Wednesday, February 24, 2010

More News on CMS Archive Subscriptions

This is an update to the February 12 post below, "CMS Archive Recordings: You Can Subscribe!"

There is now a discount available to those who were CMS participants during the years 1972-1984.

Read on:

Great News: Subscriptions to the CMS Archive Selections Available Now

Listen to great music and help support the Creative Music Studio Archive Project.

As many of you know, the Creative Music Studio is digitally remastering its archive of hundreds of hours of never-heard-before music, featuring important artists from Anthony Braxton, Nana Vasconcelos, Jimmy Giuffre, and George Lewis to Frederic Rzewski, Ed Blackwell and many others ( see www.creativemusicstudio.org )

The project is being funded primarily by CMS fans, friends, musicians and colleagues all over the world. By becoming a subscribing CMS member, you can directly support the CMS Archive Project. That's good. What's even better is that you'll get an advance copy of each recording before it's released to the public. ( Vol.1 is scheduled to be released on April 1 by Planet Arts Records.)

"CMS Archive Selections" will issue two recordings per year for a total of 12.
The first volume, with music by David Izenzon, solo and in trio with Ingrid Sertso and Karl Berger, Oliver Lake and the CMS Orchestra, and Foday Suso with the Mandingo Griot Society, featuring Hamid Drake and Adam Rudolph is ready now. Subsequent releases will feature rare CMS performances by Anthony Braxton, Jimmy Giuffre, Nana Vasconcelos, Frederic Rzewski, Karl Berger, and many others.

For the basic membership/subscription of $60 per year, you'll receive 2 volumes of the CMS Archive Selection CDs annually, as well as regular updates on the Archive Project, and notices/discounts on CMS events and workshops, including Oral History events and music online.

For the premium membership/subscription of $95 per year you'll receive, in addition, full access, by password, to the Online Archive, including webstreams of unreleased tracks and videos, new "oral history" events, blogs and new concert recordings, and your name will be listed in the booklets of upcoming CMS Archive Selection CDs as a sustaining member.

CMS Participants of the archived times (1972-1984) will get the membership / subscription reduced further to $50 for the basic and $80 for the premium membership/subscription. Archive engineer Ted Orr will be loading up new streaming music each month for premium members to enjoy, as well as some free bonus downloads.

Musicians may also become Active Members by participating in concerts benefiting the CMS Archive Project. Participants in CMS Archive concerts also earn reductions in studio fees for recording, editing, mixing, mastering projects of their own at Woodtsock's Sertso Studio ( Ted Orr, chief engineer).

Your membership is the only way we can digitize and distribute music from the Archive, music that's historically important and great to listen to. Your patronage will ensure that the music of CMS will remain vibrant and available to fans and students around the world. And time is of the essence here: it is now or never to
preserve the rich oral histories of the Creative Music Studio.

All additional contributions are tax-deductible to the full extent of the law: the Creative Music Foundation, Inc is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization.

Please help keep the music of CMS alive by becoming a member today. If you subscribe before March 31, you will receive a limited edition advance copy signed by Karl Berger, and your name will be listed in upcoming CD liner notes as one of the special members that helped in the initiation of the CMS Archive Selection Series.

Please make checks payable to CMS (or Creative Music Studio) and send to CMS, POB 671, Woodstock N.Y. 12498. Your membership includes shipping/handling costs. Or simply make your pledge by email to creativemusic@verizon.net, stating your postal mailing address.

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Omar Faruk Tekbilek on Link TV

I came across this great Link TV interview of Omar Faruk Tekbilek.

Omar Faruk and his brother Haci, along with Ismet Siral and Murat Verdi, were part of the CMS Turkish connection that thrilled so many CMS participants in the early eighties.

In Music Universe, Music Mind, Adam Rudolph refers to the Sufi/Mandingo melding of musics that he and Hamid Drake enjoyed with the Turkish musicians as "magic moments."

Our friend Dost Kip from Istanbul has been working to put together a film about the CMS Turkish connection and has also managed to put together at least one CMS-style workshop in Istanbul.

I haven't heard from Dost in quite a while, so I'm not sure how things are going over there. If you're in Istranbul, be sure to look him up and tell him I said hey.

Friday, February 12, 2010

CMS Archive Recordings: You Can Subscribe!

