Charlie Lourie, a Founder of Mosaic, a Distinctive Jazz Reissue Label, Dies at 60

Charlie Lourie (left) and Michael Cuscuna (right) Photo courtesy of Sarah Lourie

Charlie Lourie, a co-founder of the jazz reissue label Mosaic, died on December 31, 2000 at his home in Stamford CT. He was 60.

Michael Cuscuna, his partner at Mosaic, said Mr. Lourie had been suffering from scleroderma, a rare viral disease, for the last three years.

Mosaic, started 17 years ago by Mr. Lourie and Mr. Cuscuna, is dedicated to preserving the illustrious Jazz legacies of many of the music’s greatest artists through both popular and archival recordings. Appealing to Jazz fans, collectors, historians and students alike, Mosaic’s superlative quality in both sound and information have made their boxed sets the state of the art for the Jazz industry.

Printed in limited-edition quantities, mostly of 500 copies, and decorated with black-and-white images only, the Mosaic reissues tend to collect all the existing recordings of an artist on a particular label, or within a particular time frame; they come with 10,000-word essays by jazz critics and historians. Many of the accompanying photographs draw from the archives of Francis Wolff, who covered jazz sessions from the 1940s to the 70s, and the images are printed from original negatives on glossy paper.

Sold only by mail order, its CD and vinyl-record box-sets are uniform, monolithic, and serious. They have ranged in size from a 2-CD Don Cherry set to an 18-CD Nat (King) Cole set.

“Charlie built and ran the business,” Cuscuna explained in a phone interview. “We shared the work of finding photos, putting together the booklets, publicity.” When the two of them started Mosaic, he remembered, “the entire record business was in the dumpster. We saw that there was a void.” For each reissue, Cuscuna does a good deal of “preliminary detective work” digging through archives and gathering sources. The resulting archival material can span decades, and multiple formats: acetate, 78s, stereo and multi-track tapes. He transfers the music to digital tape and then remixes to get “the best sonic results with 24-bit studio capabilities.”

The partners' 105 projects have included major reissues of Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, Herbie Nichols, Count Basie and Andrew Hill, among others. The company, which began with no outside financing, is now half owned by EMI. Its Nat Cole set, from 1990, with a list price of $270, sold 6,000 copies. In October, they released their 100th set, "Johnny Hodges’ Complete Verve Small Group Recordings."

Cuscuna confesses that recording new works was a “pipedream” they always shared. “Things have improved thanks to the CD, everybody decided to re-buy everything, and newly-recorded jazz was doing well for a while (as well). But now, only a handful of people are doing well in terms of record sales. There is so much new talent without a place to get recorded.”

Saxophonist Sam Rivers, whose Blue Note sessions from the 1960s were recently reissued by Mosaic, remembered Charlie Lourie as “very helpful.” “He did very good work. I am very proud to be part of the most comprehensive discography/documentation of one of the most creative periods in jazz. Mike and Lourie had the foresight to do this.” Rivers has gotten feedback on the CDs from listeners who had never heard his music before, and some who had simply forgotten about it. “It shows you the lasting value of the music,” Rivers stated. “This music was first produced 30 to 40 years ago, and it is still as vibrant today as it was when it was first created. I am glad that they have preserved it for millenniums to come.”

“Charlie was a very affable man, unique in the music business,” Cuscuna reminisced. “He was an inscrutably honest man, and he had very high standards esthetically as well as ethically. He started out as a classical musician, went into pop record business, but his first love was jazz, and he got out as soon as he could and made the switch to jazz. He devoted the better part of professional life to jazz and jazz musicians.”

Marty Khan, writing for GMN, commented: “It’s extremely rare that a jazz executive remains respected and well-liked by virtually everybody after more than 30 years in the business, but Charlie was a rare guy about whom I never heard a negative word. Although I had only brief interactions with this genial and delightful man over the years, his warmth, sincerity, and gentle spirit were always apparent, making this tragic loss especially painful.”

Mr. Lourie came to a career in the jazz-record industry through an early life as a clarinetist, both jazz and classical. He was born in Boston and attended the New England Conservatory. In the 1960's he worked throughout the Boston area with chamber groups, symphony orchestras, and jazz ensembles.

In 1968 Mr. Lourie moved to New York, filling the position of Manager of Contemporary Artist Relations at Columbia Records. By the early 70's he was in charge of the merchandising department at Columbia's sub- label, Epic. In 1974 he moved to Los Angeles and became head of marketing at Blue Note Records, and in 1977 he was hired by Warner Brothers, where he served as Product Manager before going on to become Director of Jazz and Progressive Music. He founded Mosaic records in 1983 with Mr. Cuscuna, operating out of Santa Monica, Calif., and moving to Stamford in 1985.

Charlie also served on the board of the Jazz Foundation of America and the Jazz Musicians’ Emergency Fund. He is survived by a daughter, Sarah, a son, David, a brother, Alan, of Washington, and his mother, Rose, of Boston.