new box set on Oscar Peterson Songbooks???

[Ron S]

I'm assuming this is the best case scenario... with none of this duplicating the Mosaic... ?

Different time period--the Mosaic is the early-50s trio with Barney Kessel on guitar and no drummer. The box you're getting is the late '50s trio with Ed Thigpen on drums and no guitarist.

Edited June 12, 2009 by Ron S

[Swinging Swede]

... with none of this duplicating the Mosaic... ?

The Mosaic is 1951-53. This is all 1959. No duplication whatsoever.

[tranemonk]

That's exactly what I was hoping...

I'm assuming this is the best case scenario... with none of this duplicating the Mosaic... ?

Different time period--the Mosaic is the early-50s trio with Barney Kessel on guitar and no drummer. The box you're getting is the late '50s trio with Ed Thigpen on drums and no guitarist.

[jazzbo]

The UPC code. . . good thnking, good move.

[Ron S]

The UPC code. . . good thnking, good move.

Dude, I'm the Master.

My services are available . . . . . for a small fee.

[tranemonk]

I'm thrilled.... I was really hoping this stuff would come out... Between this and the Mosaic set... No better tribute to the man's passing...

[Ted O'Reilly]

Here's what you're getting (I googled "Oscar Peterson," "The Songbooks," Verve, and the UPC code from the Tower page):

http://www.grigorian.com/webstore/view.php?iid=353291

5 discs--a Canadian release by Verve. Looks like a great deal!

Interesting that the Grigorian website (it's a first-rate record store, BTW, for classical and jazz material) indicates that it's a

CANADIAN EXCLUSIVE BOX SET!!!

The legendary Oscar Peterson, an icon on the world’s jazz scene since the early 1950’s, recorded all of the tracks on Oscar Peterson: The Songbooks in July and August 1959, with the artists that would become to be known as the “classic” trio – Oscar Peterson on piano, Ray Brown on bass and Ed Thigpen on drums.

30 + tracks never before on CD – amazingly, there are still some new things to discover. 5 CDs of some of the greatest standards ever written – Gershwin, Rodgers, Berlin & more - a who’s who of the Great American Songbook. 108 tracks – this is the first time these tracks have been available at a super budget price.

I'll drop in and get one!

[tranemonk]

yea I'm wondering about this part....

"30 + tracks never before on CD "....

The thing I find so cool about this.. is that I suspect this is the last time this stuff is going to be reissued... As much as I love OP he's not Miles/Trane/Brubeck in that the record companies will release the same stuff 7 -8 times...

Edited June 12, 2009 by tranemonk

[gmonahan]

yea I'm wondering about this part....

"30 + tracks never before on CD "....

The thing I find so cool about this.. is that I suspect this is the last time this stuff is going to be reissued... As much as I love OP he's not Miles/Trane/Brubeck in that the record companies will release the same stuff 7 -8 times...

I checked it out--nasty shipping cost to the U.S. I may wait a bit to see if another vendor gets hold of it.

greg mo

[king ubu]

Great!

If anyone finds a good offer for shipping to yurp, please post here!

[Ted O'Reilly]

That Grigorian price of $35 CDN is very good -- the HMV Canada website has it at $55 CDN. http://www.hmv.ca/hmvcaweb/en_CA/advancedS...cordLabel=Verve

And, Atelier Grigorian is a very good record store, though I've never dealt with them online, just in the shop... Mailing CDs is costly these days....12 bucks to send 5 CDs from Toronto to a friend in NYC.

[mellowT]

Tower had a ridiculous price...

Just curious, tranemonk. What was the great price you got? Tower is showing $41.50 currently.

I just bought the OP Mosaic but have yet to crack it open. My discovery of him is yet to begin.

[J.A.W.]

That Grigorian price of $35 CDN is very good -- the HMV Canada website has it at $55 CDN. http://www.hmv.ca/hmvcaweb/en_CA/advancedS...cordLabel=Verve

And, Atelier Grigorian is a very good record store, though I've never dealt with them online, just in the shop... Mailing CDs is costly these days....12 bucks to send 5 CDs from Toronto to a friend in NYC.

Shipping for this set to Europe, in Canadian dollars:

Priority Worldwide INTL, 115.09

XPressPost International, 60.87

Small Packets Air, 48.39

Parcel Surface, 33.26

Small Packets Surface, 20.01

The cheapest option is still Canadian $20.01...

