NEW: STRETCH GOAL FOR PUBLISHING
Our new goal in order to meet the publishing costs for all the new Lunceford tunes is $24,950. To be clear, we have met the initial goal for transcription(!!) and the charts will be made. The stretch goal is to help us publish the music online. Last year with the Webb project, contributors who donated past our initial goal allowed us to publish that music right away, and we're hoping to duplicate that success.
ABOUT THE PROJECT
We’re trying to bring back the musical catalog of legendary Swing Era bandleader Jimmie Lunceford - a repertoire of amazing dance music, some of the greatest ever created, which sadly has seldom been performed seriously since his death in 1947. Simply put, we want to play this music, and we want everyone else to be able to play it also!
To make this happen, we’re launching this campaign to fund the transcription of 30 charts (songs) to make it possible for a working big band to play a full night of Jimmie Lunceford’s music. The tunes will be performed at this year’s Lindy Focus (www.lindyfocus.com) and will also be made available to the public in the near future so that other enthusiasts can keep this music alive!
Many people think of the 30's and 40's as a Golden Age of American popular art forms, but don't think they're in a position to keep any of it alive. Well, WE have assembled the talent and the resources to pull off something audacious, we just need YOU to help find the funds to make it a reality.
HOW IT WORKS
Essentially, professional transcribers listen to the recordings and notate everything on the original record, putting it into sheet music form for other musicians to play. In this case, we not only have some of the best transcribers in the business, but each of them are all master swing musicians, so they understand the style they’re working in and are literally the best people on the planet to tackle the historical nature of this project.
Each chart (song) costs between $350-450 to get transcribed from beginning-to-end. As you can see, getting a WHOLE NIGHT of music in this way adds up fast, so making it happen will require a massive community effort. Our goal is 30 tunes to fill three sets of 10 songs each — that is a LOT of music! But, the good news is, once the charts have been made, they will *exist* and other bandleaders in the future will have a much easier time paying tribute to this incredible band.
WHY JIMMIE LUNCEFORD?
After the landmark success of the Chick Webb campaign last year, we turned to the swing community to ask what artists they found the most inspiring. The response was overwhelming - everybody loves Jimmie Lunceford! While not nearly a household name, Lunceford nonetheless has long been known by DJ’s as a Secret Weapon, a deep well of joyful and spirited swing that dancers adore. Lunceford himself was reputed to be the most professional of all bandleaders, always meticulously refining his art to make every performance as perfect and memorable as possible. Rarely capitulating to esoteric or self-congratulatory artistic impulses, his music instead has a crisp, uplifting, soulful quality that brings happiness and excitement above all else.
As a person, Jimmie was grounded, likable, and sincere. In school he lettered in football and was valedictorian in his class. He later went back to direct high school band. Despite his many gifts, it was his work ethic which impressed people the most, and he was admired at every scale, from the community in his hometown to the larger world of jazz music.
WHY THESE SONGS?
It's not enough to just choose every favorite Jimmie Lunceford song, we also have to make sure there is enough variety to make a nicely flowing evening of music that demonstrates the full range of his band, and gives dancers a bit of ebb and flow among the tempos. Our carefully curated list of songs to tackle for full transcription includes:
- Ain't She Sweet - (Funded!)
- Annie Laurie - (Funded!)
- Blues in the Groove - (Funded!)
- For Dancers Only - (Funded!)
- Four or Five Times - (Funded!)
- Harlem Shout - (Funded!)
- He Ain't Got Rhythm - (Funded!)
- Hi Spook - (Funded!)
- It’s Time to Jump and Shout - (Funded!)
- Jay Gee (Archive Recovery - Funded!)
- Jazznocracy - (Funded!)
- Jeep Rhythm - (Funded!)
- Le Jazz Hot - (Funded!)
- Lunceford Special (Archive Recovery - Funded!)
- Margie - (Funded!)
- My Blue Heaven (Archive Recovery - Funded!)
- Oh Boy - (Funded!)
- Organ Grinder’s Swing - (Funded!)
- Pigeon Walk - (Funded!)
- Posin’ - (Funded!)
- Rhythm Is Our Business (Archive Recovery - Funded!)
- Rose Room - (Funded!)
- Shut Out - (Funded!)
- Stomp it Off - (Funded!)
- Strictly Instrumental - (Funded!)
- Swingin’ on C - (Funded!)
- Twenty Four Robbers - (Funded!)
- Uptown Blues - (Funded!)
- Wham (Re-Bop-Boom-Bam) - (Funded!)
- Whatcha Know, Joe - (Funded!)
MORE ABOUT SONG SELECTION AND PROCESS
A few Lunceford “hits” are not on this list - notably White Heat, Avalon and ‘Taint What You Do. That’s because, unlike the rest, there actually are high quality and accurate arrangements of these available currently. Also, for several of the other more popular tunes, we are aware that “stock charts” exist, and the transcribers will have access to those, if needed, as a jumping-off-point, but we’ve determined that in those cases a new transcription will bring us the closest to accurate recreation!
