Short Summary
The Creative Music Studio
Archive project is saving, restoring, preserving, digitizing, re-mastering and
distributing music from over 400 historic concerts that took place at the
Creative Music Studio between 1973 and 1984. Artists include: Jimmy Giuffre, Ed
Blackwell, Don Cherry, Oliver Lake, Colin Walcott and Cecil Taylor, among
hundreds of others. We need $4000 to help finish restoration, digitization and
production on the first volume of 3-CD box sets, the Creative Music Studio
Archive Project Series. The Creative Music Foundation, which operates the
Creative Music Studio and its programs, is a nonprofit 501(c)3 corporation.
Why we need your help
The Creative Music Studio
Archive project has three goals: 1) to restore, preserve and digitize the tapes
for posterity; 2) to return the remastered versions to the musicians who made
them, free of charge; and 3) to share the music with fans around the world by
producing a series of 3-CD box sets. We need $4000 to finish producing the CD
box sets so they can be distributed to fans, libraries and scholars around the
world.
What you get
$25 Limited edition
'surprise' CD by CMS guiding artists
$50 First edition of 3-CD
box set
$100 Autographed first
edition of 3-CD box set
$250 Your name on the
packaging as a member of the ‘producer’s circle’
$500 All of the above plus
a catalog of the complete CMS Archive from which you can choose one single,
complete recording
About the CMS Archive Restoration Project
The CMS Archive Project is
historically important, resulting in an international treasury of jazz, world
music, and new music from the 1970’s and 1980’s. The Creative Music Studio had
a magnetic force that drew musical innovators from all over the world, offering
the unique opportunity to work with ensembles large and small away from the
restrictive climate of the professional music world.
With its 45-acre campus as
the hub of the Creative Music Studio, hundreds of live concerts were recorded,
many heralded as landmark performances. Many of these concerts featured
combinations of musicians from jazz, classical and world music traditions that
never played together before or after. Ben Ratliff of The New York Times wrote
that CMS and its archive is “.. a definitive history of jazz in the 1970s – a
book yet to be written – ought to give it (CMS) central importance.”
The Creative Music
Foundation has partnered with Columbia University’s Library to preserve the CMS
Archive for posterity. CMS is giving Columbia the full archive of recorded
tapes, along with memorabilia and photographs from CMS. CMS co-founder Karl
Berger and audio engineer (and former CMS participant) Ted Orr are going
through each tape, lovingly digitizing them and re-mastering them, a time
consuming process that’s as much a labor of love as it is technical. The
digitized, re-mastered recordings will be available at the Columbia University
Library for scholars or others who want to enjoy and learn from them.
As part of its nonprofit
mission, CMF is offering Guiding Artists who made these rare recordings a
digitized version for their unrestricted use free-of-charge! At the discretion
of the Guiding Artists, selections of the re-mastered, digitized recordings
will be made available in CD compilations to help raise money for the Creative
Music Foundation. CMF is partnering with American Composers Forum and its Innova
recording label to release these compilations. Each volume will feature three
compact discs full of rare recordings divided into small ensemble, orchestral
and world music performances. Two volumes will be released annually, beginning
in fall/winter 2013.
Since history is a
powerful teacher, part of the CMS Archive Project also includes obtaining rich
oral histories from the musicians and participants who were at CMS. The CMS Oral
History Project (http://www.creativemusicfoundation.org/oral-history-project.html) is a natural complement to the CMS Archive Project. The CMS
Oral History Project is also a partnership with Columbia University and its
Jazz and Oral History Departments, as well as with WKCR-FM, Columbia’s radio
station. The goal is for these oral histories to be published on www.creativemusicfoundation.org as well as to be made available through Columbia’s resources.
Eventually, select oral history interviews will be broadcast on WKCR. The end
result will be vibrant and vital histories of the evolution of jazz, world
music and new music.
More about Creative Music
Foundation: www.creativemusicfoundation.org
Other Ways You Can Help
Some people just can’t contribute, but that doesn’t mean they can’t help:
Please share this campaign with everyone you know