It would be nice if these things came in inexpensive, easy to digest morsels. Maybe I'm just cheap. This and the Henry Cow box set is gonna force me into a mortgage.

Anyone else excited by this?

A lot of mid 70s Braxton is available for download over at http://inconstantsol.blogspot.com/ for anyone who hasn't recently inherited a small fortune. Still, it'll be nice to hear these things properly cleaned up. Any ideas who (if anyone) has provided liner notes?

Yeah, I wouldn't mind having NY Fall 1974 and the Orchestra recording on disc but not sure if I'd spring for the entire box. A boon for those too young to have gotten the vinyl back then, though.

...or those dummies who sold their vinyl for chump change.

I think I can live without the Henry Cow set, but will have to latch on to this. The package designer in me wonders, will Mosaic keep the all-b&w format? Doesn't really make sense for post-1970s music imo.

I had a correspondence with Cuscuna a few years ago after I put in a request for a "Complete Art Ensemble Paris Sessions" box. He said, too many labels and conflicting copyrights, yadda yadda. I guess, if you have to market the things in Europe. I doubt it'd be much of a hurdle here. Oh, and make sure the artists who are still alive get some money THIS TIME.

I'm on this Braxton set like a fly on shit. Have or have had most of this on LP, but the sheer fact that it's an "out" Mosaic box is pretty rad.

"Have or have had most of this on LP, but the sheer fact that it's an "out" Mosaic box is pretty rad."

Agreed. It'd be super-nice if this sold at the same rate as the Mulligans, Farlows, et al, at least to turn the unsuspecting on to some out-of-pocket stuff.

of course, there was the cecil taylor mosaic box . . .

130 bucks is a pittance to pay for this quantity and quality of music. the care mosaic generally treat their audio with will undoubtedly warrant purchase even if one has the scratcy old vinyl (and if one likes/loves that music.)

i gotta say that when i picked up most of these records in the mid-to-late '80s, they couldn't be given away. naturally things have changed. no surprise here.

i look forward to the day when my own records consistently demand high prices, because i will be on ebay selling the shit to motherfuckers who ignored me when i was laying down the law the first time around.

ww

I agree with the remark that it would be nice if this stuff were sold in pieces, nowhere near any big box. If you have half or more of it already, why get it again? Boxes are strange. They're not for newbies, certainly, nor for people who have been fans for a long time--unless they're completists.

I'd think these sorts of projects would nearly always lose money, BWTHDIK?

What I usually notice is the stark contrast between the pre-orgasmic state that precedes the purchase of such a kind of set and the dust that they gather on the shelf before I even manage to listen to half of them when they've been delivered. Tom's posts on the Albert Ayler box a while ago were wonderfully explicative in that sense: the sniffing, the perusing of the booklets, the archival pleasure - then it's back to day job.
I still consider myself lucky to have completed my "Complete Riverside" Monk box. But I surmise that this Braxton thing will be gathering some dust in my shelf next fall.

Funny, I remember having idle thoughts way back when that Cuscuna should do this. Seemed unlikely then o'course...

But yeah, back when I bought all those LP's the used record stores had droves of them. Most could be had for 'round 3 or 4 dollars. This was largely due to Arista doing major-label style press + radio push of them. In fact, the first Braxon music - even first free/creative music - I EVER heard was the Braxton/Muhal 1976 duo on Arista, which i found by chance in a giant stack of LP's that my dad's friend's ex-wife gave us. She worked as an ad rep at a pop AM station in New Orleans, they gave her all the cast-offs, and this album was in there with all sortsa '70's sub-REO rawk dreck (like Billy Squier's early band Piper and other shit even lower on the food chain if you can imagine that). The Brax/Muhal cover looked intriguing, so I read the liner notes and was utterly fascinated that such an approach to music even existed. This was early 1980's and I was a teenager deep into the metal of the day (Priest, Maiden, Ozzy, VH), so this LP for me was really a window into a whole 'nuther thing. Still have it.

come to think of it, most free jazz vinyl i bought in the mid-to-late eighties were from the used bins for 1 to 4 dollars. back then i was buying original BYGs for 4 bucks and stuff like that. '70s electric miles records were a penny a ton. my first ayler record was 99 cents. c'est la vie.

ww

I'm not sure I'd call the Cecil Candid dates "out". Those records are the tamest of his oeuvre, far more approachable than even his Blue Notes. These Braxton sides are fish out of water when put against the rest of the Mosaic catalog. With teeth.

