Mosaic Sets but Especially Tina Brooks

[Chuck Nessa]

Since Charlie and Michael were friends for years, I was there from the beginning.

[Eric]

I must have read an ad or story in Downbeat, perhaps in 1984 and asked for the Monk set for Christmas that year.  A year or two later I remember reading the ad copy for the Tina Brooks set and bought it.  I have loved each of those lps since.  What a great ride!

[JSngry]

9 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

I wondered about that when I was compiling this list, but I think I already had all of the Monk set on separate Blue Note albums.

Nooooooo….101 was chock full of unreleased material/takes. Wonderful annotation to boot!

[Larry Kart]

3 hours ago, JSngry said:

Nooooooo….101 was chock full of unreleased material/takes. Wonderful annotation to boot!

So I blew it. All I have are the two Blue Note "Genius of Modern Music" CDs. Can't imagine why I passed on the Monk set. Who did the annotations for it?

[JSngry]

Cuscuna himself, and he did his homework.

[Larry Kart]

BTW, looking again at some of the less prominent  Mosaic sets, like the Benny Morton/Jimmy Hamilton Swingtets two-LP set, I found myself entranced by Dan's annotations (when he was the annotator). So much deep knowledge, so gracefully, lovingly conveyed.

[jazzbo]

58 minutes ago, Larry Kart said:

So I blew it. All I have are the two Blue Note "Genius of Modern Music" CDs. Can't imagine why I passed on the Monk set. Who did the annotations for it?

This is a good cure for your problem and highly recommended:

A 2 cd set in great sound.

[tranemonk]

19 hours ago, J.A.W. said:

Probably Cindy Wilson. She was Mosaic's office manager between 1994 and 2009.

 

Anybody know what happened to her?

[sidewinder]

Cindy, I recall, did the extremely neat numbering of the booklets. 

Important to us Mosaic obsessives !

[Rooster_Ties]

26 minutes ago, jazzbo said:

This is a good cure for your problem and highly recommended:

A 2 cd set in great sound.

This looks pretty darn nice, and I’m tempted (I didn’t get the Mosaic, and don’t have but about half of this material). The “notes” section for this on Discogs (which is fairly extensive)…

https://www.discogs.com/release/6474196-Thelonious-Monk-Round-Midnight-The-Complete-Blue-Note-Singles-1947-1952

…say: “The fourth release in the "Blue Note Select" series, initiated as part of the label's 75th anniversary in 2014.”

Question: What were the other four?  (I’m not sure I was ever aware of this series, depending on what the other ones were.)

Edited January 19, 2022 by Rooster_Ties

[J.A.W.]

30 minutes ago, tranemonk said:

Anybody know what happened to her?

According to her LinkedIn account she's currently working as office administrator at the Dept. of Public Works, Darien, CT.

[jazzbo]

19 minutes ago, Rooster_Ties said:

Question: What were the other four?  (I’m not sure I was ever aware of this series, depending on what the other ones were.)

Miles Davis Blue Note material, John Coltrane sideman Blue Note material, and the Clifford Brown Blue Note material as leader and with Blakey.

Edited January 19, 2022 by jazzbo

[Rooster_Ties]

5 minutes ago, jazzbo said:

Miles Davis Blue Note material, John Coltrane sideman Blue Note material, and the Clifford Brown Blue Note material as leader and with Blakey.

Aha, thx. I wasn’t at all aware of any of these (not that I really needed any of them, other than the Monk, sorta).

[medjuck]

Once the Mosaic was out of print Blue Note released this boxset that I think is still available.  

[Kevin Bresnahan]

59 minutes ago, tranemonk said:

Anybody know what happened to her?

She's still friends with Scott Wenzel and Michael Cuscuna on Facebook, so it looks like their parting of ways was amicable. She even has a photo of the Mosaic team posted there (minus Cuscuna, who was probably taking the shot).

[Rooster_Ties]

1 minute ago, medjuck said:

Once the Mosaic was out of print Blue Note released this boxset that I think is still available.  

And, iirc, that’s the ONLY way to specifically get the speed-corrected “Live at the Five Spot - Discovery!” material — isn’t that right?

[jazzbo]

1 hour ago, Rooster_Ties said:

Aha, thx. I wasn’t at all aware of any of these (not that I really needed any of them, other than the Monk, sorta).

They are all excellent sets and to my ears the best the material has sounded on US cd.

[Ken Dryden]

I asked for the initial Mosaic catalog when they first launched, but I remember waiting awhile a year or so to order anything, though I did snap up some of the earliest issues before they went out of print. Some of the ones I bypassed like the Johnny Hodges LP only set and the Maynard Ferguson i ended up buying years later for much higher prices. I was fortunate to get an occasional comped review copy or to buy the sets at special promo prices, so I have a fairly broad collection.

[Son-of-a-Weizen]

My first vinyl set was the Mobley ….and since that auction was going to end while I was over the Atlantic on a flight, I had (read: begged) my wife do the bidding…..and she snagged it.  That must have been in ‘98 or ‘99.   

[sjarrell]

16 hours ago, Son-of-a-Weizen said:

My first vinyl set was the Mobley ….and since that auction was going to end while I was over the Atlantic on a flight, I had (read: begged) my wife do the bidding…..and she snagged it.  That must have been in ‘98 or ‘99.   

I was in a hotel in New Orleans when I scored the Hank vinyl. In 2019, it wasn’t cheap- my wife’s great, but she would never have bid for me!

[ghost of miles]

My first set was the Andrew Hill Blue Note 1963-1966 set, shortly after it came out in 1995.  I was working in a record store at the time and read about it as an upcoming release in ICE Magazine; when I mentioned it to my friend and frequent jazz customer Sascha Feinstein, Sascha said "Oh yes, it'll be excellent--but it's Mosaic, you'll have to order it by mail."  That was my introduction to the label, and one that I still love.  Another early purchase that I love as much is the Jackie McLean 1964-66 Blue Note box.  The Sam Rivers set that came out around that time, the Illinois Jacquet... I fell hard in the mid-90s.  

[Kevin Bresnahan]

8 hours ago, ghost of miles said:

My first set was the Andrew Hill Blue Note 1963-1966 set, shortly after it came out in 1995.  I was working in a record store at the time and read about it as an upcoming release in ICE Magazine; when I mentioned it to my friend and frequent jazz customer Sascha Feinstein, Sascha said "Oh yes, it'll be excellent--but it's Mosaic, you'll have to order it by mail."  That was my introduction to the label, and one that I still love.  Another early purchase that I love as much is the Jackie McLean 1964-66 Blue Note box.  The Sam Rivers set that came out around that time, the Illinois Jacquet... I fell hard in the mid-90s.  

By the early 90's, with very few exceptions, I was buying every new release. I only got rid of a few that didn't work out but in general, they were putting out some great stuff in those years.

[Dmitry]

I am certain that my first set was Lee Morgan, ca.1999-2000. I followed the herd on the Blue Note Board. Remember the stampede when a set was advertised as the Last Chance? People were moaning and groaning about paychecks, wives, rent and car payments, but the purchase HAD to be made. I ended up with several sets of music that I really didn't dig at the time, but bought because it was Last Chance'd. They stood on my shelf for years, until I sold them, and made my money back.

[Dan Gould]

I was never part of a Last Chance stampede, both because I relied on Christmas/birthdays for my Mosaic needs, and because I never considered sets I wasn't certain I wanted to hear.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

I rarely had to jump at those "Last Chance!!" announcements because I usually had it already.

Recently though... I have been getting more & more sucked in by them. In fact, I am very very close to pulling the trigger on that Desmond set.