Mosaic vs. JSP: Eddie Lang, Venuti, Traumbauer, Bix....

Well, I waited too long and Mosaic's Teagarden/Capital LP set went out of print--it may be time to buy before others disappear.

But I see Mosaic and JSP both offer boxed (CD) sets of Eddie Lang/Venuti and Bix/Traumbauer (also dup. Louis Prima, Condon, etc).

Mosaic has a good reputation, is very complete, and very expensive.

I've heard good things about JSP re-mastering by Kendall and Davies.
And cost is 1/4 of Mosaic..... Not quite as complete.

Has anyone heard the JSP CD's? Compared to Mosaic? ANY info to help me decide would be great!

Mark

 

Just what I was looking for--thanks Steve (even though think you just cost me a couple of hundred dollars!).
Which ever sounds most like the 78's--

I'm just going starting to go 78 capable--but no way I would ever afford/find all that material so the CD's seem like a good bet.

Mark

 

Up until the past couple years, JSP had a good reputation - as much as that is possible for a label releasing material out of copyright in europe. They reissued music left out of print by the major labels and did thoughtful packages with good liner notes. Most importantly, they had engineers like John RT Davies doing the mastering from vintage sources.

Recently, it seems they've started to follow the practices of the other european "collectors" labels (Definitive, Jazz Factory, Blue Moon) and have simply been cloning the recent digital remasters done by labels like Mosaic and Revenant. JSP's Charley Patton box set (sourced directly from the Revenant box) seems to be one of the recent examples. I believe there was a long thread at the organissimo.org bulletin board describing the same thing with JSP's current jazz reissues.

I don't know if the JSP sets of Eddie Lang/Venuti and Bix/Traumbauer are similar, but it is probably not a coincidence that these sets (and JSP releases of Prima, Condon, etc.) are being brought out so soon after Mosaic released their own versions.

 

I have a couple of the older Davies sets (can't remember which ones at the moment) and they were fine. But I agree with JDW above...the sound on the new boxes is not exactly the same as it used to be.

On the other hand the Mosaic Teagarden was very nice. Hope you can score one.

 

Followed to the organissimo.org thread, and others--and it does indeed seem to be a can of worms--

I've got the JSP L. Armstrong 'Hot 5's & 7's' (John R.T. Davies remastered) and the first Django Box (Ted Kendall remastered) CDs--and they sound very good to me. But I have nothing to compare them with....

I can not find any clue from the JSP site who remastered the more recent releases. It does seem the general opinion of the recent stuff (new Django box, for instance) is that it does not match the earlier stuff. And much may be essentially 'stolen' from Mosaic and others. Too bad.

I wonder which JSP Steve H. heard: Davies/Kendall, or later?
I guess it is e-Bay for the Teagarden LP's--and all those others gone bye.

Thanks for the help!

Mark