Initiatives and recordings
The Planet Arts DoAM (Documentation of American Music) initiative focuses on large ensemble projects, documenting important American music compositions of established, mid-career and emerging composers. While independent and large-scale projects are often overlooked by major and independent record labels, the Planet Arts Recordings mission has provided an outlet for artists to document their work. Numerous projects have been recorded under this initiative to include several albums by the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra. Two new American music releases deal with the music of Bob Brookmeyer and also large jazz orchestra adaptations of Charles Ives music on the CD Mists: Charles Ives for Jazz Orchestra .
Robert Edward "Bob" Brookmeyer was an American jazz valve trombonist, pianist, arranger, and composer. Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Brookmeyer first gained widespread public attention as a member of Gerry Mulligan's quartet from 1954 to 1957. He later worked with Jimmy Giuffre, before rejoining Mulligan's Concert Jazz Band. He garnered 8 Grammy Award nominations during his lifetime.
Charles Edward Ives was an American modernist composer, being one of the first American composers of international renown. Previously, his music was largely ignored during his life, and many of his works went unperformed for many years, but later the quality of his music was recognized and he came to be regarded as an "American original". He was also among the first composers to engage in a systematic program of experimental music, with musical techniques including polytonality, polyrhythm, tone clusters, aleatory elements, and quarter tones. His experimentation foreshadowed many musical innovations that were later more widely adopted during the 20th century. Hence, he is often regarded as the leading American composer of art music of the 20th century.
Mists: Charles Ives for Jazz Orchestra is an internationally acclaimed jazz album produced by Planet Arts Recordings and released in August 2014. The recording is centered on Charles Ives' art song arranged for 17 piece jazz orchestra by composer Jack Cooper; this is a Third stream approach to jazz made more widely known by earlier band leaders and composers such as Paul Whiteman, Gunther Schuller, George Russell and Don Sebesky. The album is archived in the both the United States Library of Congress and the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek as a historically significant sound recording.
