The Mosaic thread: news and opinions

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by J.A.W., Apr 26, 2017.

  1. Pants Party

    Pants Party MOSTLY PEACEFUL

    Location:
    Washington, DC
    Most of Mosaic's sets seem to be selling out much quicker than they had in the past. Maybe it has something to do with their strategy of maintaining a more scaled-back catalog. Maybe that's not by choice either. But either way, I feel like you have to be quicker with your decision.

    Thankfully, the Bee Hive set was one that I pre-ordered when it was announced. I just love their label sets -- with their variety. But they also include music and albums that even Mosaic probably wouldn't do. I really liked their Select and Singles line, for that matter. Perhaps it's time they revisit those.

    While I love the tentpole stuff -- Coltrane, Davis -- I have always had an interest in music that is more obscure -- that people don't have. Just seems more personal maybe. Or maybe it's because we grew up in an era where we, or our dad or our uncle, our friend's dad or uncle, had that perverbal stack of LPs that -- 2/3s of which nobody ever heard of. Or we spent hours in the used bin, flipping through LP covers and only 1 out of 5 rang a bell. Will today's digital world have used bins? I don't know. I don't know.

    Anyway, the Bee Hive set is a ton of great jazz that very few people had. Nice stuff.
     
  2. fatwad666

    fatwad666 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Fat City, USA
  3. ilistentoallkinds

    ilistentoallkinds Forum Resident

    Location:
    MD/DC area, U.S.
    Yeah, I agree with you-- as much as I love Miles and Coltrane (and some of their albums are all-time favorites of mine), I really do love finding the much lesser-known (by contemporary standards) artists and recordings! The Mosaic sets have informed me about great jazz artists whom I either would have never learned about at all or would have likely taken many more years to find without Mosaic's helpful guidance.

    One of the tough things for me about Mosaic sets selling out more quickly, or simply having more limited runs, or both, is that on the budget I live on, I can't really afford to buy more than one set (maybe two, if they're not both $119 or above) in a month. If I could have afforded it, I would have definitely bought the Savoy set this month before it went OOP, but I just couldn't do it, having just ordered the Bee Hive set.

    Even more frustrating, being the huge music fan that I am, but still living on a fairly limited budget, is the hard fact that if I choose to buy a pricey Mosaic set in a given month, that all but ensures that I won't be buying anything else music-related, at all, until the next month! First World problems, definitely, but still frustrating, given that I love jazz, and so many other genres, and many artists in those genres. I often wish that I had hundreds of dollars to spend on music each month, but I just don't. Therefore, next month and for a while, I'll be buying Mosaic sets (to support the business, and because I want to make sure that I get them before they go OOP!) and probably not buying much else in terms of music... though the new Elvis 1969 live Vegas box set and the recent Toto box set are both calling my name! Arrghh, decisions, decisions... I'll wait a while on the Elvis box though, because it almost certainly won't be going OOP in a matter of months, which I can't say with confidence about the still-available-for-sale Mosaic boxes!

    One thing that I can be completely happy about, with no reservations, is the knowledge that my Bee Hive set is now on the way! Twelve freakin' discs of ultra-rare quality jazz and a cool booklet-- I'm so excited! :goodie:
     
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  4. Tom H

    Tom H Forum Resident

    Location:
    Kapolei, Hawaii
    Yes, another factor that led me to ordering the Bee Hive set is the fact that it's never been on CD before and it likely never will be again.
     
  5. Bobby Buckshot

    Bobby Buckshot Heavy on the grease please

    Location:
    Southeastern US
    Yall that just ordered the Bee Hive - I'm working through it now and loving it. It's a veritable Roy Haynes drumming clinic as he's present on a lot of these albums.

    Update - Bee Hive set is gone. Oh, and Mosaic's open house is today. Wonder if they took it down because of that?
     
    Last edited: Jul 12, 2019
  6. Tom H

    Tom H Forum Resident

    Location:
    Kapolei, Hawaii
    Got a shipping notice this morning from Mosaic for my copy of Bee Hive.
     
  7. ilistentoallkinds

    ilistentoallkinds Forum Resident

    Location:
    MD/DC area, U.S.
    Wow, my copy shipped out just two days before the set was taken off the site, and it will be here next week-- really glad now that I acted when I did! I was afraid that it wouldn't be in print much longer!
     
  8. ilistentoallkinds

    ilistentoallkinds Forum Resident

    Location:
    MD/DC area, U.S.
    You and I both got this one just before the door closed, but you really did! Good going, man! :righton:
     
  9. J.A.W.

    J.A.W. Music Addict Thread Starter

    Please no shipping updates. Thanks.
     
    fatwad666 likes this.
  10. Bobby Buckshot

    Bobby Buckshot Heavy on the grease please

    Location:
    Southeastern US
    Hopefully you all that ordered that Bee Hive set have received it and are enjoying it. I listened to Dizzy Reece's Manhattan Project on CD 4 and it was the first album in this set that didn't sound very good. Maybe it was a rough tape or perhaps a bit sloppily engineered session. Which is a shame b/c the music is fantastic, great playing & songs. A couple of tracks on the end of that CD are from Clifford Jordan's Hyde Park After Dark and there's a noticeable improvement in SQ when those songs start.
     
