Box set mania

[take5]

Yes, that's right folks, I'm currently experiencing box set mania!

It's partly due to the way I've completely restructured the way I organize and store my CDs, tossing the jewel cases, putting all the liners in a big box (need to come up with a better way of organising this), and using binders for all the CDs. Now my shelves and racks are free, and I love the why the box sets look and feel- so majestic and glorious. I love all the liner notes that are sometimes like novels, exhaustive recording info and the like. And I love all the crazy music in them. What, 12 takes of Charlie Parker playing Now's the Time? Awesome!

With the discover of amazon.com marketplace, where you can always find cheaper, used sets in great shape, all my music money is going into my box set collection. Most significantly is the acquisition of the Miles Davis Columbia series. I avoided them at first because some of them don't follow album sequence order and I used to not care about alternate tracks. I've done a complete 180 on that- I can organise tracks and MP3 files on my computer or program trakcs on the CD player, so I don't care about that. And with the SACDs, I still will have the albums in some form for some of the most important albums (Miles Smiles, Kind of Blue).

With the Miles stuff, I currently have the Coltrane, Jack Johnson, and Gil Evans sets, with the 2nd Quintet coming in the mail. This just leaves In A Silent Way and Bitches Brew, which are smaller and therefore cheaper.

And the upcoming Seven Steps to Heaven set will complete almost everything Miles recorded for Columbia up until 1970 (barring a couple tracks off of Someday My Prince Will Come), provided one has the complete Plugged Nickel and Blackhawk sets (which I do). I also have the 80s Montreaux set. This means that after acquiring Seven Steps eventually, I'll have 10 Miles box sets!

Then they totally need to do an On the Corner related set (which includes that album, and the live album made at that time), and a set that covers the final 70s band (Agharta, Pangea). That band was awesome.

Other sets I have (number of CDs in parentheses):

New Orleans Jazz (Mosaic) (4)

John Coltrane: Village Vanguard (4), European concerts (7)

Heavyweight Champion (complete Atlantic)(7) coming in the mail

Chick Corea Origin at Blue Note (6)

Charlie Parker- complete Savoy & Dial sessions (8)

Ella Fitzgerald- complete songbooks (16!)

Black Crowes (5)

Led Zeppelin- complete studio recordings (10)

King Crimson- Epitaph (4), ProjecKts (4), Great Deceiver (4)

The Band- The Last Waltz (4)

Chess Blues (4)

(I'm sure I'm missing a couple)

Sets I really want to get now:

Coltrane- complete Impulse! quartet studio recordings (though it'll mean I'll have 3 version of A Love Supreme)

The Grateful Dead- Golden Road (I think I may want to be a deadhead)

Charles Mingus- complete Atlantic, complete Debut

Ornette Coleman- complete Atlantic

all the Mosaics! (this, of course, is impossible)

Sets I'm looking at, probably want:

Herbie Hancock- complete Blue Note

Monk- complete Blue Note

Art Tatume- complete solo, complete with band

sets I probably won't get:

any of the complete Prestige sets, because a lot of that material is on SACD

and so the hunts continue...

[couw]

Sets I'm looking at, probably want:

[...]

Monk- complete Blue Note

[...]

Get the RVGs instead, much improved sound on both the Monk Volumes and the Milt Jackson - Wizard of the Vibes album. The Live Five Spot Discovery has been issued as a single disk as well.

[take5]

Oh, for some reason I assumed the Monk set was the same mastering as the RVGs. Well, Ok then.

Is there any material on that box that's not on the two individual discs?

[Soulstation1]

you'll need the milt jackson rvg "wizard of the vibes"

[couw]

never had the box, but AFAIK, it includes following:

- Monk Vol. 1

- Monk Vol. 2

- Monk Live 5 Spot - Discovery

- Milt Jackson Wizard of the Vibes

- 2 tracks from Sonny Rollins Vol. 2

[king ubu]

never had the box, but AFAIK, it includes following:

- Monk Vol. 1

- Monk Vol. 2

- Monk Live 5 Spot - Discovery

- Milt Jackson Wizard of the Vibes

- 2 tracks from Sonny Rollins Vol. 2

That's correct.

As far as the Herbie Hancock box is concerned: most albums are available in what seems to most ears superior remastering, in the RVG series (as the Monk, but the Herbie box is not that old). I have the Herbie box and will stay with that, however, but just be warned.

Same goes for Clifford Brown Complete Blue Note, and Bud Powell Complete Blue Note and Roost.

[Tony Pusey]

Yes, you should probably become a Dead Head. And the Golden Road has just about everything you need. And when you have digested that you can begin on the various live sets from this time period, and then.....

(P.S. Rocking the Rhein, 1972, recently released has an awesome Dark Star)

[GregK]

Chick Corea Origin at Blue Note (6)

What do you think of this set? I'd consider buying it if I could ever find it anywhere around here. Does anyone know if Corea's other box set, the career spanning one from the mid-90s, is still in print?