Mosaic Records reports they are running low on the excellent Quincy Jones big band set:
http://www.mosaicrecords.com/prodinfo.asp?number=237-MD-CD
Some of this was recorded at Fine Recording, and I have to say I was blown away by Ellen Fitton's
tape transfer and Malcolm Addey's remastering. The material never sounded better on a commercial
release. Same goes for the material recorded at Bell Sound and Barclay. The live stuff had only been
issued on LP and early-era Japanese CDs.
I wish they had included some more of Quincy's jazz/pop albums for Mercury in the early and
mid-60's, but the idea was to encapsulate Quincy's awesome but ill-fated big band formed in 1958,
and to sweep in the Am-Par (ABC and Impulse) recordings, which are in the same vein.
Among the Mosaic sets I own, this one gets played a lot. I also really like the Buddy Rich set that
sold out quickly and the Dizzy Gillespie set that sold out more recently. These all spotlight the
work of Mercury's jazz division in the 50s and 60s, also the Woody Herman 3-CD set. In all cases.
Ellen and Malcolm were able to get better sound results than previous issues on CD or LP.
-- Tom Fine
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