Curating Jazz

Although recordings provide an unreliable history of jazz, they are the only thing we have. This places record companies in the unlikely position of curators, and since 1983, the label that has set an example for all the others has been a small mail-order operation with (excepting Dean Benedetti’s Charlie Parker recordings) no vaults of its own to dip into.

Mosaic Records is the ultimate collectors’ label, perhaps because its owners— Charlie Lourie, a former major-label executive, and Michael Cuscuna, a freelance record producer—are collectors themselves, with their own lengthy “want” lists. Leasing their material from other labels, Lourie and Cuscuna produce limited-edition, “definitive” reissues: multidisc retrospectives typically containing a musician’s entire output (complete with previously unreleased takes) for one label over a

FRANCIS WOLF

given period of time. Their catalogue covers the entire spectrum of jazz, with performers ranging from the New Orleans clarinetist George Lewis to the avant-garde pianist Cecil Taylor. Undeservedly obscure figures, such as Grant Green. Herbie Nichols, and Freddie Redd, are represented, along with many familiar names. The booklet for each set includes informative critical and biographical essays, a complete discography, and revealing session photography.

The prize among Mosaic’s recent releases is The Complete Blue Note Recordings of Art Blakey’s 1960 Jazz Messengers, 10 LPs (or six CDs) celebrating the legacy of the most eruptive edition of the Messengers, with trumpeter Lee Morgan and tenor saxophonist Wayne Shorter. There is a set devoted to the trumpeter Woody Shaw, and another to the pianists who recorded unaccompanied for Master Jazz, a short-lived label of the 1960s.

To request a free catalogue, write Mosaic Records, 35 Melrose Place, Stamford, CT 06902, or call 203-327-7 111. —F.D.