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Mosaic Sets but Especially Tina Brooks


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My first Mosaic box set was the initial Monk offering.  My first purchases reflected the music that I already knew I liked: Charles Mingus, Cecil Taylor, Herbie Nichols, Don Cherry.  In the ensuing decades I found myself buying and appreciating sets that would have surprised my earlier self.  I certainly didn't know that there were Stan Kenton or Bobby Hackett or Eddie Condon sets in my future.  

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I recall discovering Mosaic in the late 1990s when my office got connected to the internet. I probably found them via the old BNBB. It took me a minute to figure out that these were legit releases -- and in fact by the same people who did the mainstream BN CDs sold in regular shops.

Since I had a bit of catching up to do I would buy them in batches adding up to 12 CDs to sneak in on a particular shipping threshold to the UK. So my first order was for three four-disc sets: Teagarden Capitol, Kenton Presents and Stuff Smith. It was a memorable moment when they arrived -- as others have said upthread, you simply couldn't believe you finally owned this music.

FWIW I quickly followed that order with one for JJ Johnson and Teddy Wilson, then (I think as a Christmas present to myself) the big 12-disc Capitol set. Magical stuff.

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23 hours ago, crisp said:

-- as others have said upthread, you simply couldn't believe you finally owned this music.

 

1 hour ago, mikeweil said:

That was it, always.

I remember when the Tine Brooks box arrived... I was in heaven. An original pressing of "True Blue" was and continues to be a very hard to find & expensive record. Truth be told, even the 1981 King pressing (first stereo release) was difficult to find & also very expensive back then. The Japanese LPs of "Minor Move" (issued in 1980/81) just didn't show up anywhere in my area. This was pre-Internet so you were at the mercy of what someone traded into your local record store. I was talking to one record store owner and he said that if he ever got in a used copy of it, he'd be taking it home as he hadn't been able to find one. The other two titles hadn't been issued at all at that time. Basically, that Tina Brooks box was one of the holy grails of hardbop for this fan.

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  • 2 years later...
On 1/26/2022 at 1:35 PM, Kevin Bresnahan said:

The first thing I did when I got in my Tina Brooks set was record all of the LPs to cassette so I could play them in my car. :)

A saxophonist friend recorded the Tina Brooks set for me on cassette, and I spent the entire summer with those tapes in constant rotation,  

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On 1/25/2022 at 9:00 AM, Jim Duckworth said:

My first Mosaic box set was the initial Monk offering.  My first purchases reflected the music that I already knew I liked: Charles Mingus, Cecil Taylor, Herbie Nichols, Don Cherry.  In the ensuing decades I found myself buying and appreciating sets that would have surprised my earlier self.  I certainly didn't know that there were Stan Kenton or Bobby Hackett or Eddie Condon sets in my future.  

Same! So much stuff I’ve gotten into over the years that my younger, snottier self passed over without a thought. (Though like others I was also operating on a pretty lean budget and couldn’t afford to be snapping up every box set or reissue that came out.) That 1995 Andrew Hill Blue Note set has a special place in my heart as my first Mosaic (and one that I *still* listen to every several years), as does the McLean 1964-66, which I got shortly thereafter. I think all that I had by either artist at the time were their early entries in the Connoisseur series (Judgment for Hill and Destination Out for McLean, iirc). I still have the Blue Note wristwatch that you got if you sent in OBIs for 10 of the first 12 Connoisseurs! 

Edited by ghost of miles
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  • 2 weeks later...

Mine was the Larry Young set

I had recently bought a big box of jazz lps (pre ebay) and some of them were Blue Notes - originals too

 

My local jazz record shop in Manchester UK (Decoy Records) had a look and out from under the counter popped a Larry Young Mosaic set - AND a box of the Other Side of the 1500 Series (Japanese LPs) 

I went home happier than I had ever felt trading records. Larry Young I had only heard I think 3 tracks of and there was all his stuff and his sides with Grant Green ....and then that Japanese Blue Note set.

 

Still have the Larry Young set - my favourite still. 

