# As a crowdfunding platform implodes, a legendary composer rebounds: Photos, Videos

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2019/05/14/as-a-crowdfunding-platform-implodes-a-legendary-composer-rebounds-photos-videos/
- Published: 2019-05-14T21:38:02+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**John Zorn, the prolific and brilliantly iconoclastic composer, realized a dream
of sorts last year when he released _The Book Beriah_ — a boxed set of 11 new albums,
featuring as many different groups interpreting music he’d written for that purpose.**

The 92 songs in the set amounted to the final column of an impressive edifice: the
Masada songbook, which he began just over 25 years ago, building on the legacies
of Jewish folk music. Originally limited in scope to a single working band called
Masada, the project expanded to include many branches and collaborators, and a series
of releases on Zorn’s label, Tzadik.

_The Book Beriah_ was a Tzadik release too, though its elaborate sprawl and high
production costs led Zorn to involve an outside partner: PledgeMusic, a British-
based direct-to-fan crowdfunding service designed to help bring musical projects
to fruition. “The only way we could have broken even was going on a platform like
this,” Zorn tells NPR Music.

Now, after a calamitous turn for PledgeMusic — which announced last week that it’s
headed for bankruptcy — Zorn hopes to recoup a substantial loss: $197,559, all of
it raised through the platform and still owed to Tzadik.

“This is a lot of bread for us, it really is,” Zorn says. “After three years of 
work on this project, with dozens of musicians, and hundreds of hours of recording
and mixing. Then to have this happen, my first thought was: ‘Why are they doing 
this to us?’ ”

Zorn is far from alone. PledgeMusic owes hundreds of thousands of dollars to artists
and labels, many of them independents operating on small margins. An untold number
of fans have also been shortchanged, because the projects they invested in remain
unfinished, or caught in limbo. “There have been no good outcomes here,” Benji Rogers,
a co-founder and former CEO of PledgeMusic, wrote last week in an open letter, “
and I cannot bear that something that I created to benefit artists and fans has 
caused so much pain to so many people.”

In Tzadik’s case, consumers, at least, have been unaffected: everyone who ordered
_The Book Beriah_ or related merchandise has received their product. But Zorn’s 
ongoing plight with the project reveals some of the pitfalls of a business model
that has become increasingly common in the music industry — one that relies, to 
a large degree, on economies of trust.

Zorn — an experimental music linchpin, a 2007 MacArthur fellow, and the founder-
proprietor of The Stone — has long been a paragon of artistic self-reliance. Tzadik
came out of that impulse, after his tenure on Elektra/Nonesuch in the 1980s and 
early ’90s, and a series of releases on the Japanese label DIW. The first Tzadik
releases appeared in 1995, and since then it’s been a deluge, consisting of albums
not only by Zorn and his inner circle but also avant-garde eminences like Derek 
Bailey, Alvin Curran and Wadada Leo Smith.

Sarah Robertson, co-founder of the music manufacturing company A to Z Media, has
been working with Zorn since the foundation of Tzadik. She also has history with
PledgeMusic: about a decade ago, when the company was getting started in the United
States, she sublet office space to Benji Rogers and his fledgling team.

“It was shocking and devastating when this happened,” Robertson tells NPR Music.“
For a small label like Tzadik, that’s an enormous amount of money to have lost. 
And I personally took it pretty hard, because I had recommended John to do this,
to work with Pledge.”

Echoing reports in Billboard and elsewhere, Robertson suggests that the collapse
of PledgeMusic had less to do with a flawed business model than a failure of execution.“
I think it’s mismanagement of funds,” she says. “The money should have been held
and then paid out to the artist. Not to pay operating expenses. Where has all that
money gone?”

Rogers, who had left PledgeMusic in 2017, returned to his company in a volunteer
capacity early this year. “I wanted to be a part of the efforts to get things back
on track,” he explains in the open letter, “but it is obvious now that too much 
damage had already been done.” Part of his efforts involved a Hail Mary plan to 
sell the company. In March, [_Variety _reported](https://variety.com/2019/biz/news/pledgemusic-down-to-skeleton-staff-potential-buyer-1203171745/)
that the company had pared down to a “skeleton staff” and stopped payroll in the
United States.

Zorn and his Tzadik cofounder, Kazunori Sugiyama, began to realize something might
be wrong in the early weeks of this year. For a while, they gave PledgeMusic the
benefit of the doubt. “I’m basically a trusting person,” Zorn says. “If someone 
doesn’t get back to me, I don’t assume that they’re crooks or that they hate my 
guts. I just assume that maybe they’re too busy, or maybe the email got lost in 
the digital ether somewhere.”

After the truth emerged and Zorn processed his initial shock, he says, “I went into
my Let’s-Fix-It mode. I always have a Plan B. I try to find a way to solve the problem
that’s a creative way.” To that end, Tzadik has just announced four limited-edition
vinyl releases, handpicked by Zorn with input from Sugiyama.

Among them is _Masada – The Best of Sanhedrin, _the first-ever vinyl release by 
the original Masada Quartet, which consisted of Zorn on alto saxophone, Dave Douglas
on trumpet, Greg Cohen on bass and Joey Baron on drums. _Alahambra Love Songs _is
an acoustic trio recording featuring Cohen, pianist Rob Burger and drummer Ben Perowsky.

The two other releases underscore Zorn’s breadth as a composer. _Nove Cantici Per
Francessco D’Assisi _features a suite inspired by the life of Saint Francis of Assisi,
and performed by an all-star guitar trio of Bill Frisell, Julian Lage and Gyan Riley.
And _The Last Judgment _is the final recording by a heavy-gauge project called Moonchild,
with vocal chameleon Mike Patton, organist John Medeski, bassist Trevor Dunn and
Baron on drums.

Robertson offered to make the vinyl free of charge, as a gesture of goodwill. Others
involved, like mastering engineer Scott Hull, were also generous with their time
and services.

There are also still several hundred copies of _The Book Beriah _available for purchase—
direct through Tzadik’s website. (A number of additional copies are also being held
by a fulfillment company, which wasn’t paid for its services by PledgeMusic. Zorn
says that when he raises the requisite amount, he’ll pay the balance and reclaim
that outstanding product.)

For Zorn, it all amounts to a lemons-into-lemonade situation, one that he hopes 
will strengthen the label’s base by rallying public support. “We made something 
that’s beautiful, it looks and sounds great, it’s special, and it also gives our
fans and the world outside an opportunity to help,” he says. “And also get something
really cool in exchange.”

John Zorn, in red, conducts music from ‘Book of Angels’ with the Bar Kokhba Sextet(
feat. Marc Ribot on guitar, Mark Feldman on violin, Erik Friedlander on cello, and
Cyro Baptista on percussion) during his ‘Masada Marathon’ at Lincoln Center in New
York on March 30, 2011.

![John Zorn, in red, conducts music from 'Book of Angels' with the Bar Kokhba Sextet(
feat. Marc Ribot on guitar, Mark Feldman on violin, Erik Friedlander on cello, and
Cyro Baptista on percussion) during his 'Masada Marathon' at Lincoln Center in New
York on March 30, 2011.](https://i0.wp.com/mediad.publicbroadcasting.net/p/shared/
npr/styles/placed_wide/nprshared/201905/723236849.jpg?w=640)

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