SwingDJs

My Lunceford box has arrived! Sounds great, as expected. The old GRP discs (Stomp It Off and For Dancers Only) were already quite good though, so don't expect a huge difference if you already own those. Jealous (1934) now sounds fantastic though. The big improvement is on the material not on the GRP discs and on the late-1937--1945 material.

YouTube ad from Mosaic:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIzzA2tl0ws

I am looking forward to dumping all my old Lunceford Decca Jazz Heritage LPs with horrible, echoey sound (but great liner notes).

Gerald Wilson talks about Lunceford and his time in the Lunceford band-
http://www.jazzwax.com/2011/07/intervie ... ilson.html

A review of the Lunceford Mosiac set-
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 87082.html

Eyeball wrote:A review of the Lunceford Mosiac set-
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 87082.html

Not so much a review, but a great article about the band

Haydn wrote:

Eyeball wrote:A review of the Lunceford Mosiac set-
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 87082.html

Not so much a review, but a great article about the band

Ya - true enough.

The WSJ has a steady selection of Jazz reviews and articles.

I'd desperately trying to pretend I don't need this set because I can't really afford it. But I think, really, I _need_ this set. I mean - Lunceford! In excellent quality!


It's not so great, right?

dogpossum wrote:I'd desperately trying to pretend I don't need this set because I can't really afford it. But I think, really, I _need_ this set. I mean - Lunceford! In excellent quality!


It's not so great, right?

Yeah - I'm sure it's terrible. Quite certain.

Ahem.
Plus - I haven't even got the Ellington 1932-1940 yet

For those who have both - if you had to pick just one, which would you recommend? (from a DJing perspective)

I'm not sure I should stretch to both at the moment. Been spending far too much lately building new computers.
I'm more inclined towards the Lunceford set, if only because I really don't have enough quality Lunceford in my collection, but I'm dithering somewhat.

straycat wrote: For those who have both - if you had to pick just one, which would you recommend? (from a DJing perspective)

My Lunceford set hasn't arrived yet, but my intuition is that it would be the better choice from a DJing perspective. The Ellington set is musically magnificent but I doubt it has as many dancefloor hits as the Lunceford set. I'll confirm when I actually listen to the Lunceford!

Lunceford is #1 in my book. As a swing DJ, if you're only buying one Mosaic box set in your life, this is the one to get!

I'm listening thru the Lunceford set at the moment. Great stuff!

Just a comment on audio quality. Comparing tracks back to back with other releases I have of the same material, overall there is a noticeable improvement in the clarity.

My one gripe is that on this Mosaic set (and some of their other recent sets) a lot of the peaks have a slight distortion or a "crackling" sound. It was probably a deliberate decision to choose clarity of the orchestra in exchange for this noise, and I don't know enough about audio mastering, but I cant help but feel that this distortion could have been avoided, particularly as it's not present in some of the other releases of the same material.

If anyone else has this set, listen to "Posin'" back to back with any other version you might have to see what I mean. Thoughts?

*EDIT*
I should have read the liner notes:
"Because of the various sources used to transfer, the audio quality will vary from track to track. For example, many of the sides that came from test pressings, tend to be more bass heavy. Another situation arose on many sources (especially the pre-1941 ones) where there is distortion with loud passages. These have been reduced or removed without interfering with the music as best as possible but many of these “hot” passages refused to be softened."
I still wonder why other [overall inferior] reissues don't have this problem.

The problem seems to be associated with test pressings (marked "T" in the discography) used when metal parts were missing. Previous reissues probably used 78s. (I don't think that Posin' had an "official" reissue on CD before, or did it?)

So, are you totally SQUEE about the Lunceford set?

Should I buy, it peers?

I'm partially "SQUEE".

If you are just interested in DJing the best Lunceford tracks and want to save some money, I think you'd be well served with the 4 CD Proper Box set plus the Columbia Records Lunceford Special 1939-40 CD [not part of the Mosaic set].

If you're hard-core about this stuff, the Lunceford Mosaic has overall superior sound quality, with the above caveat of noise in the loud parts. Of course the booklet is almost worth the price on it's own, plus you are voting with your $ for this worthwhile restoration work to continue.

I still prefer the Lester Young, Duke Small Group and Chu Berry sets

Since I am the oldest person on this forum, I feel that you guys should chip in and buy me the Lunceford set.

Thank you.

What a nice surprise!

Classic Coleman Hawkins Sessions (#251) (8 CD)

http://www.mosaicrecords.com/prodinfo.a ... =251-MD-CD