Hey Kids, Have You Heard The News? MOSAIC's IN TROUBLE!!!

[Berthold]

Have you also got this email from Mosaic?

 

Visit The Jazz Gazette   The Complete Bee Hive Sessions  We Will Be Repressing This Set Last week we notified you that we are currently out of stock and cannot afford to repress the set without a substantial number of advance orders for it. Thank you very much for your strong response and we expect to be repressing and shipping this set in June. Last Chance to place an order will be this Wednesday. The set will then be removed from the site and no additional orders will be able to be filled.   The Complete Bee Hive Sessions (MD12-161), is a marvelous collection of superb hard bop albums recorded between 1977 and 1984 with artist like Curtis Fuller, Clifford Jordan, Sal Nistico, Dizzy Reece, Nick Brignola Junior Mance and Johnny Hartman among others.

[Brad]

Better get your orders in. You have 3 days, 6 hours and 42 minutes left!

[Dan Gould]

Interesting result, and maybe this will be the model going forward - whatever the contractual right in terms of number of sets that can be pressed and sold, they'll do an initial run which will be smaller than they used to be, then solicit interest in one additional run, then that's it. If that keeps them solvent and able to finance future sets that's a pretty good deal all around.

[Lyin' Wolf]

Hope everyone who wanted the Beehive set has ordered it as today is the last day.  I have it and think it's excellent.

 

 

[Chuck Nessa]

Ordered it last week.

[alankin]

I ordered it yesterday.

[northwood]

For the laggards among us, advance ordering of the repressed -- and then, apparently, to disappear -- Bee Hive set has been extended through Sunday, 04/29.

[JSngry]

I don't need it (not really), nor do I really want it, but it is CD, and there's enough of those dates i'd like to have in portable form and won't be energetic enough to burn, so fuck it, i ordered it too.

[felser]

3 hours ago, JSngry said:

I don't need it (not really), nor do I really want it, but it is CD, and there's enough of those dates i'd like to have in portable form and won't be energetic enough to burn, so fuck it, i ordered it too.

I was on the same knife-edge., but fell off in the other direction.   Someone sold a used one at a good price here several months ago, and I sort of wish I had jumped on that.  But can't justify the full-freight cost.  I know it helps Mosaic, but I've helped Mosaic plenty over the past three decades, especially early on when dream sets were coming out with Blue Note stuff not then otherwise available  on CD (Jackie McLean, Larry Young, Grant Green, Elvin Jones etc.).

[JSngry]

One way or another, get that Dizzy Reece side. That's the one that's got real full-bodied flavor and aroma,

[T.D.]

20 minutes ago, felser said:

I was on the same knife-edge., but fell off in the other direction...  But can't justify the full-freight cost...

+1. Lowballed a bid on eBay a couple of weeks ago and missed; the set sold well under list. It's something I'd kind of like to hear, but way too big a $ investment and I seriously question how many times I'd listen to most of the discs. I also recall a thread in which some posters whose judgment I respect expressed reservations about the box.

Edited April 27, 2018 by T.D.

[woofy]

On 4/18/2018 at 0:18 PM, Brad said:

This is not comforting news:

Last Chance!

 

The Complete Bee Hive Sessions
Final Pressing - Advance Order Request
 

In this time and place, the Mosaic business model is becoming harder and harder to sustain in this rapidly changing world. We aren't sure what the future will hold for us, but we want to let all of you know how much we appreciate that your support has allowed us to constantly make our dreams come true with set after set and that we intend to persevere. The way we operate may change but our mandate remains steadfast.

We've always been diligent about warning you when sets were running low so you wouldn't miss out on titles that you wanted. But at this point, some sets which are temporarily out of stock may not be pressed again. We want to keep every set active as long as possible, but sometimes, we have to reach out to you to determine demand before investing precious resources in another pressing.

A case in point is The Complete Bee Hive Sessions (MD12-161), a marvelous collection of superb hard bop albums recorded between 1977 and 1984 with artist like Curtis Fuller, Clifford Jordan, Sal Nistico, Dizzy Reece, Nick Brignola Junior Mance and Johnny Hartman among others.

We are currently out of stock and cannot afford to repress the set without a substantial number of advance orders for it. If you've been considering this collection and not yet obtained it, now would be the time to step up in order to secure one.

If you place an advance order for this set, we can determine if another pressing is possible. Your credit card will not be charged until we repress the set and ship it to you (however paypal is immediately deducted from your funds). We regret any pressure or inconvenience this may cause you in your purchasing decisions, but this is the only way that we can safely proceed. 

Thank you for your support and understanding, 
Michael and Scott

I bought the Beehive set maybe two months ago. I  have about 28 (ish) Mosaic boxes and and a handful of selects, but I haven't made a purchase from them in about 10 years. My interest was renewed from seeing some Mosaic boxes come up on Ebay searches. I hope my purchase didn't cause them to be out of stock!