  11. ilistentoallkinds

    ilistentoallkinds Forum Resident

    Location:
    MD/DC area, U.S.
    Hmm, that's unfortunate to hear that the sound is not very good on on that particular album. I am encouraged, though, to hear that the playing and songs are great! :) Hopefully, the album doesn't suffer from anything like the "Loudness Wars," which were not yet close to being waged when Bee Hive were recording and releasing their albums in the late 1970s and early '80s?

    While I'm waiting for my Bee Hive set to arrive (should have it by the end of the day), Bobby-- do you have Mosaic's 6-disc Savory Collection, and if so, what do you think of it? Is it up to Mosaic's generally high quality of releases, music-wise, sound-wise, and in terms of the booklet notes?

    I am still at least strongly considering a purchase of the Savory box next (really hoping that it doesn't go on Last Chance for a couple of months, but one never knows!!), and I'd like some input from you and/or anyone here who has it. In the end, if, for some reason, my next Mosaic purchase isn't Savory, it will likely be due to my now-very-careful (daily) looking out for whichever currently-available box set does show up on the Running Low or Last Chance lists next!

    I've had the great Bing Crosby box for years. It's currently on the Running Low list, and I'm so glad that I bought that one fairly soon after it was released! I've gotten so many hours of enjoyment from that set! If anyone here loves vocal jazz, small-combo jazz, or just wonderful singing, do not hesitate to purchase Mosaic's Bing box while it is still in print. It has given me a whole new appreciation for the man as an artist. Before hearing this set, I didn't even know that Crosby had a background in jazz at all! I was woefully uninformed on that count! Bing can vocally swing with the best of 'em in my book, and I love his musical partners' playing on those discs too! :righton:
     
    Last edited: Jul 15, 2019
  12. Bobby Buckshot

    Bobby Buckshot Heavy on the grease please

    Location:
    Southeastern US
    Unfortunately I don't have it. I've read where they did they best they could with the media available to transfer these tracks. See this note from Scott Wenzel on the Discography page way at the bottom:

    "The sound quality of these broadcasts will differ from track to track. However, the following discs presented problems that could not be eliminated in either the transfer or restoring process: The following is a list of some of the more problematic tracks:

    John Kirby - minnie the moocher’s wedding day – static throughout

    Mildred Bailey / Stuff Smith - The entire “Swingtime At NBC” program was of particularly poor quality.

    Stuff Smith - The Randall’s Island broadcast includes “bleeding” from neighboring radio frequencies throughout.

    Glenn Miller - in the mood – high frequency signal noises persist."

    I think it's a either a case of a recording engineer having a bad day and/or tape deterioration. There's times when the rhythm section gets a bit muddy, but almost throughout the horns don't sound quite right.
     
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  13. ilistentoallkinds

    ilistentoallkinds Forum Resident

    Location:
    MD/DC area, U.S.
    Ahh, ok, thanks for the help on those questions. I'm not put off from buying the Savory box at this point, but I will be sure to adjust my expectations in terms of the sound on some of the tracks.

    Still can't wait to hear the Bee Hive set! If, hopefully, only one or maybe two discs out of the twelve have less-than-great sound, I will still be very happy. Ten or eleven very-good-sounding jazz discs with stellar playing, and one or two lesser-sounding discs with also-great playing, and a nice booklet, very much add up to a worthwhile purchase for me, especially when the music is so rare and likely to never be available on CD again.
     
    Bobby Buckshot likes this.
  14. Tribute

    Tribute Senior Member

    I wouldn't mind if people post when the new boxes are being shipped. This thread only averages several posts per week. It is not like there is a flood of shipping posts. To me, anything that keeps it active and before people's eyes is good.

    Did anyone on this thread go to the open house?
     
  15. ilistentoallkinds

    ilistentoallkinds Forum Resident

    Location:
    MD/DC area, U.S.
    The very good Mosaic news for me, right now, is that disc one of The Bee Hive Sessions is absolutely fantastic, and that I really love the fatboy packaging for these twelve discs! (I just like fatboy pacakaging for CDs in general.)

    The unfortunately not-so-good news that in each one of the four fatboys in this set, before I ever even opened them, the second disc was completely dislodged from its spindle and rolling around inside. How could that have happened to each second disc in each of these four three-disc sets?! When I put the discs onto their respective spindles, they were held there very securely, very tightly-- which leads me to wonder if they were ever even placed onto their spindles at all during the packaging!

    Also, brand-new, out of the box, the second of the four fatboys had two noticeable scratches on its cover. I don't want to make a big deal out of relatively small matters, but when a box set costs $169, plus $15 in shipping, it would be nice if it arrived to me without multiple CDs dislodged and scratches on one of the covers. It feels like a small miracle that none of the four dislodged discs has any scratches.

