MOSAIC RECORDS BOOKLET

Who better to write the notes of this long neglected yet very much sought after recordings but Dan Morgenstern. His expertise in authoring jazz notes knows no boundaries and the biography of Steve Smith, the history of the Hot Record Society in addition to the fabulous blow-by-blow of the music brings us even closer to this important body of work. All 24 sessions were newly researched for the comprehensive discography by Michael Cuscuna.

In the age of microsizing, every Mosaic Records Box Set booklet is still 11 x 11 inches to allow our customers to appreciate all the extras we put into printing them (and for easier reading).

SOUND QUALITY

Since many of the original lacquers or metal parts are now lost or had been destroyed years ago, the sources used for the Hot Record Society package came from a wide variety of original mint copy 78s and acetates, and when necessary LP and CD reissues. However, historian, producer and disc jockey Bob Porter found a number of the original acetate discs from the 1946 and 1947 sessions sitting in the Atlantic vaults for some reason and had them transferred for us by the legendary engineer Jack Towers. In another case, the Pee Wee Russell session that starts off this package had been poorly remastered over the years and so engineer Malcolm Addey flew to Wales with several pressings of each tune and transferred them (among others) along with Ted Kendall whose expertise in 78 sound restoration is highly respected.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Photo Copyright © Protected
Various Artists
The photographs in our HRS set are truly a window into the world of this rare and highly regarded jazz independent label of the late 30s thru the late 40s. Frank Driggs provided us with a couple of wonderful shots including one inside the HRS record shop with owner Steve Smith and another with Rex Stewart signing musician union contracts at one of the HRS sessions. But the highlights are actual recording session photos by the great photographer Charles Peterson which were loaned to us by his son Don. The photographs in our HRS set are truly a window into the world of this rare and highly regarded jazz independent label of the late 30s thru the late 40s. Frank Driggs provided us with a couple of wonderful shots including one inside the HRS record shop with owner Steve Smith and another with Rex Stewart signing musician union contracts at one of the HRS sessions. But the highlights are actual recording session photos by the great photographer Charles Peterson which were loaned to us by his son Don.

SAMPLE RECORDING SESSION

The Bechet–Spanier Big Four-March 28 & April 6,1940

With this unique quartet, HRS made jazz history. Stephen Smith had been so taken with the drum-and-piano-less records made by Rex Stewart, Barney Bigard, Django Reinhardt and bassist Billy Taylor in Paris in 1939 that he issued them on HRS (as Improvisations In Ellingtonia), and he wanted to do something with the great Sidney Bechet (whom he'd worked with on the Jelly Roll Morton Bluebird dates) in a similar setting, but, as he told Bechet biographer John Chilton, "with an older, more traditional flavor." He asked Tommy Dorsey guitarist and arranger Carmen Mastren to sketch out "some intros, bridges and endings. Wellman Braud was in and out of the shop and was a sentimental favorite of mine. I picked out some tunes for a variety of tempos....[Muggsy Spanier's] lip was not in perfect shape but he would try to do his best."

Seventeen years later, Braud spoke of these sides as "the best four-piece recordings ever made, and in 1979, Mastren told Chilton that he'd had little contact with Bechet and Spanier before the dates, and none with Braud, and was apprehensive about what would happen in the studio. "Bechet and Braud arrived wearing big old coats and hats…they sat down opposite each other and exchanged pleasantries. It was like an ancient ritual between chieftains. Muggsy joined in [with the] same sort of approach. [Then] one, two, three, four — and wham! This music explodes all around me."

Bechet was, more often than not, fiercely competitive in the company of trumpet (or cornet) players. But here, he gets along famously with Spanier, perhaps because the cornetist's firm, unadorned lead and sincere, dedicated musicianship made him feel secure and comfortable. In any case, the two sessions yielded some of the most relaxed and flowingly inspired Bechet on record, and his interplay with Spanier is often sublime. This writer has known these records for some 50 years, and they can still give him gooseflesh. China Boy is in the pantheon of jazz masterpieces (with the alternate not far behind), and the others are merely marvelous. Throughout, Sidney employs both horns, often picking up the clarinet for background passages behind the chorded guitar and bowed or picked bass solo spots. When he solos on the clarinet, his embouchure is just right, while his soprano sound is more mellow than customary, though he gives it that bite when he wants it. The tempos are perfect throughout, never rushed or logy, and the subtle, springy support given by the two stringed instruments allow the horns to float their lines. Spanier's on-the-beat phrasing gives Bechet lots of space to fashion garlands of sounds around him, and both hornmen phrase with enough velocity to make the absence of a drummer a non-issue. Like Bechet's doubling, Muggsy's alternation between open horn and his famous plunger lend textural variety to the quartet's music, as do the occasional harmonized horn passages.

One could cite a myriad noteworthy instances from these 10 performances — the breaks on Lazy River, Muggsy first, à la Oliver and Louis, and then Sidney's spectacular one, linked perfectly with the ensuing solo; the fantastic soprano playing on China Boy, a number that comes out of the gate like a shot and never lets up, Sid's tonguing something to behold; Sid's sweeping phrases and Muggsy's romantic vein on If I Could Be With You, and Sid's fine second part; the clarinet ensemble work in That's A Plenty, doing all the customary trombone fills in grand style, and Muggsy's plunger solo that really rides (with great bass support); Mastren's pretty chords on Squeeze Me, where Sid takes an utterly surefooted break and Muggsy gets as emotional as he ever did, and the breaks, front and back, by both horns on the relaxed Sweet Sue — but the listener should find such felicities on his or her own. If you're hearing this music for the first time, keep those ears open wide — this is the real stuff!