Creating “enhanced” Mosaic sets

[ghost of miles]

I’ve been revisiting the Benny Goodman Classic Columbia and Okeh Orchestra Sessions set over the past several days. It’s a marvelous collection, featuring lots of Eddie Sauter arrangements and outstanding notes, as always, from Loren Schoenberg. For space reasons the set omits a considerable number of vocal tracks, the bulk of them by Helen Forrest and Peggy Lee. At some point I’m going to create a CD-R set that plugs those vocal tracks in in chronological order (and omits the considerable number of alternate takes). Just curious as to how many other posters have done this or contemplated doing it (via either cd-r or digital playlist), and if so, what Mosaics you would enhance and how. (A similar project for me involves adding the vocal recordings to the Artie Shaw Victor Mosaic.)

[ghost of miles]

9 hours ago, Captain Howdy said:

As for other sets, I painstakingly assembled the complete Count Basie recordings up 'til 1945 from Lester Young with Count Basie—Classic Columbia, Okeh & Vocalion (1936-40), America's #1 Band—The Columbia Years, the Hep discs, and Chronological Classics. 

I’d like to do that myself! I’ve also thought about plugging all of the Billie Holiday master takes and the two sessions with Chu Berry into the existing Teddy Wilson 1934-42 set.

[djcavanagh]

I want to do the same with the Goodman. This is what I think is missing, but is it complete?

Peggy Lee & Benny Goodman - The Complete Recordings 1941 - 1947 (Columbia - C2K 65686)

Benny Goodman - Benny's Girls - Goodman's Rare Songbirds (Collectors' Choice Music - CCM-485-2)

Helen Forrest, Benny Goodman - The Complete Helen Forrest With Benny Goodman (Collectors' Choice Music - CCM-245-2)

Dick Haymes, Harry James (2), Benny Goodman - The Complete Columbia Recordings (Collectors' Choice Music - CCM-047-2)

Benny Goodman - Benny Goodman And His Great Vocalists (Columbia, Legacy - CK 66198)

 

[miles65]

I was thinking of a Count Basie Lester Young 1939-1940 set  including all tracks Lester doesn’t  solo on.

[gmonahan]

22 hours ago, djcavanagh said:

I want to do the same with the Goodman. This is what I think is missing, but is it complete?

Peggy Lee & Benny Goodman - The Complete Recordings 1941 - 1947 (Columbia - C2K 65686)

Benny Goodman - Benny's Girls - Goodman's Rare Songbirds (Collectors' Choice Music - CCM-485-2)

Helen Forrest, Benny Goodman - The Complete Helen Forrest With Benny Goodman (Collectors' Choice Music - CCM-245-2)

Dick Haymes, Harry James (2), Benny Goodman - The Complete Columbia Recordings (Collectors' Choice Music - CCM-047-2)

Benny Goodman - Benny Goodman And His Great Vocalists (Columbia, Legacy - CK 66198)

 

Assuming you really want to be complete, then you'd also need "The Best of Art Lund: Band Singer" on Collector's Classics. It has 21 tracks that he sang with the Goodman Orchestra on Columbia.  That Helen Forrest set is pretty good, actually. She was a fine big band singer, though she certainly didn't think much of Goodman, at least according to the passages from her autobiography cited in the liners!

 

 

gregmo

[gmonahan]

17 hours ago, Captain Howdy said:

I had Art Lund "Boy Singer" confused with Dick Haymes. I wasn't even aware of that Dick Haymes collection. Wow, there is a lot of vocal sides; you can understand why Mosaic decided not to include them.

Only four tracks from that 2-disc Dick Haymes set were recorded with Goodman. The vast majority were with Harry James, so not having the Dick Haymes discs wouldn't be a massive loss for someone looking to amass most of the Goodman vocals. That said, being afflicted with the illness of "completism" myself..............sigh......

 

 

gregmo

[ghost of miles]

On 6/5/2019 at 2:56 PM, gmonahan said:

That Helen Forrest set is pretty good, actually. She was a fine big band singer, though she certainly didn't think much of Goodman, at least according to the passages from her autobiography cited in the liners!

 

 

gregmo

Second the recommendation for that Helen Forrest set. It also includes some fine Eddie Sauter arrangements for the Goodman band, iirc, that were omitted from the Mosaic set. (That may be the case wjth the Peggy Lee/Goodman collection as well.)

[Jim Duckworth]

I added the 1934-1935 Decca recordings to compliment the Earl Hines Mosaic set and completed the Jimmie Lunceford set with the 1939-1940 Okehs.

 

[ghost of miles]

I'm also considering filling out the recent Teddy Wilson set with the tracks that they didn't include from the Chu Berry and Lester Young sets, as well as the sessions with Billie Holiday.  

[gmonahan]

7 hours ago, Jim Duckworth said:

I added the 1934-1935 Decca recordings to compliment the Earl Hines Mosaic set and completed the Jimmie Lunceford set with the 1939-1940 Okehs.

 

Those 34-35 Deccas are outstanding, some of the best Hines on record. I had them first in the ancient "Decca Jazz Heritage Series" with that dreadful "reprocessed for stereo" sound, then picked up the Classics cd. Much better!

 

gregmo

[Shrdlu]

What G.O.M. said. I have all of that here. It would take a while to assemble.

The second Basie/Young set is chaotically arranged. This is not entirely Mosaic's fault. Sony and Universal refused to mix their material on CDs. The Sony-owned tracks are hived off onto a separate CD. But the alternate takes are shoved down to the ends of the disks. Michael Cuscuna does that in response to (fairly virulent) customer requests. For me, the arrangement of the tracks is a mess. I have never played the CDs as issued. It took me days to disentangle all the tracks into chronological order. The notes are in the same order, and now the set is easy to study. Superb music, of course. 

(I love Slam Stewart and didn't appreciate what the note writer said.)

Edited June 11, 2019 by Shrdlu
A

[ghost of miles]

On 6/5/2019 at 2:56 PM, gmonahan said:

Assuming you really want to be complete, then you'd also need "The Best of Art Lund: Band Singer" on Collector's Classics. It has 21 tracks that he sang with the Goodman Orchestra on Columbia.  That Helen Forrest set is pretty good, actually. She was a fine big band singer, though she certainly didn't think much of Goodman, at least according to the passages from her autobiography cited in the liners!

 

 

gregmo

I picked up a sealed copy of that Art Lund for $4 (including shipping!) via eBay, so I think I have just about everything (or close enough) to eventually put together an enhanced Goodman Columbia/Okeh set. A fair number of good Eddie Sauter arrangements scattered among these Goodman-vocalist collections. Thanks for the tip re the Lund.

[gmonahan]

8 hours ago, ghost of miles said:

I picked up a sealed copy of that Art Lund for $4 (including shipping!) via eBay, so I think I have just about everything (or close enough) to eventually put together an enhanced Goodman Columbia/Okeh set. A fair number of good Eddie Sauter arrangements scattered among these Goodman-vocalist collections. Thanks for the tip re the Lund.

My pleasure! Good luck on an intimidating project!

 

 

gregmo