Bought all the Blue Note boxes and loved ringing up from the UK (as fast as I could as it cost a fortune) to place an order for the next one or ones I had missed. 

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I came to Mosaic somewhat late, missing out on the original Andrew Hill box and Jackie McLean and even Herbie Nichols.  I would have snatched these up, and only gradually was able to get all the original music on CD (with the 3 CD set Nichols' set BN put out later making things much easier!).  I think the first Mosaic set I ordered was Hank Mobley.  Over the years, I've accumulated a fair number of sets, though I don't listen to them nearly as often as I should.  I think my favorites remain some of the individual Select sets.

Sadly I've just changed to a new job where it will be next to impossible to listen to this type of music at work (we can't even play ripped music because the USB ports are turned off and needless to say playing music from "the cloud" is frowned upon...).  My recent order of the Don Byas set (and Sonny Clark) is fairly likely to be my last order, but I suppose never say never.

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11 minutes ago, ejp626 said:

Sadly I've just changed to a new job where it will be next to impossible to listen to this type of music at work (we can't even play ripped music because the USB ports are turned off and needless to say playing music from "the cloud" is frowned upon...).  My recent order of the Don Byas set (and Sonny Clark) is fairly likely to be my last order, but I suppose never say never.

I recently left a job in a classified lab with those same restrictions you mention but we somehow managed to be able to stream Spotify in there. I assume the IT group somehow managed that one network port so that it was "one way", so we had no way to move data out but we could stream things in.

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3 minutes ago, Kevin Bresnahan said:

I recently left a job in a classified lab with those same restrictions you mention but we somehow managed to be able to stream Spotify in there. I assume the IT group somehow managed that one network port so that it was "one way", so we had no way to move data out but we could stream things in.

I haven't tried Youtube, which may or may not be available, but usually raises red flags.  So far, I am able to access and play music from Bandcamp.  (No idea how long this loophole will be available.)  I have a decent Bandcamp collection, and I suppose I will start buying more music that way, so long as I can listen at work, though this of course doesn't address the Mosaic issue...

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On 2/19/2024 at 10:01 AM, andybleaden said:

Mine was the Larry Young set

I had recently bought a big box of jazz lps (pre ebay) and some of them were Blue Notes - originals too

 

My local jazz record shop in Manchester UK (Decoy Records) had a look and out from under the counter popped a Larry Young Mosaic set - AND a box of the Other Side of the 1500 Series (Japanese LPs) 

I went home happier than I had ever felt trading records. Larry Young I had only heard I think 3 tracks of and there was all his stuff and his sides with Grant Green ....and then that Japanese Blue Note set.

 

Still have the Larry Young set - my favourite still. 

Bought all the Blue Note boxes and loved ringing up from the UK (as fast as I could as it cost a fortune) to place an order for the next one or ones I had missed. 

I just finished listening to that Larry Young set all the way through for the first time in many years. Such an outstanding collection, with lots of Grant Green to boot. I also enjoyed the post-Unity sessions more this time around than I did when I first got the set in the late 1990s… just played “Evening” on my afternoon show a few days ago as a result of my revisitation. 

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On 2/19/2024 at 3:01 PM, andybleaden said:

Mine was the Larry Young set

I had recently bought a big box of jazz lps (pre ebay) and some of them were Blue Notes - originals too

 

My local jazz record shop in Manchester UK (Decoy Records) had a look and out from under the counter popped a Larry Young Mosaic set - AND a box of the Other Side of the 1500 Series (Japanese LPs) 

I went home happier than I had ever felt trading records. Larry Young I had only heard I think 3 tracks of and there was all his stuff and his sides with Grant Green ....and then that Japanese Blue Note set.

 

Still have the Larry Young set - my favourite still. 

Bought all the Blue Note boxes and loved ringing up from the UK (as fast as I could as it cost a fortune) to place an order for the next one or ones I had missed. 

Great shop Decoy. That was Mike Chadwick’s place I recall. Pretty ugly part of town, but much missed. 

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