Michael Cuscuna, Part 2

Celebrating the past for the future...

Jazz is still, for me, the greatest music ever - it just ate its way into my soul, and it became a part of every fabric of my body.

-Michael Cuscuna

The Wire is a British magazine published in London. Their focus has changed a bit over the years, but when the first issue came out in May 1982 it was “Jazz, Improvised Music, And….”:

It’s only fitting Steve Lacy was featured on the cover of that issue, the magazine’s name was taken from his 1977 album The Wire:

The first The Wire magazine I bought was the April 1986 edition - Issue #26:

I found it while looking through a magazine rack at the NAAFI shop on Bergen-Hohne Garrison in Germany, a major British Army Cold War Garrison. It was located in Lower Saxony near where I was stationed at a German military site. That magazine changed my life and was a Point of Departure on that Big River called Jazz.

A few weeks before this, on a trip to London, I picked up Robert Gordon’s Jazz West Coast at Ray’s Jazz Shop - I loved that place!

I was learning about the West Coast Jazz scene through Gordon's book, so that first The Wire magazine came at just the right time.

On page 20 of issue #26 is Richard Cook’s article Pacific Days which details the history of the original Gerry Mulligan Quartet using as a guide Mosaic Records’ box set The Complete Pacific Jazz And Capitol Recordings Of The Original Gerry Mulligan Quartet And Tentette With Chet Baker.

In a “Note” section at the end of Cook’s article, I found the address to Mosaic Records and sent them a letter asking how I could buy the Mulligan box set. I remember thinking, “They’ll never send me anything way over here in Germany.” However, a few weeks later, I received a letter from them with a mail order form. I noticed on the form that the Mulligan box set was released in 1983 and supply was “running low”. Along with a check, I quickly mailed the form back to them and thought, “Ok. This might happen.” That’s how you did it back then.

A few weeks later, a package came in the mail. Voilà! It was the Mulligan box set.

I ordered two more: The Complete Pacific Jazz Live Recordings Of The Chet Baker Quartet With Russ Freeman and The Complete Blue Note Recordings Of The Tina Brooks Quintets. Over the years, many more Mosaic box sets followed. They are all beautiful works of art, and they are all produced by Michael Cuscuna.

This week on that Big River called Jazz we’ll explore the world of Michael Cuscuna after he co-founded Mosaic Records.

---

Mosaic Records was founded in 1982 by Michael Cuscuna and Charlie Lourie, a former CBS executive and Blue Note’s new head of marketing. In a 2019 interview with Joe Maita, Cuscuna talked about Mosaic’s origins:

In 1982 Charlie Lourie and I drew up a 5-page proposal to relaunch Blue Note, which was completely dormant at the time. The powers that be at Capitol said they weren't ready to do anything with jazz for another two years. Even before they turned us down I was thinking about one little item I had put in the catalog exploitation section [of the proposal] about a line of deluxe, complete box sets in the style that Columbia did in the '60s. And I realized that if we did that as mail order only and in limited edition, that this in itself could be a viable business. No record stores, no distributors, no returns, no damaged goods, no unpaid invoices—just straight to the consumer. We named it after Cedar Walton's Mosaic because that was one of our mutual favorite Blue Note recordings and proceeded to work three years without a salary.

In 1983, Mosaic Records’ released their first four box sets: The Complete Blue Note Recordings of Thelonious Monk, the Gerry Mulligan Quartet mentioned above, The Complete Blue Note Recordings of Albert Ammons and Meade Lux Lewis, and The Complete Pacific Jazz Small Group Recordings of Art Pepper. All were offered in limited editions and only on LP.

All the Mosaic box sets I have are treasures, but that first Mulligan box set I got while in Germany remains the most precious. Songs like Lullaby Of The Leaves put me under the spell of West Coast Jazz. After that, instead of just dipping my toes in the water, I got in the canoe and started to dig my paddle into that Big River called Jazz:

From that first The Wire magazine I ordered some back issues. In the album review section of a 1985 issue, I read about Mosaic’s Tina Brooks box set. I had never heard of him. Going strictly off that review, I took a chance and ordered it. Incredibly, to this day, the music from that box set remains some of my favorite jazz. You can read more about Tina Brooks here:

Good Old Soul is one of my Tina Brooks favorites:

In a 2010 interview with Willard Jenkins, Cuscuna states:

I've fished in the best vaults (Blue Note, Impulse!, Columbia, and Atlantic) and found many amazing things. I think the unissued Blue Note material that I found on Herbie Nichols and Tina Brooks was most important for me. It tripled what was thought to be their recorded output and the resulting Mosaic sets brought them from obscurity to a place of reverence among musicians and fans. It's rare for vault material to rewrite history, but in those two cases it did.

In another The Wire review, I first learned about Herbie Nichols. Once again, going only off that review, I bought the Nichols box set. And once again, Mosaic delivered on the highest order. You can read more about Herbie Nichols here:

House Party Starting is one of my Herbie Nichols favorites:

Here’s one more for the road. You could go on and on about Mosaic Records, but Cuscuna is responsible for much more than that. He also produced, among other things, the Mosaic Select series, three CD compilations combining complete albums with unissued material or occasionally straight reissues of original LPs. Through this series, I learned about Jamaican trumpet player Dizzy Reece, one of the famed Alpha Boys. You can read more about them here:

Reece plays on the Andrew Hill album Passing Ships, a “lost session” recorded in November 1969 but never released by Blue Note. Cuscuna learned about the recording during an interview when Hill mentioned many unreleased Blue Note sessions, even naming all the personnel. Hill said some were good and some were just okay. All were eventually released except for one he was very happy with.

As soon as he left Hill, Cuscuna went into the Blue Note archives looking for the session Hill mentioned however the tape was out of phase and unusable, but Cuscuna persisted. In a few weeks, he was rewarded with finding a faultless multi-track tape of the session that had been misfiled. He brought it to him and Hill was elated. The session was released in 2003.

From that master here is the title track, Andrew Hill’s composition Passing Ships:

It was this kind of detective work - searching out “lost sessions” - that I admire most about Cuscuna. Finding and releasing the “good stuff” was always the most gratifying for him. He was very diligent about his work and dedicated himself to every project with the knowledge that by celebrating the past he was more importantly affecting the future.

When I was growing up in the 1970s and during college in the early 1980s, that Blue Note material was not available at all. We did not have access to this incredible body of work. Cuscuna’s re-issue program influenced many young students of music who then pursued professional music careers and, as it turns out, many who never did, like me. He was a visionary and true pioneer who contributed so much to developing and exposing America’s greatest art form. For that gift, we are truly grateful.

Next week, on that Big River called Jazz, we’ll dig in our paddles to explore the world of Herbie Leigh Kamman.

If you like so far what you’ve been reading and hearing on our journey and would like to share this with someone you think might be interested in learning more about our great American art form: Jazz, just hit the “Share” button.

From Astaire to Sun Ra: A Jazz Journey is a reader-supported publication. If you feel inclined, subscribe to my journey by hitting the “Subscribe now” button.

Feel free to contact me at any time to talk shop. I welcome and encourage that.

Please hit this link to buy me a cup of coffee, if you’d like to show your guide some appreciation for this and past journeys. Know in advance that I thank you for your kindness and support.

Until then, keep on walking….