[tranemonk]

I got it for $37.50 before the price went up....

Tower had a ridiculous price...

Just curious, tranemonk. What was the great price you got? Tower is showing $41.50 currently.

I just bought the OP Mosaic but have yet to crack it open. My discovery of him is yet to begin.

[Ted O'Reilly]

Okay, I just went and bought this at L'Atelier Grigorian's Toronto store. (The official release date is Tuesday, but they have it on the shelves today).

It's a very spare production (at least compared to say, Mosaic) with 5 CDs in paper sleeves in a basic cardboard box. A booklet is equally basic, with an articulate foreword/overview/intro of sorts by a friend of mine, jazz fan/poet/retired record retailer Ron Gaskin (I didn't know he had done this).

As personnel on all tracks is OP with Ray Brown and Ed Thigpen, and dates indicated as July 14-August 9, 1959 in Chicago, little research is needed, but: the claim is "30 + tracks never before on CD – amazingly, there are still some new things to discover" and there is no indication anywhere as to what is 'new'. There are 108 tracks in total, brief readings with most under 3 minutes, with 3:39 the longest (I Only Have Eyes For You).

Disc 1 is 12 tracks of Cole Porter, 12 of Richard Rodgers.

Disc 2 is 12 Irving Berlin, 12 Jerome Kern.

Disc 3 has 12 Ellington.

Disc 4 is again 24 tracks, 12 each Harold Arlen and George Gershwin.

Disc 5 has 6 from Harry Warren, 6 from Vincent Youmans and a dozen from Jimmy McHugh.

Nothing is noted as an alternate, or previously unreleased, though each track does have the master take number noted (showing that they didn't go in and do all Porter one day, Ellington the second, etc.). Going strictly by memory (my Lord discography is unfunctioning these days) I'd be stunned to learn that there is anything new here. I suppose if you have the original LP you would know what is extra, but it's sloppy to make a claim, then not follow through with the details. The compilation supervisor is Thom McKercher (of Unversal Canada) who thanks the Verve NY staff for "unearthing" the material, so if there is previously unavailable material, they surely should know what it is, and should tell us...

The essential thing is the sound, and it's first-rate, nice and clear and open. It's an official Universal release, not pirated (maybe they're fighting off the 50-year thing by getting it out a couple of months early) so you can ethically pick up a very good value package that's also legit! Very good price at $32 US through http://www.grigorian.com/webstore/view.php?iid=353291

[tranemonk]

thanks for the first hand review/knowledge Ted....

I'm bumming about the "not new" tracks... but it doesn't make a lot of difference to me as I didn't have any of this stuff before...

Is the packaging cheap? What would u compare it to?

[Ted O'Reilly]

thanks for the first hand review/knowledge Ted....

I'm bumming about the "not new" tracks... but it doesn't make a lot of difference to me as I didn't have any of this stuff before...

Is the packaging cheap? What would u compare it to?

I wouldn't call the packaging "cheap", but there's nothing fancy. Mono-colour oranges on the box (making the negative white-on-orange script hard to read), and just black print on the booklet and the paper CD sleeves. It's all solid quality, but Budget. All manufactured in Canada.

I'm wondering if the '30+ new' claim may mean something like "we at Verve have never released 30 of these 108 tracks on any other CD releases we've done" rather than "we have 30+ tracks that have never been heard outside the recording studio on the day they were taped".

I'm not complaining, by the way...these are very pleasant recordings, done for easy listening rather than stretching boundaries. I like 'em... They're playing in the background right now. Can't you hear them?

[king ubu]

well, I guess it's as you say, "never before on CD", nothing more:

30 + tracks never before on CD – amazingly, there are still some new things to discover. 5 CDs of some of the greatest standards ever written – Gershwin, Rodgers, Berlin & more - a who’s who of the Great American Songbook. 108 tracks – this is the first time these tracks have been available at a super budget price.

(bold by yours truly)

[crisp]

5 CDs in paper sleeves in a basic cardboard box.

Sounds like the packaging used for many classical boxed sets (Decca, EMI, DG, etc). I like it. Nothing wrong with cardboard and paper packaging; it's biodegradable and takes up less space. Amazon Canada has this for slightly more than grigorian.com, for those who don't want to register with another online store: link.