[felser]

3 hours ago, JSngry said:

One way or another, get that Dizzy Reece side. That's the one that's got real full-bodied flavor and aroma,

I do have the music from that one, acquired at your earlier suggestion, and it is really good.  There was also a cut from the Ronnie Mathews on someone's BFT that I enjoyed quite a bit.

[Clunky]

8 hours ago, felser said:

I do have the music from that one, acquired at your earlier suggestion, and it is really good.  There was also a cut from the Ronnie Mathews on someone's BFT that I enjoyed quite a bit.

the mix on the Reece is dire , at least on the LP, still enjoyable date but screwed up by someone. I'm passing on the set as I have enough of the sessions on LP.

[Big Beat Steve]

On 20.4.2018 at 2:41 PM, Kevin Bresnahan said:

They did eventually sell them all out. It was the first Condon set - The Complete CBS Recordings Of Eddie Condon And His All Stars - MQ7-152

 

. The CD version sold out years before they sold their last LP set. It stuck around for a very long time.

Speaking of which ... what would be a correct price for that Condon set?

There is one available (NM S/H) at a local record store. I already have a bit of those 50s Columbia recorings but who knows ...

[felser]

5 hours ago, Clunky said:

the mix on the Reece is dire , at least on the LP, still enjoyable date but screwed up by someone. I'm passing on the set as I have enough of the sessions on LP.

I don't remember anything on that label having good audio.

[LJazz]

Got an email reminder this morning that today is the last day to order the Bee Hive Set.  Haven't bought a Mosaic set for some time because I have lots of box sets that get so little play, but I am very tempted based on the samples on the site.  Ugh. 

[Justin V]

Count me as another fan of the Bee Hive set.  It was the largest Mosaic set that I've ever ordered new, and the quality and breadth of the music justified my investment.  It is frustrating that such a rich set is going to go out of print relatively early due to Mosaics financial woes.  

To me, the Bee Hive set represents what Mosaic does best- presenting a treasure trove of material that had mostly been unavailable for years.  With Mosaic's financial situation being so precarious, it is puzzling that the Bee Hive set is going to go the way of the dodo while they release the Savory set containing a good chunk of music that is already widely available, albeit in download form.  

Edited April 30, 2018 by Justin V

[Big Beat Steve]

4 hours ago, Justin V said:

To me, the Bee Hive set represents what Mosaic does best- presenting a treasure trove of material that had mostly been unavailable for years.  With Mosaic's financial situation being so precarious, it is puzzling that the Bee Hive set is going to go the way of the dodo while they release the Savory set containing a good chunk of music that is already widely available, albeit in download form.  

I don't think the Savory set is an apt comparison. The Savory music was 100% unavailable until quite recently and to the majority of THIS niche of collectors that Mosaic caters to, downloads are only third or fourth "best" choice (or else Mosaic would reasonably have opted to go the download route long ago ). If you want to choose another set for comparison, use almost any other of the "name" sets. Very, very often the "newness" of the Mosaics was more about packaging and sonic upgrades but only to a relatively small extent about making music available again after a long "totally OOP" period (because a good chunk of the music of many box set WAS available elsewhere without having to search for ages and/or bound to be present already in the target groups' collections because it was not nearly as (relativley) obscure as the Bee Hive recordings).

 

Edited April 30, 2018 by Big Beat Steve

[David Ayers]

Maybe now the owners can do something else with some of this music and it will come out in some other form - ? 

[J.A.W.]

4 hours ago, Big Beat Steve said:

(or else Mosaic would reasonably have opted to go the download route long ago )

Except that they can't get permission for downloads from the owners of the rights.

[Big Beat Steve]

10 minutes ago, J.A.W. said:

Except that they can't get permission for downloads from the owners of the rights.

That's not the point and you know it. All I said was that visibly Mosaic has gone the vinyl and then CD route up to now and certainly not because they oh so sadly just could not, not, not get the download permissions but because (laudably) they believed in physical media for their reissue projects. And correctly so IMHO, seeing what their primary buyer target group is (no doubt quite a few do downloads too but it's certainly no priority with the majority of their customers). In short, as far as I have read downloads never figured seriously in the Mosaic equation so what may have been out there in download formats (no doubt huge chunks of the contents of many other Mosaic sets can also be had via download if somebody tried and preferred to got that route only) is beside the point when it comes to discussing which "recently unavailable" music has been "more unavailable" than other music.

Edited April 30, 2018 by Big Beat Steve

[Dan Gould]

Try again Steve. Michael has been clear for a long time that downloads have never been allowed by any rights holder.

[Brad]

So much part of the Mosaic mystique is the box and the book that I'm not sure they would issue sets as downloads only (if they could do so). 

[J.A.W.]

14 minutes ago, Brad said:

So much part of the Mosaic mystique is the box and the book that I'm not sure they would issue sets as downloads only (if they could do so). 

As far as I know they thought about it, but since no rights holders would allow it it's irrelevant.