Strata-East: The Legacy begins

[felser]

10 minutes ago, T.D. said:

I have Glass Bead Games on CD as part of the Strata-East Mosaic, along with the Cecil Payne, Charles Brackeen and Pharoah Sanders from this batch. Hey, with a few more DLs I could duplicate the Mosaic and sell off the unwieldy box!

Yep.  Key missing piece is Clifford Jordan - In The World.

[felser]

A couple of notes:

1 - I have bought the CD's and some of the downloads in this batch, and the sound quality is superb, well beyond what I would have thought possible.  I am upgrading items I already have to get the greatly improved fidelity, in some cases even buying downloads of material I already own on older CD's.

2 - I contacted Mack Avenue, and they are planning to release more CD's of Strata-East material later this year, though no details available yet.

[bertrand]

On 5/13/2025 at 11:23 PM, felser said:

A couple of notes:

1 - I have bought the CD's and some of the downloads in this batch, and the sound quality is superb, well beyond what I would have thought possible.  I am upgrading items I already have to get the greatly improved fidelity, in some cases even buying downloads of material I already own on older CD's.

2 - I contacted Mack Avenue, and they are planning to release more CD's of Strata-East material later this year, though no details available yet.

So I noticed that a lot of the titles are on Bandcamp as download only, but I did get the Charlie Rouse on CD. Are some of the titles going to be on CD later, in which case I will wait? How did you get in touch with Mack Avenue? Here are the titles I am interested in:

Bill Lee: Descendents of Mike and Phoebe

Billy Harper: Capra Black

Brass Company: Colors

Charles Tolliver: Compassion

Harold Vick: Don't Look Back

Charles Tolliver: Live in Berlin (not in the Mosaic Select, correct?)

Charles Tolliver: Music Inc. (Not in Mosaic either?)

Cecil McBee: Mutima

Billy Harper: Such Great Friends

New York Bass Violin Choir

PS: Is the last track on Rouse 9:30 and not 10:30? The ending is kind of abrupt.

 

 

Actually, digging a bit more, which Tolliver titles were not in either Mosaic Select? It seems Live in Berlin is the only one. Right Now/Paper Man was not a Strata East title. Note that the download has an extra track.

Also Compassion was in neither Mosaic Select set either.

Edited 16 hours ago by bertrand

[BFrank]

I would be interested to know how the new reissues compare to other relatively new ones, like the Mosaic Select Tolliver, and the Mosaic Clifford Jordan box

[felser]

26 minutes ago, bertrand said:

So I noticed that a lot of the titles are on Bandcamp as download only, but I did get the Charlie Rouse on CD. Are some of the titles going to be on CD later, in which case I will wait? How did you get in touch with Mack Avenue? Here are the titles I am interested in:

Bill Lee: Descendents of Mike and Phoebe

Billy Harper: Capra Black

Brass Company: Colors

Charles Tolliver: Compassion

Harold Vick: Don't Look Back

Charles Tolliver: Live in Berlin (not in the Mosaic Select, correct?)

Charles Tolliver: Music Inc. (Not in Mosaic either?)

Cecil McBee: Mutima

Billy Harper: Such Great Friends

New York Bass Violin Choir

PS: Is the last track on Rouse 9:30 and not 10:30? The ending is kind of abrupt.

 

 

Actually, digging a bit more, which Tolliver titles were not in either Mosaic Select? It seems Live in Berlin is the only one. Right Now/Paper Man was not a Strata East title. Note that the download has an extra track.

Also Compassion was in neither Mosaic Select set either.

I contacted info@mackavenue.com, and they have been shockingly responsive at getting my email to the right people, those people emailing me back with intelligent answers, etc.  The did say some of the downloads would be coming out on physical media later in the year, but would not or could not tell me more details. 

The Tolliver Mosaic selects have the following albums:

MS-020   Live at Slugs Vols 1 and 2, Live in Tokyo, and bonus material (including the Slugs download bonus material which Mack Avenue mistakenly claimed was previously unreleased).

MS-037 Music Inc. (the one you mention) , Impact (the Strata-East one, not the ENJA one, and an otherwise unreleased 1979 NDR session).

