The Complete Pharoah Sanders Theresa Recordings - New Mosaic

[Tom in RI]

On the fence with this as I have more than half already. I used to think Sanders take on Sam Cook’s You Send Me would a good BFT track but everyone would recognize that sax sound. 

[JSngry]

A Mosaic of all known Ra recordings from his time in Chicago in chronological/session order would be a wonderful thing, but I don't think there's a business opening for that now. That's a good thing in that there is an active and ongoing market for all things Ra right now.

Fortunately, the resources to "build your own" such set are available, so...carpe diem 

[pglbook]

2 hours ago, JSngry said:

A Mosaic of all known Ra recordings from his time in Chicago in chronological/session order would be a wonderful thing, but I don't think there's a business opening for that now. That's a good thing in that there is an active and ongoing market for all things Ra right now.

Fortunately, the resources to "build your own" such set are available, so...carpe diem 

Fantastic idea! 

I (and my wallet) know that there have been a ton of Sun Ra released in the last 10 years (it truly is a golden age for Sun Ra fans) but a Mosaic Sun Ra Complete Chicago Recordings would be an amazing box set!

Another great one would be the Complete Sun Ra Horo Recordings if Mosaic could somehow get the license for that.

There are so many options with Sun Ra.

 
 

Edited Friday at 01:29 AM by pglbook

[jlhoots]

Nuits De La Fondation Maeght will do it for me for now.

[david weiss]

5 hours ago, JSngry said:

A Mosaic of all known Ra recordings from his time in Chicago in chronological/session order would be a wonderful thing, but I don't think there's a business opening for that now. That's a good thing in that there is an active and ongoing market for all things Ra right now.

Fortunately, the resources to "build your own" such set are available, so...carpe diem 

How many albums total do you think this is?

[JSngry]

I ended up with 6? 8? 10?

Let me check tomorrow to be sure 

It's not albums as much as it is sessions

[romualdo]

3 hours ago, pglbook said:

Another great one would be the Complete Sun Ra Horo Recordings if Mosaic could somehow get the license for that

+1  but it probably would have only fitted the Mosaic Select format & not a big box (or is there more unreleased material)

[felser]

20 hours ago, JSngry said:

Truthfully, I never really found Pharaoh to be an "out" player to begin with. Very technically sound and working with the instrument's intrinsic mechanical capacities.

Reactions are of course subjective, but the methodology is not.

 

I was horrified when first I heard his work on this.  I was an 18-19 year old, new to jazz, in the early 70's.  Thought I was getting nice extended versions of two pretty songs with Coltrane and the guy who did "The Creator Has A Master Plan".

[JSngry]

I was also in high school when I first heard that one, on the radio,, "Naima". I was enthralled! I heard people singing, babies crying, all sorts of human sounds. I was enthralled! Hendrix had gotten me well-acclimated to sounds as sounds.

But again, it was all done by a saxophone, using things of which the saxophone can do using legitimate (if not originally intended) means.

[T.D.]

19 hours ago, JSngry said:

A Mosaic of all known Ra recordings from his time in Chicago in chronological/session order would be a wonderful thing, but I don't think there's a business opening for that now. That's a good thing in that there is an active and ongoing market for all things Ra right now.

Fortunately, the resources to "build your own" such set are available, so...carpe diem 

I think Sun Ra LLC has been killing it with Ra reissues, quantity, quality and sound-wise. Hard to imagine Mosaic stepping into their bailiwick. More than happy to "build my own".

Edited Friday at 06:41 PM by T.D.

[jazzbo]

I agree T.D.

[JSngry]

I do too.

Just make sure that you have access to a version of the Robert Campbell discography and the Sun Ra—The Eternal Myth Revealed Vol. 1: 1914-1959 set to get everything.

Grouping by session is quite useful imo because God knows that's not how they were ever released. Same thing with further grouping by recording order, as much as possible

You don't lose anything by not doing this, but you might gain, depending on your own personal wiring.

[T.D.]

Thanks for the tip.

I was fortunate to cop the Eternal Myth Revealed set when Stefan Wood was a big seller here.

And I have a Campbell discography in Szwed's book.

On the negative side of the ledger, I'm an old fart and have been too much of a Luddite to go the download route, so grouping by date or session looks like a daunting project.

