Now…I don’t often ask people to get involved in the actual financial mechanics of the various bands in which I play, but I’m going to make an exception here. Cecilia Coleman is the most original and yet simultaneously deeply rooted jazz composer that I have had the pleasure to hear in several decades. She is floating this wonderful NYC band…The Cecilia Coleman Big Band…on a shoestring and a prayer, and she deserves all the help she can get. The personnel of this real, live NYC jazz band is extraordinary…it includes the single most unjustly ignored great jazz saxophonist on earth as far as I am concerned (the astounding Bobby Porcelli), the best valve trombone soloist I have ever heard (Mike Fahn) and an array of younger soloists that is a survey of just about everything interesting that is happening in the NYC mainstream jazz scene today.
The first album…”Oh Boy”… is very good, and she is developing as a composer amazingly quickly.
In order to continue to finance the band she is using the web-based project-starter “Kickstarter.” Please go here to check out this effort, and please, please drop some dollars into the kitty if you can spare them.
The way that Kickstarter works is as follows:
(From Wikipedia)
One of a new set of fundraising platforms dubbed “crowd funding,”[3] Kickstarter facilitates gathering monetary resources from the general public, a model which circumvents many traditional avenues of investment.[4] People must apply to Kickstarter in order to have a project posted on the site, and Kickstarter provides guidelines[5] on what types of projects will be accepted. Project owners choose a deadline and a target minimum of funds to raise. If the chosen target is not gathered by the deadline, no funds are collected (this is known as a provision point mechanism).[6] Money pledged by donors is collected using Amazon Payments,[7] and initiating projects requires a U.S. bank account, barring foreign users to use the site as a result.
Kickstarter takes 5% of the funds raised; Amazon charges an additional 3-5%.[8] Unlike many forums for fundraising or investment, Kickstarter claims no ownership over the projects and the work they produce. However, projects launched on the site are permanently archived and accessible to the public. After funding is completed, projects and uploaded media cannot be edited or removed from the site.[9]
Go to the site. And think about how closed-off the corporate “jazz” system is today. Go read my post Music and the Culture? We Have All Been Soundbitten here for some more info on that idea. If you want the music to continue and grow without interference from corporate entities whose sole purpose in life is to make a quick buck, crowd-sourcing seems to be the best…and maybe the only…answer.
Later…
S.
P.S. That trombone solo on the site’s “Oh Boy” cut? I know that fella very well. Bet on it. Like it or lump it…the real deal, live and un-gimmicked at the legendary studio of jazz recording legend Rudy Van Gelder. The way it’s s’pose to be.