Compassion and Live in Berlin are not on the Mosaics.  Compassion, recorded in 1977, is great, has Nathan Page on guitar rather than a pianist.  Live in Berlin at the Quasimodo was recorded in 1988, released on two discs and is good.  Compassion and Live in Berlin at the Quasimodo were released on Bellaphon CD's in the early 90's, as was Harper's Capra Black, McBee's Mutima, and Harper's Such Great Friends.

1 minute ago, BFrank said:

I would be interested to know how the new reissues compare to other relatively new ones, like the Mosaic Select Tolliver, and the Mosaic Clifford Jordan box

The ones I have sound great in general; to me, a great improvement over the Bellaphon CD's .  The Tolliver CD is in the mail to me, I can compare it to the Select when I get it.  The one that did not knock me out soundwise was the Sanders.  I also have the Cowell and Rouse CD's and several of the downloads.  I used to own the Mosaic (cashed in when the price for it got crazy), and that also sounded really good to me.  So best advice is probably upgrade if you own the Bellaphon CD's, don't bother if you own the Tolliver Selects or the Jordan Mosaic box (unless you want to sell those for financial reasons).

[BFrank]

8 minutes ago, felser said:

I contacted info@mackavenue.com, and they have been shockingly responsive at getting my email to the right people, those people emailing me back with intelligent answers, etc.  The did say some of the downloads would be coming out on physical media later in the year, but would not or could not tell me more details. 

The Tolliver Mosaic selects have the following albums:

MS-020   Live at Slugs Vols 1 and 2, Live in Tokyo, and bonus material (including the Slugs download bonus material which Mack Avenue mistakenly claimed was previously unreleased).

MS-037 Music Inc. (the one you mention) , Impact (the Strata-East one, not the ENJA one, and an otherwise unreleased 1979 NDR session).

Compassion and Live in Berlin are not on the Mosaics.  Compassion, recorded in 1977, is great, has Nathan Page on guitar rather than a pianist.  Live in Berlin at the Quasimodo was recorded in 1988, released on two discs and is good.  Compassion and Live in Berlin at the Quasimodo were released on Bellaphon CD's in the early 90's, as was Harper's Capra Black, McBee's Mutima, and Harper's Such Great Friends.

The ones I have sound great in general; to me, a great improvement over the Bellaphon CD's .  The Tolliver CD is in the mail to me, I can compare it to the Select when I get it.  The one that did not knock me out soundwise was the Sanders.  I also have the Cowell and Rouse CD's and several of the downloads.  I used to own the Mosaic (cashed in when the price for it got crazy), and that also sounded really good to me.  So best advice is probably upgrade if you own the Bellaphon CD's, don't bother if you own the Tolliver Selects or the Jordan Mosaic box (unless you want to sell those for financial reasons).

Thanks. At this point I don't think I need to continuously upgrade unless there are major revelations.

[bertrand]

22 minutes ago, felser said:

I contacted info@mackavenue.com, and they have been shockingly responsive at getting my email to the right people, those people emailing me back with intelligent answers, etc.  The did say some of the downloads would be coming out on physical media later in the year, but would not or could not tell me more details. 

The Tolliver Mosaic selects have the following albums:

MS-020   Live at Slugs Vols 1 and 2, Live in Tokyo, and bonus material (including the Slugs download bonus material which Mack Avenue mistakenly claimed was previously unreleased).

MS-037 Music Inc. (the one you mention) , Impact (the Strata-East one, not the ENJA one, and an otherwise unreleased 1979 NDR session).

Compassion and Live in Berlin are not on the Mosaics.  Compassion, recorded in 1977, is great, has Nathan Page on guitar rather than a pianist.  Live in Berlin at the Quasimodo was recorded in 1988, released on two discs and is good.  Compassion and Live in Berlin at the Quasimodo were released on Bellaphon CD's in the early 90's, as was Harper's Capra Black, McBee's Mutima, and Harper's Such Great Friends.

