A Comprehensive Historical Release
Black & White Records
Rescued from extinction – music you’ve likely never heard.
At Mosaic, presenting music that’s been hard to find — or completely overlooked — is as exciting today as it was in 1983 when we assembled our very first package of Blue Note recordings featuring Thelonious Monk. Sometimes we unveil just a handful. Other times, dozens.
So, can you imagine how exhilarated we are about an 11-CD set where nearly every track has been unavailable for nearly 75 years?
Unearthing the music on our new collection, Classic Black & White Jazz Sessions, has been a dream for decades. Unlike most of our sets, the original masters of these sessions are not known to exist anymore. Confusion over who owned the copyrights and who owned physical recordings we could use as source material raised additional obstacles.
Again and again we were forced to push the project to the back burner. Finally, after years of research, and after generous help from a great family of record collectors around the world, the music of this incredibly neglected label, is finally available for us to release in the comprehensive, documented, and definitive fashion for which Mosaic is known.
From 78s, LPs and CD compilations that were all in private collections, we’ve gathered the mind-boggling 243 titles that make up this collection spanning the years 1942-1949. Knowing the spotty re-release of just a small number of titles, we can safely say that almost all of these recordings have never been heard by more than a handful of living humans.
Creating Classic Black & White Jazz Sessions was done with the same vision and labor of love that brought together in boxed set form our re-issues of the independent labels Commodore and HRS. Those collections are long sold-out and forever out of print; they will never see the light of day again in that form. We guarantee the same for this set, so please order today to own this long-hidden treasure of 1940s jazz.