THE SEARCH AND RESTORE 2012 PLAN

Here To Stay: A Residency Project

Once a month, Search And Restore will present a 3-night run for different artist, either three of their different groups, or the same group for all the nights, giving artists who would never have a chance to showcase for more than one or two nights a chance to grow musically with an audience. Each night will have a different supporting group, exposing them to a larger audience as well.

House Concert Series

An improvised house concert series focusing on higher production value audio video, with three artists each performing a short solo set then a collaborative one. There will be a small audience present, but the focus will be on documenting the spontaneous experience with multiple camera angles and multi track audio. Funds raised will be used to pay the artists, record recording expenses, and use Search And Restore.com as a way to distribute the content to fans of improvised music around the world.

Search & Restore will continue to document live shows throughout the city and building artist pages for the performing musicians within SearchAndRestore.com, constantly expanding the home base for the scene online.

Funds raised for the Winter & Undead Jazzfests will allow us to have a basic budget to better compensate the artists, pursue more marketing approaches, and drive us to take exciting risks with programming and alternative performance spaces. Well also be developing relationships outside of New York and researching the best ways to bring these festivals to new cities and countries, such as San Francisco, Madison, Washington DC, Boston, and Portland.

Operating Costs

Search & Restore is a young organization, and we are in need of a proper office space as well as a few additional employees to ensure these new programs are carried out and promoted properly. We will also be hiring a full time publicist and grant writer, and develop a more cohesive marketing plan for the website so that we can reach new jazz fans who love the music but don't have a way of accessing it on a frequent basis.

Podcast: Making It Up As We Go

A weekly podcast series interviewing artists from all ends of the spectrum about improvisation will move between dialogue and live performance. Through this we aim to create more content to engage fans of the music with the artists online, and to provide a new method for the general public to hear how these artists approach improvisation and the music as a whole.

PRESS RELEASE!!

Jazz Organizers Search & Restore Announce New Web Site, And A Second Major Fundraising Campaign

Gumption is an old fashioned word, so its odd that it aptly fits the ongoing efforts of the squad behind Search & Restrore, a new-fangled team of arts advocates bent on raising the visibility of modern jazz. With the much-anticipated relaunch of its Web site (www.searchandrestore.com), and the kick-off of its second major fundraising campaign, the S&R team, led by musician/organizer/entrepreneur Adam Schatz, is proving that their mission remains fueled by a blend of vision and effort.

The new searchandrestore.com is packed with the fruits of the organizations 2011 labors. Last year, as reported by the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and other major publications, Schatz and company successfully reached their goal of raising $75K through Kickstarter. Their promise was to further their work by documenting a wealth of live performances by artists on the far-reaching New York jazz and improvisational music scene. Theyve done so; the new site holds terrific-looking concert clips by such innovative artists as Fred Hersch, Joe McPhee, Nels Cline, and Matthew Shipp. This kind of content, shot at clubs and music spaces around the city, brings immediacy to the listening experience. Devoted fans and newly interested viewers now have a much richer experience when it comes to understanding an artists latest moves.   

Its a really exciting feeling, says Schatz. Creating something that wasnt there before is cool. Reaching audiences around the world who know the scene exists, but dont know where to find out more about it, is a thrill. And so is the flip side: reaching all the people dont even know this fantastic music exists in the first place.

You can see a one-time-only ensemble of Uri Caine, Jenny Scheinman, Theo Bleckman and Todd Sickafoose crossweave all sorts of intricate lines during one of S&R's "Spontaneous Construction" evenings at the Blue Note - a marvel of improvisation. Over 50 high-def clips have been uploaded to individual artist pages, and more are on their way. In total, they help tell an increasingly nuanced story about how this music was made at the beginning of the new millennium.

Search & Restore wants to bring even more new listeners to the music in 2012. Thats why theyre announcing a fundraising campaign with specific donation goals. For 30 days, from November 10 to December 10, theyre seeking 8000 individual donors to participate by pledging $25 towards their mission. 

Those who pledge will enjoy immediate premiums. Each day of the campaign will be sponsored by a discrete group of 20 artists wholl reward donations with a download of 20 original works. Further: Each day will see the premiere of a video featuring a short improvisation from each artist. It will also be that artist's day to explain the fundraiser to their fans, creating an inclusive and exponential approach towards fundraising and audience-identification. 

The resultant $200K will be earmarked for the continuation of the video performance campaign and the Web site upkeep, as well as upgrades to the ongoing concert promotion efforts (S&R have a major hand in the Winter JazzFest and Undead Jazz Fest), the launching of a podcast interview series, the establishment of a house concert series that will offer refined audio and video aesthetics while providing unique concert intimacy, the formalization of publicity department, securing much-needed office space, and the establishment Each is a logical upgrade for a team bent on bringing the music to a larger population.

"We want to keep growing as fast as we have been, but we want to get it right - bolster some of the structure," concludes Schatz. "The music, the musicians, and the audience deserves nothing less. I think at this point people understand what we're going for, and they want to participate on some level. The door is open right now."