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During the '70- and '80's, the Woodstock-based Creative Music Studio was considered the premier study center for contemporary creative music. Founded in 1971 by Karl Berger, Ingrid Sertso and Ornette Coleman , CMS brought together leading innovators in the jazz and world music communities. Unprecedented in its range and diversity, CMS was an acknowledged phenomenon in the international music world, providing participants with the rare opportunity to interact personally with the musical giants of improvisation and musical thought on a daily basis.

CMS is credited as the birthplace of Worldjazz - the improvisational and compositional expansion of the world's musical traditions. Now one of the main driving forces in many styles of music, this concept was pioneered very early at CMS, guided by authentic leaders. Don Cherry coined "Multi Kulti" here, now a household expression world-wide.

Under the guidance of CMS-Director Karl Berger, the master engineer and composer Ted Orr will lead the effort to transfer and re-master the tapes. The new masters will be stored and backed up in 3 different digital formats.

The collection of recordings is unique in its artistic scope and depth, capturing spontaneous performances by some of the most outstanding and ground-breaking composers/performers in World Jazz, World Music and New Music. CMS served as an incubator for new music for nearly 15 years, providing a musical laboratory for contemporary masters, guiding ensembles of highly motivated emerging artists and expanding the language of contemporary improvised music.

Among the artists leading ensembles on these archive recordings are Don Cherry, Anthony Braxton, Leo Smith, Foday Suso, Abdullah Ibrahim, Roscoe Mitchell, Joseph Jarman, Cecil Taylor, Jimmy Giuffre, Frederic Rzewski, Carla Bley, Dave Holland, Paulo Moura, Nana Vasconcelos, Pauline Oliveros, Karl Berger, Ingrid Sertso, Baikida Carroll, Trilok Gurtu, Steve Gorn, Ismet Siral, Jack DeJohnette, Fred Frith, Oliver Lake, Lee Konitz, Leroy Jenkins, George Lewis, and others (see left)

The CMS/Planet Arts project is considered revolutionary in that the re-mastered recordings will be returned to the contributing artists for their unrestricted use. Selected tracks of these recordings will be made available by participating artists to be included in a special CMS series of CD/DVD compilations.

CMF is partnering with Planet Arts to create an imprint label (Planet Arts/CMS records) that will jointly promote the project and disseminate the recorded packages through the Planet Arts International network and to the CMS network of artists, contributors and members, as well as to educational institutions and dedicated radio hosts. Planet Arts Recordings is a GRAMMY award winning not-for-profit 501(c) 3 label.

The CMS Archive project is expected to launch a new wave of communication among the CMS participants and thus lead to further workshops, concerts and recordings. A not-for-profit recording platform, ArtistsCreateRecordings (ACR), has been established to support and showcase recording projects by CMS members.

At the discretion of the guiding artists, selections of the re-mastered recordings will be made available in CD/DVD compilations to the CMS network of artists, contributors, active and supporting members, as well as to educational institutions and dedicated radio hosts. Negotiations are underway to house the digitized archive at Columbia University in New York.

For more information on the CMS/Planet Arts Archive project contact:

Karl Berger, CMS, 845 679 8847, creativemusic@verizon.net;
www.CreativeMusicStudio.org

or

Thomas Bellino, Planet Arts, 518 945 2669, planetarts@earthlink.net;
www.PlanetArts.org

A popular book about the Creative Music Studio, “Music Universe, Music Mind: Revisiting the Creative Music Studio, Woodstock NY”, written by Robert E. Sweet, was published in 1996 by Arborville Publishing.

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