Listen to great music and help support the Creative Music Studio Archive Project

As many of you know, the Creative Music Studio is digitally remastering its archive of hundreds of hours of never-heard-before music, featuring important artists from Anthony Braxton, Nana Vasconcelos, Jimmy Giuffre, and George Lewis to Frederic Rzewski, Ed Blackwell and many others ( see www.creativemusicstudio.org )

The project is being funded primarily by CMS fans, friends, musicians and colleagues all over the world. By becoming a subscribing CMS member, you can directly support the CMS Archive Project. That's good. What's even better is that you'll get an advanced copy of each recording before it's released to the public ( Vol.1 April 1, Planet Arts Records ).

"CMS Archive Selections" will issue two recordings per year for a total of 12. The first volume, with music by David Izenzon, solo and in trio with Ingrid Sertso and Karl Berger, Oliver Lake and the CMS Orchestra, and Foday Suso with the Mandingo Griot Society, featuring Hamid Drake and Adam Rudolph is ready now. Subsequent releases will feature rare CMS performances by Anthony Braxton, Jimmy Giuffre, Nana Vasconcelos, Frederic Rzewski, Karl Berger, and many others.

For the basic membership/subscription of $60 per year, you'll receive 2 volumes of the CMS Archive Selection CDs annually, as well as regular updates on the Archive Project, and notices/discounts on CMS events and workshops, including Oral History events and music online.

For the premium membership/subscription of $95 per year you'll receive, in addition, full access, by password, to the Online Archive, including webstreams of unreleased tracks and videos, new "oral history" events, blogs and new concert recordings, and your name will be listed in the booklets of upcoming CMS Archive Selection CDs as a sustaining member.

Your membership is the only way we can digitize and distribute music from the Archive, music that's historically important and great to listen to. Your patronage will ensure that the music of CMS will remain vibrant and available to fans and students around the world. And time is of the essence here.

All additional contributions are tax-deductible to the full extent of the law: the Creative Music Foundation, Inc is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization.

Please help keep the music of CMS alive by becoming a member today. If you subscribe before March 31, you will receive a limited edition advance copy signed by Karl Berger, and your name will be listed in upcoming CD liner notes as one of the special members that helped in the initiation of the CMS Archive Selection Series.

Please make checks payable to CMS (or Creative Music Studio) and send to CMS, POB 671, Woodstock N.Y. 12498. Your membership includes shipping/handling costs. Or simply make your pledge by email to creativemusic@verizon.net, stating your postal mailing address.

Tuesday, February 09, 2010

Lisle Ellis, Bass and Circuitry

Lisle Ellis is active as an acoustic and electronic musician, visual artist, and a lecturer in creative process and jazz history. As a bassist/composer/improvisor he has performed and recorded with many of the world's foremost muscians in the field of jazz, improvised, creative and new and experimental musics. Currently living in New York City, Ellis leads his own ensemble whose music often reflects his interest in electronic music and its applications in improvisational contexts as well as his ongoing relationship with the acoustic bass.
From http://www.lisleellis.com

Lisle Ellis was living in the San Francisco area when I interviewed him for the book Music Universe, Music Mind. But it turns out that for a lot of musicians who head out West (or start out West--Lisle's roots are in Vancouver), the magnetism of New York is just too strong to resist.

I found out that Lisle had moved to New York by coming across a little article about him in the magazine Electronic Musician (Murphy, Bill Pro/File: Lisle Ellis - Bass and Circuitry
Electronic Musician 25:6 (June 2009) p. 22.).

From the article:

New York City has always been a hotbed of experimentation, especially when it comes to avant-garde jazz. For bassist Lisle Ellis, who has worked with certified heavyweights (Cecil Taylor, Paul Bley) and contemporary rebels (John Zorn, Peter Brotzmann), the legacy of the city's arts and music scenes has been a near-constant source of inspiration going back to the late '70s, when he lived in the city and studied at the Creative Music Studio in Woodstock.

I consider Lisle's account of his Cecil Taylor experience at CMS to be one of the high points of Music Universe, Music Mind.

Saturday, February 06, 2010

Usula Oppens Wins Grammy

Pianist Ursula Oppens, who was a strong figure in CMS's "classical avant garde" contingent, won the Grammy for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (Without Orchestra) for her album Oppens Plays Carter.

She has received two Grammy nominations prior to winning in 2010.

Ursula and Frederic Rzewski were collaborators at CMS, and she continues to perform Rzewski's music.

Congratulations, Ursula Oppens