Gerry Mulligan was certainly busy in December 1957. During a two-week period, the baritonist recorded a reunion album with trumpeter Chet Baker, documented a set of his songs with an octet that featured five top saxophonists, recorded a very obscure set with a sextet that included four strings, and cut most of an album in which his quartet teamed up with singer Annie Ross. This limited-edition three-CD set contains all of the music plus alternate takes and the last part of the Ross album, which was recorded nine months later with trumpeter Art Farmer in Baker's spot. The reunion with Baker, one of only two times when Mulligan and the trumpeter got back together (the other was a 1970s concert), has some of the old magic of the famous 1951-1952 pianoless quartet.
Sidney Bechet, the first great jazz horn soloist to be featured on records, was a remarkable soprano saxophonist and clarinetist. He dominated ensembles, often taking over the role of a trumpet or cornet, and was such a dazzling soloist that he ended up being the favorite musician of both Duke Ellington and John Coltrane. On this three-CD set, Mosaic Select has included some of the highlights of Bechet's recording career, although not delving into his later Paris years or his much-reissued association with the Victor label.
Terrific, limited edition box set collecting all the recordings made by this one of a like group of superstar musicians including: Art Farmer, Phil Woods, Zoot Sims, Curtis Fuller, Phil Woods, Freddie Hubbard, Benny Golson, Art Blakey, and Hank Jones. The set includes 5 CDs covering all of his 1959-60 studio and 1961 live Mercury sessions, as well as an earlier set from 1956 for ABC-Paramount and a 1961 date for Impulse. Also includes an exhaustive essay by Brian Priestley and a complete discography, as well as many rare photographs by Chuck Stewart.
Of all the volumes in the Mosaic Select series, this one, and the Big John Patton box, are the most satisfying, though for very different reasons. This one is a true collector's gem. For starters, all but six of the 31 cuts on this three-CD box are previously unreleased. For Hill fans who knew there was more in the can, this is a most welcoming find. The material here was completely composed by Hill and was recorded in five sessions between 1967 and 1970. The pianist and composer is found in three different settings, from trio to sextet and septet with some octet sides. The personnel here varies, too. The sextet sessions feature Hill with Bennie Maupin, Pat Patrick, Charles Tolliver, Ron Carter, and either Paul Motian or Ben Riley on drums. These are the earliest cuts here and they are solid as solid can be.
This set covers the last two years of McCoy Tyner's tenure with Blue Note, beginning with the pianist's Expansions, the first album on which his own identity as a leader-composer-pianist came ringing through. With Woody Shaw, Gary Bartz, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter (on cello), Herbie Lewis and Freddie Waits, he fashioned a new sound, inspired by, but not mimicking his work with the John Coltrane Quartet. McCoy blended modality, Eastern music, African elements and spirituality into a music that was unmistakably his own.
Mosaic Select presents a limited edition containing all of the solo piano recordings made by Andrew Hill at the Fantasy studios in Berkeley, CA during August and October 1978. Only a fraction of this material – the first two titles on the third disc – had ever seen the light of day prior to this collection's release in the spring of 2007. Having operated throughout the '60s as an innovative composer, pianist and bandleader, Hill spent the first half of the following decade exercising his creativity by composing and instructing at Colgate University in Hamilton, NY, performing internationally, and making records for Freedom, East Wind and Steeplechase.
This Mosaic compilation draws from material that comprised five separate RCA Victor LPs of the 1950: Al Cohn's The Natural Seven and The Jazz Workshop: Four Brass, One Tenor, Freddie Green's Mr. Rhythm, plus two Joe Newman records, All I Wanna Do Is Swing and I'm Still Swinging. Cohn, Green, and Newman are the common element to all of the recording sessions, leading bands ranging from septets to nonets.The Natural Seven was inspired by the Kansas City Seven drawn from the Count Basie band of the 1930s, and while the arrangements by Cohn and Manny Albam swing lightly in the style of Basie's septet, the focus is more on originals written for the session rather than simply recreating earlier recordings.
Woody Herman was dedicated to keeping his big band going and was focused more on music that satisfied him than focusing on making hits. Most of the selections in this three-CD set came from an overlooked period in the clarinetist's career, his early 1960s tenure on the Phillips label. At this point, Herman had recently welcomed new arrivals like trumpeter Bill Chase, tenor saxophonist Sal Nistico, and trombonist Phil Wilson, while still talented veterans like pianist Nat Pierce, tenor saxophonist Bill Perkins, and drummer Jake Hanna.
The Bob Brookmeyer volume in the Mosaic Select series is one of the more enlightening issues in that it not only includes his little-known debut quartet sides for Pacific Jazz in 1954, featuring Red Mitchell, but more importantly, brings back into print his classic Traditionalism Revisited, Street Swingers, and Kansas City Revisited albums from 1957 and 1958. These sides in particular showcased Brookmeyer's fantastic compositional and arrangement skills even better than his work with Gerry Mulligan. Some of the players on these sessions include Jimmy Giuffre, Jim Hall, Ralph Pena, Jimmy Raney, Paul Quinichette, and Dave Bailey. Brookmeyer was a complete traditionalist, but an unusual harmonist.
This limited-edition three-CD set will be hard to acquire but it is a gem. Tenor saxophonist Stan Getz and guitarist Jimmy Raney had very complementary cool-toned but hard-swinging styles. Their gig at Storyville in Boston resulted in some classic music that, along with five studio sessions, is included in this box. The supporting cast includes pianists Al Haig, Horace Silver, Duke Jordan, and Hall Overton; the music was originally recorded for Roost, Clef, Norgran, and Prestige. This essential set is filled with exciting performances from Stan Getz when he was first becoming a highly influential force in jazz.