Mosaic's 2013 Woody Shaw box set The Complete Muse Sessions brings together all of the albums the innovative jazz trumpeter recorded for the label during the 1970s and later in the 1980s. Largely out of print since their initial release, save for a number of reissues on the now defunct 32 Jazz label, these Muse albums represent not only some of the most important recordings of Shaw's career, but some of the most influential and individualistic artistic statements by a jazz artist in the 20th century. With his combination of technical prowess and knowledge of the jazz tradition, as well as a keen harmonic vision for where to take his music and jazz as a whole into the future, Woody Shaw was a towering if often underappreciated figure during his lifetime. Taking inspiration from his slightly older contemporary, trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, innovators like John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy, as well as longtime friend and collaborator pianist Larry Young, Shaw developed an extremely original conception for how to improvise and compose jazz. Beginning with 1974's The Moontrane and moving through 1975's Love Dance, 1976's Concert Ensemble Live at the Berliner Jazztage, 1976's Little Red's Fantasy, and 1977's Iron Men, the box set showcases Shaw's mastery of the wide harmonic intervals and pentatonic scale developments he'd imbibed from his musical compatriots, as well as his love of the avant-garde -- both classical and jazz. In that way, these '70s albums are the bridge between the hard bop of the '60s and the free jazz of the '70s.