The ones I have sound great in general; to me, a great improvement over the Bellaphon CD's .  The Tolliver CD is in the mail to me, I can compare it to the Select when I get it.  The one that did not knock me out soundwise was the Sanders.  I also have the Cowell and Rouse CD's and several of the downloads.  I used to own the Mosaic (cashed in when the price for it got crazy), and that also sounded really good to me.  So best advice is probably upgrade if you own the Bellaphon CD's, don't bother if you own the Tolliver Selects or the Jordan Mosaic box (unless you want to sell those for financial u 

I will wait a while to see which come out on CD, my preferred format.

[felser]

7 hours ago, bertrand said:

I will wait a while to see which come out on CD, my preferred format.

Mine too!  I grabbed a few of the downloads (Brass Company, NY Bass Violin Choir) I can't imagine ever coming out on CD, and grabbed the first Piano Choir and the Harold Vick downloads out of impatience.  I'll get them on CD if they get released on that medium.  I already have the Piano Choir on a previous CD issue, but it's missing 35+ minutes of material.

[bertrand]

This strategy of releasing the downloads month ahead of the CDs is odd. I will email them with my wish list and see if I can pin them down. I agree with the impatience issue - I have been hoping those Bill Lee titles would come out for YEARS. Even if I get a couple, I would get the CDs later.

The two Tollivers I need are Compassion and Live in Berlin.

So all the bonus tracks on Live at Slugs were in the Mosaic Select? Music Inc. Has a bonus track that was NOT in the Mosaic, I believe, and Right Now/Paper Man also had an extra track.

Interesting unresolved issue: Spanish Dancer in Brass Company is the same tune as the rejected track from Grant Green's much earlier Solid record. It was always presumed to be a Duke Pearson tune but I never found a copyright registration. So it looks like it is a Bill Lee tune, but how did a Bill Lee tune make its way to a Blue Note date? Bill was never in the Blue Note 'family'. Very odd.

[felser]

14 minutes ago, bertrand said:

This strategy of releasing the downloads month ahead of the CDs is odd. I will email them with my wish list and see if I can pin them down. I agree with the impatience issue - I have been hoping those Bill Lee titles would come out for YEARS. Even if I get a couple, I would get the CDs later.

The two Tollivers I need are Compassion and Live in Berlin.

So all the bonus tracks on Live at Slugs were in the Mosaic Select? Music Inc. Has a bonus track that was NOT in the Mosaic, I believe, and Right Now/Paper Man also had an extra track.

Interesting unresolved issue: Spanish Dancer in Brass Company is the same tune as the rejected track from Grant Green's much earlier Solid record. It was always presumed to be a Duke Pearson tune but I never found a copyright registration. So it looks like it is a Bill Lee tune, but how did a Bill Lee tune make its way to a Blue Note date? Bill was never in the Blue Note 'family'. Very odd.

Live in Berlin also has a bonus track.  I'll need to pick up that and the Music Inc. bonus track.  The Right Now bonus track is an alternate take, so I'll pass on that.  I forgot to mention that I also picked up the download of the Billy Parker, which is a huge improvement over the especially horrid needle drop which was used for the Japanese CD.

Here are the Slugs bonus cuts which are on both the Mack Avenune download and the Mosaic Select:

3-1

On The Nile Written-By – Charles Tolliver

13:33
3-2		Ruthie's Heart (Dedicated To My Mother) Written-By – Charles Tolliver

18:46
3-3		Repetition Written-By – Neal Hefti

8:51

[bertrand]

Thanks. So nothing new in the Slugs set.

I will download the Music Inc. And Paper Man bonus tracks. I don't have Live in Berlin at all, so will get the CD.

[felser]

14 minutes ago, bertrand said:

Thanks. So nothing new in the Slugs set.

I will download the Music Inc. And Paper Man bonus tracks. I don't have Live in Berlin at all, so will get the CD.

two Bellaphon CD's on Berlin.

[bertrand]

Sorted through all of it now. Two more things:

Tolliver Live in Tokyo has 3 tracks on the Mosaic Select that are not on the Mack Avenue Download: Impact, Our Second Father, Earl's World

The Live at Loosdrecht I have is called Grand Max on Black Lion. Can't remember if it sounded good enough.

[felser]

4 minutes ago, bertrand said:

 

The Live at Loosdrecht I have is called Grand Max on Black Lion. Can't remember if it sounded good enough.

Good enough, not great.  I will jump at a CD upgrade of it.