[JSngry]

RIP! No downloading required if you already have the albums!

https://campber.people.clemson.edu/sunra.html

This (and the records) are all you need to do it 

Oh, that and time. Getting that whole "Marathon In Milwaukee" session was a bit of a lift. But not really difficult, just time heavy 

[clifford_thornton]

Back to the original thread, count me as surprised but appreciative that this is happening. I am plum out of room/bandwidth and have not connected with the Pharoahs on Theresa in the past, but am glad it will be there for those who are inclined.

[JSngry]

19 hours ago, david weiss said:

How many albums total do you think this is?

"Albums" is not the point here, because other than the two Transition dates, this stuff was spread out over a bunch of different albums, none of which were interested in chronological groupings.

My final products are on CD-Rs all over the place, in one big mess, but I can find, right now, a full 6 discs of material and have every indication that there's at least 2-3 more.

That's just Ra "jazz" cuts, not including sideman and doo-wop and other sessions. If you add those, you hit anywhere from 8-10 total.

[JSngry]

I do agree that Sun Ra LLC would be disinclined towards playing ball, but if I was going to throw something up against the wall...it would be that all the Chicago records put together like this, with players like Art Hoyle, James Spaulding, Julian Preister, Charles Davis, Pat Patrick, etc. in largely inside-ish setting would incentive buyers who would otherwise not go near a Saturn record.

Otoh - I don't know if that's so off-brand for them that they would just laugh everybody out of the room.

Anyway...The Bill Barron Mosaic has SUCH a nice ring to it!!!!!🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄

1 hour ago, clifford_thornton said:

...have not connected with the Pharoahs on Theresa in the past, but am glad it will be there for those who are inclined.

I admit that they were sort of a shock to the system back in the day, but as time passed and the arc went yet another way, I grew fond of most of them. So count me in!

[Guy Berger]

I am extremely excited about this - it would be my first Mosaic since the Mingus 1964-65 Jazz Workshop box.

[tranemonk]

I caved. Preordering....

[Pim]

I've always liked Heart is a Melody and the Live album a lot. Not so much into the other stuff so I am not picking this up. But I must say: very nice to see Mosaic selecting less obvious material for a new set

[JSngry]

23 hours ago, JSngry said:

"Albums" is not the point here, because other than the two Transition dates, this stuff was spread out over a bunch of different albums, none of which were interested in chronological groupings.

My final products are on CD-Rs all over the place, in one big mess, but I can find, right now, a full 6 discs of material and have every indication that there's at least 2-3 more.

That's just Ra "jazz" cuts, not including sideman and doo-wop and other sessions. If you add those, you hit anywhere from 8-10 total.

Oh wow, I did not count the two Transition records (with a few outtakes IIRC). Those are two CD-Rs more, so 8 full/"full" discs".

[Brad]

On 6/5/2025 at 5:37 PM, david weiss said:

The last recording date is September 1987.

That album "A Prayer Before Dawn" was probably not released until 1988 at the earliest yet there are discographies and a listing in discogs that says this was originally released in 1987.

There is no copyright date on the original LP.

There is also evidence that this was released in 1989.

Theresa records was sold to Evidence in the early '90s. 

They have no records of recording dates or session logs or anything like that. 

Most of the people associated with Theresa Records are gone. 

All this to say that a photo from 1988 is not really not that out of place, especially if it's the best cover photo option we had (and I think it's a pretty cool photo)

 

 

 

Ironically, the photographer who shot the cover to "A Prayer Before Dawn" told me that the Theresa people had Pharoah tuck in his beard to try to make it appear less prominent. A few years later they probably would have pushed him to make it more prominent for a photo shoot....

So far, our work is finishing up stuff Michael started and will be for a while. 

There is really not that many moments of this being "out there" music and the last couple of albums on the label were essentially finding different settings to feature his beautiful, pure Coltranesque saxophone sound.

I listened to the cuts on the Mosaic site and some YT clips. They were better than anticipated but I don’t plan on buying the set anytime soon. 

[JSngry]

 With the money I've saved from skipping both vanguard sets, I can afford this one and probably what else this new power duo puts out there!

[romualdo]

On 6/7/2025 at 5:04 AM, JSngry said:

Just make sure that you have access to a version of the Robert Campbell discography and the Sun Ra—The Eternal Myth Revealed Vol. 1: 1914-1959 set to get everything.

I'd also add "Omniverse Sun Ra" (Art Yard, 2015) by Geerken & Trent - has updated material missing from Campbell