SwingDJs

anton wrote:Yay! I got copy #4 out of 5000 of the Duke Ellington 1932-1940 box set!

(Let us know what it's like )

Haydn wrote:

anton wrote:Yay! I got copy #4 out of 5000 of the Duke Ellington 1932-1940 box set!

(Let us know what it's like )

Oh, how I wish it were possible to post sound clips here! Then I would post a couple of examples from three different sources:

(a) The Proper box (probably ripped from Chrono Classics + additional filtering) - complete junk
(b) Columbia & RCA Original Masters 1932-1939 (Sony, 2008) - very good
(c) The current Mosaic set - the best. Higher cut-off frequency, just like I want it. Compared to (b) it's like removing the cotton balls from your ears

Oh, boy! This is just what I need. I have so little DE from that era on CD.

What a treat it would be to take a long road trip and play Ellington for hours and hours.

How long would I have to drive to play them all?

This would make a good field trip. Hire a limo and driver, then a bunch of Ellington fans climb in and hear great music and see the country side for however long it takes.

Eyeball wrote: What a treat it would be to take a long road trip and play Ellington for hours and hours.

How long would I have to drive to play them all?

It's 12.4 hours of music, so it would take you close to 700 miles.

anton wrote:

Eyeball wrote: What a treat it would be to take a long road trip and play Ellington for hours and hours.

How long would I have to drive to play them all?

It's 12.4 hours of music, so it would take you close to 700 miles.

So - almost 13 hours on the road.

700 miles? That would depend on how quickly you drove. You don't want to do freeway speeds. Somewhere between 30 and 45 mph - cruuuuuuuzin' speed. See the sights, stop for a view, ahhhhhhhh.....mellow!!!!

Damn' you, Mosaic. I have enough of a backlog as is.

There is a rumour (confirmed by Scott at Mosaic, according to posts at Organissimo) that 2011 will bring us a 7-disc Lunceford set.

lipi wrote:There is a rumour (confirmed by Scott at Mosaic, according to posts at Organissimo) that 2011 will bring us a 7-disc Lunceford set.

o.m.f.g. must. have.

dogpossum wrote:

lipi wrote:There is a rumour (confirmed by Scott at Mosaic, according to posts at Organissimo) that 2011 will bring us a 7-disc Lunceford set.

o.m.f.g. must. have.

sweet

I wrote to Scott at Mosaic and he replied:

"Lunceford will be the complete Decca and World Transcription discs 1934-45.
No other info available at this early stage except we hope to have this
ready by the spring and notes will be done by Lunceford biographer Ed
Determeyer."

Nice. I deejayed a couple of tracks off the box this Monday and they sounded great:

Uptown Downbeat (115) - my absolute favorite slow Ellington
Scattin' at the Kit Kat (150) - underplayed beginner-friendly track
Rose of the Rio Grand (185) - my favorite vocal track off the box
Ducky Wucky (140) - another underplayed track with lovely horns/brass

anton wrote:Nice. I deejayed a couple of tracks off the box this Monday and they sounded great:

Uptown Downbeat (115) - my absolute favorite slow Ellington
Scattin' at the Kit Kat (150) - underplayed beginner-friendly track
Rose of the Rio Grand (185) - my favorite vocal track off the box
Ducky Wucky (140) - another underplayed track with lovely horns/brass

Thanks for the feedback Anton (isn't Scattin' at the Kit Kit more like 172 bpm by the way?). I'm going to have to think about getting this myself if I can afford it ... there's lots of cheap Ellington material around but a lot of it suffers from poor sound quality. It sounds as though they've done a good job with this.

Ah, yes, with Ellington you have to be very specific about what recording you mean, as rerecordings were so common. I meant the 1936 version of Scattin' at the Kit-Kat, also known as Scattin' at the Cotton Club. It's slower than later versions.

This is what I think about the Ellington Mosaic set. I haven't listened to it all yet, but I have been randomly checking to see if I have doubled (or tripled) up on copies of individual songs. I have big love for Ellington.

I've noticed that the earlier stuff in particular still has surface static, but that you can actually hear individual instruments with greater clarity than any other copy I have. This kind of blew my brains listening to a version of 'Don't mean a thing' - suddenly the introduction was about a million times more interesting.
But don't expect a crisp, clear, perfect sound - it still sounds 'old'. But now it has less of that overloaded high and messy low - there's actually sound in the middle as well.

I don't use a superspaceship sound set up, and have hearing buggered by DJing and dancing to too-loud music, so I don't really grasp the full value of the technical reworking of the sound. But I do like the packaging, and the period (1932-1940) is one of my favourites.
I have quite a bit of Ellington (not chron classics, though), and this filled in some gaps quite nicely. There are some versions of familiar songs that I've never heard before.
I reckon I'm going to find lots of things to DJ (I've already marked a few, even with my brief and random listening) and I'm going to enjoy listening to this at home. I'm looking forward to tracing different musicians' time with the band and seeing how it affected the band's sound overall.


If you're a hardcore collector with zillions of CDs, you'll probably have most of this. But then, I reckon these sorts of monster collections are for people who don't already have very thorough collections, or who like getting additional copies of songs for the liner notes, marginal differences in quality and just because it's a very nice _thing_.

[edit: doh. got the year wrong on this set. the excitement overcomes me!]

Just starting to work my way through the Duke Ellington - I have ripped it and put the years in. Started to look at some old favourites to compare e.g. The Gal from Joe's (1938). The sound is so much better than the "The Duke: The Columbia Years (1927-1962)". And the alternate track is even better. So from a very small sample I recommend it.