Thanks to Ron S for clearing up the mystery; simple when you know how!

well, I guess it's as you say, "never before on CD", nothing more

I *think* only four of these albums have been released on CD: Porter, Gershwin, Ellington and Arlen (the last three with the relevant 1952 sessions as a bonus). Plus there was a two-disc set, The Song Is You: Best of the Verve Songbooks, released in 1996. So the 30-odd new-to-CD tracks will probably be all that were not covered by those releases.

[JETman]

5 CDs in paper sleeves in a basic cardboard box.

Sounds like the packaging used for many classical boxed sets (Decca, EMI, DG, etc). I like it. Nothing wrong with cardboard and paper packaging; it's biodegradable and takes up less space. Amazon Canada has this for slightly more than grigorian.com, for those who don't want to register with another online store: link.

Thanks to Ron S for clearing up the mystery; simple when you know how!

well, I guess it's as you say, "never before on CD", nothing more

I *think* only four of these albums have been released on CD: Porter, Gershwin, Ellington and Arlen (the last three with the relevant 1952 sessions as a bonus). Plus there was a two-disc set, The Song Is You: Best of the Verve Songbooks, released in 1996. So the 30-odd new-to-CD tracks will probably be all that were not covered by those releases.

And the Kern was released last week.

[Ted O'Reilly]

As I mentioned, the man who wrote the intro to the set, Ron Gaskin, is a friend. I asked him if he had any information about the "30+" tracks, and he said no, that his work was after the fact of the content preparation.

But interestingly, he emailed me "when the first pressing (do they call it pressing?) was made of the set, no one at Verve realized that on the Ellington disc there were 3 tracks prominently featuring the guitar of Barney Kessel. But good old Ron spotted it (jazz fans tend to listen) and it was quickly corrected."

I don't know about the Kern being released last week...this is as a single CD, I assume? Perhaps different branches of Universal work independently, and the Canadian office originally worked on the complete set for Canadian release only, as (don't forget) Oscar Peterson was Canadian, through and through, and never lived anywhere but Montreal as a young man, and Toronto for the rest of his life.

[JETman]

As I mentioned, the man who wrote the intro to the set, Ron Gaskin, is a friend. I asked him if he had any information about the "30+" tracks, and he said no, that his work was after the fact of the content preparation.

But interestingly, he emailed me "when the first pressing (do they call it pressing?) was made of the set, no one at Verve realized that on the Ellington disc there were 3 tracks prominently featuring the guitar of Barney Kessel. But good old Ron spotted it (jazz fans tend to listen) and it was quickly corrected."

I don't know about the Kern being released last week...this is as a single CD, I assume? Perhaps different branches of Universal work independently, and the Canadian office originally worked on the complete set for Canadian release only, as (don't forget) Oscar Peterson was Canadian, through and through, and never lived anywhere but Montreal as a young man, and Toronto for the rest of his life.

Yes, one cd:

http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?pid=7913266

[king ubu]

My set is on its way already! Ordered yesterday, shipped today... but I obvously took the 20 Can$ shipping option, so it might as well take... 12-16 or what does it say again, months?

[crisp]

"when the first pressing (do they call it pressing?) was made of the set, no one at Verve realized that on the Ellington disc there were 3 tracks prominently featuring the guitar of Barney Kessel. But good old Ron spotted it (jazz fans tend to listen) and it was quickly corrected."

That's odd. This set is supposed to be the 1959 songbook sessions with drums instead of guitar. Or are these three tunes quartet dates? Kessel definitely played on the 1952 Ellington recordings.

[Ted O'Reilly]

"when the first pressing (do they call it pressing?) was made of the set, no one at Verve realized that on the Ellington disc there were 3 tracks prominently featuring the guitar of Barney Kessel. But good old Ron spotted it (jazz fans tend to listen) and it was quickly corrected."

That's odd. This set is supposed to be the 1959 songbook sessions with drums instead of guitar. Or are these three tunes quartet dates? Kessel definitely played on the 1952 Ellington recordings.

Well, I'm guessing the request from Toronto went to the archives for something like "the Oscar Peterson recordings of Duke Ellington material" and some intern pulled the proper 1959 trio things, and noticed other OP/DE and tossed them in.l (You wouldn't expect a jazz fan in the archive section, would you?)

My question is why there was only 3? The OP Mercury trio with Kessel did more than 3 of Duke's compositions: the Mosaic box has 11 tracks if I recall correctly.