When did you first discover Mosaic?

[DrJ]

I ordered several all at once, after drooling over the catalog for several months...several Blue Note sets since back in around 1995 or so, when I began seriously getting interested in jazz I had the "Blue Note Bug." I believe the order included Jackie McLean, Larry Young, and the Blakey set. Never looked back since then! I'm closing in on eventually tracking down all of them, most recently spending a lot of time trying to find OOP LP sets.

Dave James earlier posted about finding the Goodman Mosaic used for $40...and said "that will never happen again." But I have had several lucky finds like this over the years...Herbie Nichols CD set long after it was OOP for about $50...George Lewis set, ditto long OOP, for about $60...and most recently a bulk auction (off Ebay) of 7 or 8 Mosaic LP sets and two CD sets, all long OOP - including all 3 Commodore volumes - in a bulk auction where the total price I paid was only about $10 per disc.

So if you're lookin' for something and don't want to pay exhorbitant prices, just be patient and persistent!

Edited January 28, 2005 by DrJ

[Brad]

My first Mosaic purchase was in the late 90s, the Mobley set, still one of my favorites.

[marcoliv]

mine was Jimmy Smith/Jackie McLean/Phil Woods at the same moment. probably in 1999

since then all the hard work to get each of them is fully rewarded by the listening pleasure -_-

Marcus

[ghost of miles]

For me, summer of '95... I was working in a record store and in love with Andrew Hill's JUDGEMENT (dare I say I was so in love with the sound of Andrew Hill?). Read in an industry magazine called THE ICE that Mosaic Records of CT was releasing a complete set of Hill's mid-1960s Blue Note recordings. I thought I'd order it into the store and get a nice employee discount until my jazz buddy Sascha informed me that Mosaic didn't do retail... anyways, a friend of mine who lived in Norwalk went over to the Mosaic office and ordered it for me. It came with a catalogue, and the rest is history... the history of a broken wallet.

[montg]

1996 after seeing an ad somewhere--I requested a catalog and I think my first purchase was the Decca Armstrong set. One of the earlierst sets I ordered, perhaps the second one, was the Tea Capitol set. For some reason DHL left it at a neighbor's house rather than just placing inside my door or something. I remember being so excited for the set I stayed up late into the night wating for the neighbor to return from her job at a bar. I don't think I'd ever really spoken to her and she was pretty startled to see my goofy excited face at her door at midnight looking for my package. My wife thought I was nutty too.

[paul secor]

Whatever year the Monk Mosaic was released - I'm too old to remember when that was.