Interesting that Arista (sony, now?) was ultimately able to lay down on this one. I'd heard that licensing was the biggest obstacle way back when.

The vinyl these were pressed on was generally crummy. Especially the later releases, when Arista was investing less and less in Braxton and his music got less "commercial" (i.e., less "swinging"). The 4-orch and "For Trio" (a GREAT record) are noisy and poppy in amounts that should have shamed Arista. The solo sax 2fer was even worse.

I look forward to Mosaic's retooling mainly for that reason. The Bluebird reissues of some of these are rarer than the vinyl, it seems.

"...or those dummies who sold their vinyl for chump change."

Yes master Djll, that's me...

All I have left is Creative Orchestra Music.

And that's saying a lot because I once had them all..

And yeah, I rember well those days when you could pick up remarkable artifacts used or cut out for a pittence..

Those day's are gone.

I'm gonna have to save my pennies.

oh, and by the way, i am doing some gigs on the east coast in sept and i'm trying to think of some exciting people to play a gig with in new york city that i might not have thought of yet. maybe somebody older school i'm not thinking of . . . i'm taking requests.

the people already on the other gigs i have are marc edwards, peter evans, mary halvorson, lisle ellis, sara schoenbeck, nate wooley, paul flaherty, darius jones . . . yadda yadda

ww

Longshot here, but a bit of chatter about at the VisionFest on Kidd Jordan's night was that Giuseppe Logan was spotted in the audience...I've heard no verification since, but he's been in the missing/maybe-dead file longer than Grimes.

If he could be found i think that would well-fulfill the 'older-school' aspect of Weasel's request...Also seen that night (but onstage, guesting during the last set) was Kalaparusha.

and ww - maybe see you in the bay area in august?

Are you coming up to Boston, Weasel?

A friend of mine who works in the horn department at Sam Ash in Manhattan told me Logan was in the store not long ago buying reeds...very soft reeds, the kind someone might use who's been away from playing for a long time.

reuben radding!

boston will be with greg kelley, paul flaherty and forbes graham at the church on sept. 16. if anybody wants my tour dates, please email me and i'll send you the spam.

thanks,

ww

A crab fisherman friend of my personal trainer swears he saw McClintic Sphere poaching elephants in Kenya last May. Word on the street is that buyers in the spot ivory market have emptied the Sphere bins in the Johannesburg Amoeba outlets.

There was a post on freejazz.org with an email to contact if you want to play with Giuseppi

I think it is cool that this stuff is coming out because that was his dream back in the day. Some people will buy it and other people wont. I never got to hear a lot of this stuff, but some of it was in my school (American University) music library and I listened to it years and years ago.

God bless public libraries. With all the hubbub surrounding these reissues, maybe the Henry Cow Box will have to take a back seat...

"boston will be with greg kelley, paul flaherty and forbes graham at the church on sept. 16."

Sounds good....but what church?

"the church!"

http://www.churchofboston.com/index.php

ww

"the church!"

http://www.churchofboston.com/index.php

ww

I’m a HUGE blues fan and love your site. I've been reading for a while, but had to comment on this one because I work for this company called IODA Promonet, and we provide a bunch of free music for blogs and podcasts, etc, but anyways, you post a bunch of entries about artists we actually have in our catalog, like Anthony Braxton.

Anyways, check us out if you're interested. :)