Dinah Washington box

[tranemonk]

Haven't seen much discussion of this on this board. Well, I just got through Disc 1 and I think it's a bit of mixed bag... What's good is VERY good and what's bad (IMHO) is fairly bad. The only tracks I put it the latter category (based on Disc 1) are the tracks with "The New Allegros...

Didn't have any of her previous recordings and I figured a Mosaic 5CD set was a good place to start....

Let's see where this goes...

Hoping it gets more consistent...

Any thoughts for those of you who did buy the set?

[Ed S]

Voila ! B-)

[tranemonk]

Well I'm just about finished listening to this set... and I've got to give my 2 cents...

Let me preface this with 2 comments...

1) I have 25 Mosaic sets... so I'm very familar with them and their stuff

2) I had not heard any Dinah before this... (and yes I had read the AMG bio...)

Given that... I have to say... this is a DUD!

Actually it's kinda painful... Parts of Disc 4 are the only worthwhile tunes...

The general reasons to stay away from this set are the following:

1) WAY TOO MANY POORLY DONE sessions with strings. This composes probably 60% of the set. Generally speaking - IMHO, it is very difficult to put together a GOOD jazz record with strings. (It has been done.... ) but NONE of these are on this set....

2) ALL the tracks (6-12) with a vocal background group are AWFUL. Just bad.

3) Even the few tracks on Disc 4 that are okay... it feels like Dinah is just NOT into it...

I had some problems with the Sarah Vaughn box for similar reasons... but there were 2 or 3 CD's in that box that are very good. There's very little in this set worth giving a 2nd look to.

Sorry but this is the most disappointing Mosaic I have - by far. At least I've got the Sonny Stitt and Anita O'Day to look forward to on my listening list!!!