An Appreciation of Michael Cuscuna

I've told this story numerous times, but it seems like it's never appeared on this blog, and the timing is right. It was a chilly almost wintery morning in either November or December 1984. Like every weekday morning, I was up early to deliver the Post-Gazette before heading to school, where I was a senior. My morning routine usually involved bringing the papers into our living room, counting them, putting them in my delivery sack, grabbing rubber bands ("gum bands" to us Pittsburghers) and heading out on my route. 

On this morning, before I could get to the papers, I found a thick square box between our two front doors. The box had my name on it. IT had arrived - The Complete Blue Note Recordings of Thelonious Monk, a four-record set that was only available by mail order from the label that put it together: Mosaic. This was a major expense for a teenager, even one with a lucrative paper route. I think it might have cost about $8 per record. (Insert rimshot here.) 

There was barely any time to skim the set's detailed booklet over breakfast, let alone listen to any of the records. But when I got home that afternoon, I starting poring over both the music and detailed notes about each session, stopping to even follow along in a book of transcribed Monk piano solos. I had just gotten into Monk over the last few months. Hal Willner's tribute album was my gateway; I wanted to hear it because John Zorn was on it. 

After playing That's the Way I Feel Now and scratching my head several times, I purchased a few of Monk's OJC reissues. The compilation's inner sleeve mentioned Mosaic's Monk set and my dad had probably received a catalog from them with details. This almost secret/extra effort way of hearing the music seemed like an important step I needed to take.

I don't think my sentimentality is getting in the way when I say that purchasing that album was a defining moment for me, as both a musician (I still believed I was going to be a saxophonist) and as a writer (that would come later). And this is all due to the efforts of Michael Cuscuna, who started Mosaic with the late Charlie Lourie. Michael passed away last weekend and the world has lost a champion for music preservation and elevation.

Reading through those Mosaic catalogs from the '80s and '90s, it felt like Cuscuna and Lourie were as excited about these releases as listeners would be. If there was a little bit of back-patting going on, they were also quick to expound about the lengths that they would go to find the best sounding master of a session for one of their sets. That devotion made each set feel like a Big Deal. Back in the late '80s, the boxset boom had yet to really catch fire. These guys were ahead of the game and they showed how to do it right.

When CD reissues kicked into full gear in the following decade, Cuscuna became synonymous with jazz rereleases. He had already been instrumental in getting Blue Note back in business around the same time he launched Mosaic. Now he was the one rummaging through old warehouses and storage facilities (perhaps not literally, but they were similar), unearthing those gems again, discovering alternate takes or lost songs and, most importantly, figuring out what they were and from where they came. Most people might have overlooked the fact that Blue Note listed a Tina Brooks album on their inner sleeves that was never released. Cuscuna noticed it, and found the tenor saxophonist's missing session. If you unearthed something like that, you'd be clucking about it in a slick catalog too.

Cuscuna wasn't devoted to just one period of jazz music either. In one of Mosaic's most tremendous releases, he and Lourie curated the entire output of the early jazz label Commodore. Records in three volumes; each box has between 20 and 23 records. He also released Cecil Taylor's complete output for Candid Records. (If the word "complete" sounds repetitive, that's because these guys wanted each set to be comprehensive. When doing a set for the prolific organist Jimmy Smith, they had to limit it to one month.)

I didn't realize it at the time but Cuscuna also shaped my musical scope in another way. When I told my brother that my first encounter with Albert Ayler annoyed me more than moved me, he recommended buying an Ayler album, listening closely and reading what the liner notes said about this wild saxophonist. When I took his advice, the album I found was Vibrations, which had extremely insightful notes about Ayler's background and music - penned by Cuscuna. This cat had a handle on everything.

And he was not jaded or arrogant about it. He was enthusiastic. The University of Pittsburgh brought Cuscuna to town in 2011 for a lecture at the Pitt Jazz Seminar and Concert. In a phone interview prior to his arrival, he was gregarious and very open when speaking to this fanboy about his work. It was quite a confidence boost to hear that a quote from my article wound up in the Washington Post's obituary for Cuscuna. (For the record, here's the quote: "If I put out music that is really unworthy or would embarrass the artist or make an artist unhappy, then I think that’s the worst sin I could commit.")

Another quote from him appeared on the Mosaic website earlier this week, which really hit home too: "It’s the stuff that gets to you between about [ages] 12 and 25 that stays with you for life. You never absorb music in quite the same way after that.” It explains why both Monk piano solos and, heaven forbid, the lyrics to some REO Speedwagon songs are still easily accessible in my head. 

Personally, Mosaic always represented the highest level of jazz collecting. Along with the alternate takes, the label made sure you knew all you wanted to know about the artists and the sessions they made. When I became a staff writer at InPgh, I felt like I had really arrived when I was able to snag some promos and write about them for the paper. It took a few years but I even got to review a couple for JazzTimes. (Several other jazz scribes were clamoring for those reviews.)

As the above picture shows, I've been able to amass many of the sets over the years. Having enough Christmas money to afford the Larry Young set made it feel extra special. Getting the Clifford Brown set from my parents for my birthday takes me back to that time. Two years ago, I found the one set I never thought I could afford - the Complete Capitol Recordings of the Nat King Cole Trio, a mind-numbing 18-disc set (the vinyl counterpoint was 27 records!). It was being sold at a chain store for less than half of what it's worth. 

In my interview with Cuscuna, he mentioned that the Cole set (which was originally offered to buyers on an installment plan!) was one of the few projects where he never burned out on the artist. Listening to it, it's easy to see why. Nat was that good. Sure it's all about the music, but the presentation certainly adds to the listening pleasure.

If this piece has been more about me than the late, great Michael Cuscuna, that can be attributed to the fact that Michael really shaped the way I approach music, largely as a listener but probably to some degree as a writer. Not just jazz, he opened my ears with everything. Collecting is fun, but it's more rewarding when you can share these discoveries with people, opening them up to new sounds and new ideas that they can explore on their own.

Michael was all about that. And I'm doing my damnedest to pay it forward. 

Thank you, Michael.