Felser put up a post in another thread which put me to thinking. Mosaic prices have plummeted. We wont' go into the reasons, but many sets have material which can be obtained by picking up individual cds. I have held off, for example, buying the Mosaic Woody Shaw on Muse because I have pretty much everything there on the 32jazz issues. Felser, however, points out that the 32jazz cds are a mess--I would love if he could expound upon that, and so he sees the need to keep his Mosaic box of the same material.
So which Mosaic sets are worth keeping despite all or part of the material being available in single issues?
I begin by quoting from Felser's excellent comment in another thread:
I actually have been selling off most of my Mosaic sets as the material becomes available on other CD's. For instance, the Woody Shaw Columbia is totally trumped by that box set that Columbia put out - extra material, better sound, much lower price, smaller footprint. Exception for me is the Woody Shaw Muse box - the 32jazz reissues are so shoddy, I don't have the heart to have that be my representation of that great material. And the Elvin Jones, Lou Donaldson, Stanley Turrentine, Jackie McLean Blue Note boxes have important albums not readily available on Blue Note CD, and the Gerald Wilson and Jazz Crusaders Pacific Jazz sets the same. Beyond that, I only have a smattering of big boxes (Roach, MJQ, Sonny Stitt come to mind), and I expect to sell them eventually. I have kept a lot more of the Selects, which I prefer.