Mosaic Jazz

Johnny Smith - The Complete Roost Johnny Smith Small Group Sessions (1952-64) {8CD Box Set Mosaic MD8-216 rel 2002}
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© 1952-64, 2002 Roost / Mosaic Records / EMI | MD8-216
Jazz / Cool / Guitar

Johnny Smith is an exquisite jazz guitarist known mostly to fellow musicians and serious jazz fans. This beautifully packaged and expertly annotated eight-CD limited-edition boxed set from Mosaic includes his complete small-group recordings for Roost, most of which have languished out of print for decades. Smith's unique voicings on his instrument set him apart from other players, yet he maintains a lush, crystal-clear tone no matter the tempo or setting.

Various Artists - The Pacific Jazz Piano Trios, Mosaic Select (2005) {3CD Set, Mosaic MS-019 rec 1952-1963}
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© 1952-63, 2005 Mosaic Records / EMI Music | MS-019 / 7243-8-75552-2-8
Jazz / Cool / West Coast Jazz / Piano

This set reinstates a number of important piano recordings made for Pacific Jazz (and in the case of Jimmy Rowles Liberty). Russ Freeman and Rowles were seminal to so much of the important music that emanated from Los Angeles in the '50s and '60s that their achievements would be far too many to list here. Freeman's hard swinging style is featured on 14 tracks made between 1952 and '57. Rowles, an encyclopedic piano maestro, is represented by his rare Liberty album Rare - But Well Done and two Pacific Jazz tracks, made the end of sessions by others.

Johnny Richards - Mosaic Select 17 (2005) {3CD Set Mosaic MS-017 rec 1955-1966}
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© 1955-66, 2005 Mosaic Records / Capitol | MS-017
Jazz / Progressive Jazz / Third Stream / World

This three-CD set reissues arranger Johnny Richards' Capitol and Roulette albums that originally were called Wide Range, Experiments in Sound, The Rites of Diablo, My Fair Lady, and Aqui Se Habla Espanol, the great majority of his recordings as a leader. In addition, Richards' portion of the album Annotations of the Muses plus a few unreleased selections are included. Johnny Richards, who is most famous for his association with Stan Kenton, was an inventive writer who starting in 1957 and had a band of his own. The music on this three-fer includes the adventurous three-part third stream piece "Annotations of the Muses," a set of Richards' adaptations of themes from My Fair Lady, a few Afro-Cuban projects, some relatively straight-ahead but complex jazz, and Richards' hit "Young at Heart." There are many short solos from the top-notch sidemen, but it's Johnny Richards' writing that makes this set quite definitive and memorable.

Duke Pearson - Mosaic Select 8 (2003) {3CD Set Mosaic MS-008 rec 1968-1970}
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© 1968-70, 2003 Mosaic Records / EMI Music | MS-008
Jazz / Hard Bop / Soul Jazz / Piano

The Mosaic Select series continues – having released eight impressive volumes n the calendar year 2003 – this being the last, it's a provocative set in that it compiles five Duke Pearson albums from 1968-1970, all of them centered around his "exotic period: The Phantom, Merry Ole Sole, How Insensitive, It Could Only Happen With You, and I Don't Care Who Knows It. In addition, it places all of those recording sessions in their proper chronological order and includes two completely unreleased tracks.

Bob Brookmeyer - Mosaic Select 9 (2004) {3CD Set, Mosaic Records MS-009 rec 1954-1958}
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© 1954-58, 2004 Mosaic Records / EMI Music | MS-009
Jazz / Cool / West Coast Jazz / Trombone

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.

While pianist-arranger-composer Toshiko Akiyoshi headed a fine big band in New York after moving cross-country in 1982, the orchestra that she led in Los Angeles in the 1970s was arguably her greatest accomplishment. The three-CD Mosaic Select set Toshiko Akiyoshi-Lew Tabackin Big Band collects all of the music originally released on the RCA albums Kogun, Long Yellow Road, Tales of a Courtesan, Insights, and March of the Tadpoles. With such major players as Akiyoshi’s husband Lew Tabackin on tenor and flute, trumpeters Bobby Shew and Don Rader, trombonist Britt Woodman and altoist Gary Foster among the many soloists in the all-star band, the orchestra could swing as hard as any of its competitors. In addition to the more boppish pieces, Akiyoshi often wrote works that displayed her Japanese heritage, utilizing Eastern harmonies and instruments along with her husband’s flute. Many of the highpoints of her career are on this perfectly conceived Mosaic release.

Paul Chambers - Mosaic Select 5 (1956-59) [3CD BoxSet] {2003 Mosaic Records}
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© 2003 Mosaic Records / Blue Note | MS-005
Jazz / Hard Bop / Bass

Paul Chambers finally receives the Mosaic Select treatment and there's a surprise tossed in with his catalog for fans and connoisseurs: his material recorded for the Transition label. Also included on the Paul Chambers set are the albums Chambers' Music and Whims of Chambers from 1956 and Bass on Top and The Paul Chambers Quintet from 1957. Musicians on these dates ran the gamut from Elvin Jones to Donald Byrd, Clifford Jordan, Horace Silver, Kenny Burrell, Hank Jones, and Art Taylor – an overwhelming number of fellow Detroiters. There are some other odds and ends as well, but most importantly, the Transition material will be of prime interest to John Coltrane fans.

Carmell Jones - Mosaic Select 2 (2003) {3CD Set Mosaic MS-002 rec 1961-1963}
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© 1961-63, 2003 EMI Music / Mosaic Records | MS-002
Jazz / Hard Bop / Trumpet

Trumpeter Carmell Jones is best known as a sideman (especially Horace Silver's Song for My Father), but he made several valuable recordings as a leader, though most have long languished out of print. To correct this oversight, Mosaic Select released this three-CD set in early 2003, including all three of his earliest Pacific Jazz albums (The Remarkable Carmell Jones, Business Meetin' , and Brass Bag), as well as a long unavailable Harold Land disc and a previously unreleased date led by pianist Frank Strazzeri. The quintet with Land and Strazzeri works wonders with Jones' jazz waltz "That's Good" and a similar treatment of "Beautiful Love," but the high point of their various sets is the 11-minute workout of Duke Ellington's "I'm Gonna Go Fishin'."

Grachan Moncur III - Mosaic Select (2003) {3CD Set Mosaic MS-001 rec 1963-1967}
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© 1963-67, 2003 Blue Note / Mosaic Records | MS-001 | 24bit remastering
Jazz / Post Bop / Trombone

Mosaic Records – that venerable jazz and blues collector's label that issues completely necessary packages by legendary, if sometimes obscure, artists in limited editions on both LP and CD – is a name synonymous with the finest quality in sound, annotation, and packaging, and they are branching out. Mosaic Select is a side label dedicated to bringing to light the work of musicians whose role in the development of jazz was seminal but whose catalog was small, or whose work was neglected or otherwise overlooked. These editions, in two or three CD sets, just like their other boxes, are numbered and limited.