Compared Tone Poet to Mosaic

@tablejockey 

thanks for the link above, it seems Rudy did as Bill described, and later as I remembered

excerpt:

"The mono vs. stereo question confronts anyone dealing with reissues of Rudy Van Gelder’s Blue Note masters.

If the goal is getting to the essence of the music, we discovered that you cannot take a dogmatic view of this issue. Rudy Van Gelder first began recording Blue Note sessions in stereo in March of 1957. From then until an October 30, 1958 Art Blakey session, Rudy simultaneously ran both mono and stereo session tapes. After that session, Rudy abandoned the practice of running both mono and stereo session tapes and recorded strictly in stereo. The evidence is there for anyone to see who examines the original master tapes. When Kevin Gray, Ron Rambach and I began our first mastering session with our first six Blue Note masters we couldn’t help noticing the clearly marked (by Alfred Lion) notations indicating "monaural masters made 50/50 from stereo master" on the master tape boxes."

Another fascinating part of the Blue Note legacy was revealed by Don Was in an interview that is in the Qobuz Magazine.  He has been the leader of the brand now according to the article for almost 15 years.  He said that he interviewed RBG early on and asked him how to best preserve the sound and legacy of Rudy's work for the label.  Rudy told him among other things that the sound of the lacquer changed within four days of being cut.  So Rudy told Don to forget about trying to preserve the original sound of Blue Note records.  He said just do the best job possible to capture what exists on the tape.  Which of course is what Kevin Gray and Joe Harley do, first for Music Matters and now for the Tone Poet series.  Interestingly enough even the recent Classic Series Blue Notes sound exceptional.  

Based on Discogs, looks like this particular LP and other Blue Note's during the period were ONLY offered in mono?

Perhaps the new fangled "stereo sound" wasn't seen as a promising market and too small-still considered a "luxury" for the casual music fan?

@billstevenson 

First the Mosaic set used the mono master, whereas the Tone Poet set used the stereo master.

No it did not. Where do you get that idea from? The Tone Poet of this album is mono, mastered from the mono original tape.

As for the Blue Notes RvG recorded simultaneously as mono and stereo, Joe and Kevin often bring up both at Cohearent, and decide which sounds better for remastering as a Tone Poet. But if it's mono it comes from a mono tape, and if stereo it comes from the stereo tape. There are no mono fold-downs from stereo masters in the entire Tone Poet series, period.

@dwette My ears is where I get that idea from my friend.  Let me be clear the Tone Poet is a stereo record.