ARCHIVAL RECOVERY
In addition to the other 26 transcriptions, this project will include four tunes that were recovered from Lunceford’s original book of band charts archived at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington DC. Each of these tunes is in decent shape, but still require some work cleaning up and re-notating before they can be performed. Because these will ultimately require a little less of a transcriber’s time, they are a little cheaper to sponsor, so might make a good sponsorship choice for a group or individual that has limited funds, but still wants to participate in a pretty awesome act of historical preservation! These tunes are: Lunceford Special (Funded!), Rhythm Is Our Business (Funded!), Jay Gee (Funded!), and My Blue Heaven (Funded!).
CHALLENGES
Though this is an ambitious and complex undertaking, we feel well prepared to tackle it from beginning-to-end.
To make sure the charts are as good as possible, we have some of the best transcribers in the industry on board to tackle this very particular musical challenge -- these folks are not only top level music geeks, but have a deep understanding of the genre, so these charts will be historically accurate to the finest detail and not dumbed-down or anachronistic in any way.
To make sure the music can be performed with all the satisfying virtuosity it deserves, we have a hand-picked swing orchestra consisting of top players from all over the US, each one a standalone monster-player as well as a scholarly expert on the swing-era performance idiom for their instrument.
The final challenge, once the charts are "alive" and have been performed, will be the publishing step wherein the material is made available to the public for future performances. It is important to us that this is done in full accordance with copyright law, and the initial steps to guarantee we have the rights to releasing the charts have been taken. It will take diligence to see this publication through the final steps, but as we are lifelong devotees to large scale, historically-grounded jazz-heritage projects, we think we're the right people for the job, with the skills and attitude to get it done. Evidence of our success with last year’s Webb campaign is now available at heritagesounds.com, where the vast majority of the songs are now fully published and available!
ABOUT LICENSING COSTS
For last year’s Webb project, we didn’t yet know what the costs would be associated with publishing the charts (and obtaining the licenses to do so). Luckily, the project was funded above-and-beyond our goal, and we were able to use that money to get the ball rolling on publication.
Essentially, how it works is this: Though each song’s licensing agreement is a little different, we pay IN ADVANCE for the right to sell, say, 10 copies of a chart. The cost of a chart is secured through negotiation with the copyright holders, and Heritage Sounds does not have the legal ability to provide them for any less than the agreed upon rate ($30/chart). That being said, we think it’s a great price, and is well below the average for commercial big band charts!
If we happen to sell all copies of the charts secured through the licensing agreement, we’re in great shape! But if we sell none of them, Heritage Sounds (our publishing company) is out several thousand dollars (until that moment if and when all charts are sold).
This year we are following the same course of not building the publication costs into our main goal, but we ARE adding those costs as a stretch goal - so if the transcriptions are funded then any additional money that comes in goes straight to making these charts available. And of course, to help us continue this work, please spread the word to your bandleading friends to buy the charts from heritagesounds.com! Every sale helps us sustain the project.
NEW PERKS: PRE-ORDER WEBB & LUNCEFORD CHARTS
The ongoing engine that will keep the Heritage Sounds library going is the actual sales of the big band charts, so we’ve decided to add perks especially for big band leaders (and prospective ones!) to let you get dibs on charts while still helping us during our crowdfunding stage.
IDEA: Even if running a big band is not your thing, you might consider buying charts in order to gift them to a local band leader, as a way of encouraging the preservation of this music in your swing scene. You want to do so politely, of course, and with respect to the repertoire they’re already doing, AND you must remember that it’s only legal to give it away (not “copy it” for them), but this could be a great way to connect your local music scene to this international revival effort. Maybe strike up a conversation with a local bandleader to see if they might be interested?
ONE WEBB OR LUNCEFORD CHART
$30. Just like it sounds - you will receive a coupon code for heritagesounds.com that can be redeemed for the download of one chart. You can go ahead and claim it for a Chick Webb chart that’s currently published, or you can wait for Lunceford charts to appear, hopefully in early 2018.
FIVE WEBB / LUNCEFORD CHARTS
$150. You will receive coupon codes for heritagesounds.com that can be redeemed for the download of five charts. This is enough charts to do a feature, a mini-set of music, or just a great way to begin your collection of big band charts with a quality seed! As with the single-chart perk, you can redeem now for Webb material, or wait for Lunceford charts to be published, your choice.
ONE SET OF MUSIC (10 CHARTS)
$300. You will receive coupon codes for heritagesounds.com that can be redeemed for the download of ten charts, enough to do a full set of music! As with the single, and five-chart perks, you can redeem now for Webb material, or wait for Lunceford charts to be published, your choice.
HELP SPREAD THE WORD
Other than becoming a financial supporter, the main way you can help us is by spreading the word. With very few exceptions, transcription projects like this almost never happen because of the money required, which means it's in the hands of the truly dedicated to make sure this music has a place in the present, not just as a museum piece in American history. Jazz musicians, jazz lovers, swing dancers, appreciators of pop culture history -- everyone can find reasons to get excited about this project, AND future projects that will become possible if this campaign is a success. Imagine what we can do - help us make some noise about this!
GARMENT SIZING
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