count Basie 1936-1947 (8 CDs) #264 Classic Savoy Be-Bop Sessions 1945-49 (10 CDs) #265 Classic Brunswick & Columbia Teddy Wilson Sessions 1934-1942 (7 CDs) #267 The Complete Woody Herman Decca, Mars and MGM Sessions (1943-1954) (7 CDs) #268 The Complete Hank Mobley Blue Note Sessions 1963-70 (7 CDs) #269 Paul Desmond: The Complete 1975 Toronto Recordings (7 CDs) This is by no means bad stuff. That Lester Young set was pretty important to me.

I was kind of mystified about this thread and the Mosaic bashing. There were some attempts to vilify the external designs of the packaging, some vague claims that the sets weren't good, that they are too expensive, that box sets are too big or too expensive, that the focus was too narrow (whatever the heck that actually means) and finally that the company was sexist. These objections all seem half-hearted and I kept trying to figure out why go after Mosaic. After all no one is forcing anyone to buy these things. The one feller mentioned that he didn't like two recent sets he bought and sold them at a loss. It strikes me that that may be the underlying explanation for these attempts to counter the supposed "deification" of Mosaic: this is a disgruntled customer! If you are sore about some purchases that you didn't like and lost money when selling them off, this is a way to hit back, I think. It has me scratching my head because if you buy a new Mosaic you don't like all you have to do is wait till shortly after it goes out of print and then you can probably sell it for at least the original price.

This? https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/zcQAAOSwiJJjRJze/s-l1600.jpg https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/MjQAAOSw~H1jRJzg/s-l1600.jpg

That was so great seeing Kamala Harris enthusing about jazz records! OMG not all jazz fans are old, white men! Every once in a while I think about selling off my many Mosaic sets. And then I don't.

This is something you can get after you've got all the Dial, Savoy, and Verve recordings and possibly a few others. In small doses it's kind of good, IMO. Some fragments are so short you barely have a sense of the key or structure of the tune and it's over. But hey, there was this legendary guy who followed Bird around and recorded his solos and these are the actual recordings he made!

That's a very enjoyable set. Ed Bickert has a unique style and plays beautifully throughout. When it came out I remember thinking wow how come I never heard this guy before. Desmond in great form too.

So knowing a lot of people here like Mosaic you started this thread to do what - point out to all these fans how bad the object of their interest actually is? That those Mosaic sets fans mention enjoying here are actually not good? You indicate that you wish the label were like some other labels. Why? How in any way does the existence of Mosaic label and its adherents injure you, those other labels, your pursuit of other labels, or your decision not to buy Mosaics? Why all the put-downs? Nobody is forcing you to buy Mosaics, like Mosaic sets or be involved with them in any way if you don't like them. It's as though you resent the fact that people praise them here. But why should you? Why would you want to change what other people like? Is this all a big attempt to justify your own refusal to buy Mosaics? You don't need to justify your tastes - we are perfectly cool with it if you don't like Mosaic sets. You seem to be not cool with it if others like them? I'm not mad at you and think you have some interesting things to say. In this particular you seem to be going after Mosaic. I'm trying hard to imagine a way for this not to be the same thing as going to a Taylor Swift fan site and posting stuff dissing the hell out of Taylor Swift.

The sound quality on this is great. Some terrific, toe-tappin stuff.

I would definitely buy a Mary Lou Williams set. My guess is they thought of it long ago and didn't produce it - not because they are biased against female musicians but because they encountered difficulties licensing the material or getting it at prices which fit their model.

I don't understand how you get to "it is clearly not working now". It's working for me. I usually buy new sets that come out and I also buy quite a few used ones from various sources. I spend many happy hours listening to them and reading the booklets. Apparently your standard of success is different from mine. You appear to believe the Mosaic enterprise is only vindicated if they have a huge volume of sales. I am glad that Mosaic has high standards and produces products that are different from other labels. To me this difference is a feature not a bug and I would be disappointed if they decided to turn themselves into a clone of various other labels. If you like what other labels are doing, by all means buy their products! None of us Mosaic fans have the slightest issue with that and we are buying from other labels too. The fact is Mosaic sets are cheaper per disk than the single disk releases you are so fond of touting. And you get more. This is inevitably framed by you as: Mosaic sets are too expensive". When people post ideas for Mosaic sets here they are mostly hoping their suggestions will be taken up by the label so they can then buy the records. The suggestions are not, IMO, motivated by some sort of pity for poor, failing Mosaic. I think you are probably right that the whole Mosaic label enterprise is coming to an end. That is because the original mission of finding treasures in label tape vaults is a finite one. There are only so many treasures in the vaults to find and restore and remaster and so on. The business has had a very successful arc over several decades and has produced a body of work which is admirable and still enjoyed by many of us. But it's a thing with a definite lifetime. It's like a mom and pop business with only a few employees and they are probably thinking of retiring at some point. Ending the label would not represent a defeat but rather a recognition that much of what they were able to do along those lines has now been successfully accomplished.

I don't get all this knocking old white men. Are we so unworthy a target audience? We probably spend more on music than teenage men (they lack money) or middle aged men (they have kids to support). Teenage women are probably listening to Taylor Swift (the attraction still mystifies me) or some other bubblegum stuff, middle aged women are too busy taking their teenagers to Taylor Swift concerts, and older women - you never know they may be Jackie McLean fanatics... I also don't understand the idea that Mosaic is supposed to save jazz. What? It doesn't work like that.

A high school friend introduced me to Gordon Lightfoot around '69 and I had the first album. I was trying to learn to play folk guitar and I remember being very perplexed by the guitar playing on the record. After a while I realized he was playing a 12 string and there were multiple guitars!

I dunno, but it seems like you are missing something about the basic nature of Mosaic. This started as deep dives into big label vaults, restoring old discs, tapes, etc., reissuing important music that had become unavailable, and issuing iconic stuff that for one reason or another was never published. If some label was publishing Baroque music for decades would you tell them stop with all the ancient stuff and publish the modern performances I want? Part of the reason Mosaic is not handling more recent stuff is newer music is well engineered and digitally recorded - it doesn't require discovery and restoration, which is what this label is all about.

Wait, what? Count Basie, Lester Young, Herschel Evans, etc in 1938 is not good enough for you?

I don't want to believe that and there are lots of people still making good jazz music at present but it is difficult to deny that the glory days of jazz as a popular music and as a dance music appear to be over. Nevertheless it may be mostly gone but not forgotten: pop, rock, and blues music continue to revive elements of jazz.

I like reviews. A well done review is helpful even after you own the record sometimes, by pointing out interesting things about the recording or giving background info, identifying soloists, mentioning related recordings, exploring technical or harmonic details etc etc.

You've had me grinning here at the way you use "anecdotal evidence" as a fig leaf for "personal opinion".😃

I agreed with most of what you said until the above. By the way I like you and think you have interesting things to say. But I hope you will consider the kinds of unsupported generalizations you are making. We live in an age of disinformation and misinformation. Be careful about what you really know and don't know and then you won't add to the mess.