    The music itself, so far, though, is truly great! If all, or most, of these twelve discs are nearly as groovin' as the first one, this ride through The Bee Hive Sessions is going to be a very fun (and even transcendent) one!
     
    Bobby Buckshot likes this.
  16. Tribute

    Tribute Senior Member

    Well the dislodging can easily occur in shipping, or when the delivery man dropped it on your porch. No one ever believed jewel box "nubs" to be perfect. Sometimes it is better for them to be only moderately tight than those you get once in a while that are so supertight that the CD can get cracked on removal.

    The Japanese used to insert a layer of foam in between the CD layers in those "fatboys" to help keep them tight on their nubs. But, alas, if you let that foam sit there for 25 years, the chemicals in the foam can degrade into a brown glue and destroy the CD completely. Better to use a few sheets of folded paper to provide the pressure to keep fatboy CDs in the nubs

    The scratched plastic fatboy outer shell can easily be replaced with almost any single CD jewel box back and tray insert.

    The roots singer Michael Hurley has a song called "Automatic Slim and the Fatboys". I never realized it was about CD jewel boxes
     
  17. hockman

    hockman Forum Resident

    Hey, did anybody go to Mosaic's open house day and how was that like?
     
  18. Bobby Buckshot

    Bobby Buckshot Heavy on the grease please

    Location:
    Southeastern US
    Bing box & Braff single moved to Last Chance while Decca Armstrong is Running Low.

    Anyone have that Decca Armstrong set care to comment?
     
  19. J.A.W.

    J.A.W. Music Addict Thread Starter

    This thread might not attract a lot of traffic per week, but it still has over 900 posts, so it's not exactly a non-runner (or whatever it's called). And once someone starts posting shipping updates, there's usually no stopping them, as is often the case with other threads; they (the updates) muddle up a thread and that's not something I'd like to see here.
     
  20. Tribute

    Tribute Senior Member

    Armstrong was great in the period covered. If you like Armstrong, it is an excellent choice. There have been many editions of this material, but this is Mosaic after all. It has been a long time since I compared its sound with other editions, but I recall that it was an upgrade.

    I assume you can find samples of tunes from this era to see if you like the music.
     
  21. Agree. It ain’t no Beatles thread :tiphat:
     
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  22. Bobby Buckshot

    Bobby Buckshot Heavy on the grease please

    Location:
    Southeastern US
    Ah, Mosaic CD boxes. If it ain't loose it's so damn tight you can barely get the CD out without cracking the hub (the Dial set I ordered a few months ago - talk about a delicate operation!). I think this mainly became an issue once the physical media market constricted and digipaks flourished. Now the suppliers are a short list, making it difficult to source. But you're right, at that price point these shouldn't be a problem.

    As for the music, hope you're enjoying those Brignola albums. They were completely new for me and I seriously dug them!
     
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  23. ilistentoallkinds

    ilistentoallkinds Forum Resident

    Location:
    MD/DC area, U.S.
    Of course, there are almost always ways to "work around" a box set with damages, whether that is replacing a scratched or cracked CD cover, or going so far as having to reach out to the company for another copy of a badly-scratched-up, or otherwise defective, disc.

    However, in the case of The Bee Hive Sessions, and for Mosaic boxes in general, there is always the looming shadow of them quickly going OOP, which can create complications. If multiple discs in a box are already dislodged before the box is even opened, and the box then goes out of print right after one's purchase of it, (as has happened with me, regarding this set), then one may not be able to easily get any possibly damaged discs replaced.

    I count myself very, very fortunate, in this case, that none of the four dislodged discs seems to have been scratched, while rolling around inside, before I was able to put all of them on their respective spindles. I am trying to get to listening to each of these four discs, as soon as I can, to make sure that they all play with no problems.

    Too, for me, there is the matter of principle. Maybe this is a crazy pipe dream, but after paying $169, plus $15 shipping and handling, for a Limited Edition box set, it would be really nice if it arrived to me without four dislodged, and potentially damaged, discs, and without scratches on one of the CD covers, brand-new, out of the box. Replacements and work-arounds certainly exist for these things, in most (but again, not all) cases, but they are another issue to me. This is about the principle.
     
    Last edited: Jul 16, 2019
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  24. ilistentoallkinds

    ilistentoallkinds Forum Resident

    Location:
    MD/DC area, U.S.
    Given that the Armstrong box is now on the Running Low list, it will definitely have to be my next Mosaic purchase, in early August, rather than the Savory box, as I had been thinking/planning.

    No Toto box for me next month then! I'll be very happy to get the Armstrong set though (if it doesn't go OOP before next month!)!

    On the Bee Hive set, I'm finishing the second disc now and seriously loving it. How can this music have not been reissued on CD, for all of these years, until Mosaic very thankfully took up the task??? This is some of the best hard-bop jazz, or any kind of jazz, really, period, that I've ever heard!!
     
    Last edited: Jul 16, 2019
    Mr. H and Bobby Buckshot like this.
  25. jlrchrds

    jlrchrds Forum Resident

    Location:
    Midwest
    Anyone have any update on the new Woody Herman and Mobley sets? Jeff
     

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