Limited Edition of 7500. Includes a 20-page booklet. By 1952, Teddy Wilson's flawless swing style had already been fully formed for at least 17 years, and it would not change at all during the remaining three decades of his life. Wilson's performances were predictably excellent, but predictable nonetheless. This limited-edition five-CD set has all of the pianist's Verve trio recordings, which includes six-and-a-half former LPs (the half was an appearance at the 1957 Newport Jazz Festival), a set only released previously in Japan, and a live date that had never come out before.
During a five-year period the Master Jazz label recorded 11 swing-based pianists in solo settings. Although the label went under later in the decade, the recordings were treasured by collectors. Mosaic, on this four-CD set, brought back all of the music from the original five-volume Master Jazz Piano series, adding two unissued selections and a full album released separately of Ram Ramirez's playing. In addition to Ramirez (who is heard on 13 numbers), there are 13 performances by Earl Hines, four apiece from Claude Hopkins, Cliff Jackson, Keith Dunham, Sonny White, Teddy Wilson, Cliff Smalls and the obscure Gloria Hearn, eight by Jay McShann and two from Sir Charles Thompson. Most of these pianists (other than Hines and Wilson) rarely recorded during this period in their careers, making this box very important both musically and historically.
This is a comprehensive collection with countless pivotal sessions. It features 203 separate recordings on seven CDs and collects both the sessions led by Chu Berry and other sessions where he contributed significantly as a sideman. You can study his remarkable surefootedness as a soloist; remember an era where evolution in the music was running rampant and Chu Berry's tenor saxophone was one of the things making it run.
While most Mosaic limited-edition boxed sets concentrate on recordings by an individual bandleader or a single record label, Boogie Woogie and Blues Piano features sessions by a number of different artists from several labels active in the 1930s and early '40s, when boogie-woogie was very popular. Fifteen different pianists are featured (if one counts Lionel Hampton playing two fingered-duo piano in a band setting), though it is the giants of the genre, Meade "Lux" Lewis, Pete Johnson, Albert Ammons, and Jimmy Yancey who are given the most exposure.
Garnished with a fistful of alternate takes, the 2007 release of Mosaic's 107-track Complete Lionel Hampton Victor Sessions 1937-1941 is a welcome and long overdue CD realization of The Complete Lionel Hampton 1937-1941, a six-LP box set released during the 1970s by the Bluebird label. Only Teddy Wilson came close to achieving what Hamp did in the late 1930s and early '40s, by bringing together the greatest soloists on the scene for a staggeringly productive and inspired series of recordings that essentially defined the state of jazz during the years immediately preceding the Second World War.
To say that this limited-edition six-LP Mosaic box is overflowing with classics is an understatement. Included are a variety of small-group sessions (with overlapping personnel) from the early days of Blue Note. The Edmond Hall Celeste Quartet has five songs that are the only existing examples of Charlie Christian playing acoustic guitar; clarinetist Hall, Meade Lux Lewis (on celeste), and bassist Israel Crosby complete the unique group. The king of stride piano, James P. Johnson, is heard on eight solos; other combos are led by Johnson, Hall (who heads four groups in all), trumpeter Sidney DeParis, and trombonist Vic Dickenson (heard in a 1952 quartet with organist Bill Doggett).
Oscar Peterson appeared on hundreds of recordings produced by Norman Granz, though most of his early trio dates for Mercury and Clef were overlooked for CD reissue until the release of this thorough seven-disc compilation by Mosaic in 2008. It still represents only a portion of the pianist's considerable output for the two labels between 1951 and 1953. This collection was put together as a result of laborious detective work, assembling nine different sessions from tape masters and second generation reels, 78s, EPs and LPs, some of which came from collectors and libraries, while also including eight previously unissued performances…