| CCMC | |
| Landscape: | yes |
| Origin: | Toronto, Canada |
| Genre: | free improvisation, avant-garde, avant-garde jazz, electroacoustic music |
| Years Active: | 1974– |
| Label: | Music Gallery Editions, Track & Light, Les Disques Victo, Art Metropole, Free Market |
| Associated Acts: | Artists' Jazz Band, The Four Horsemen |
| Past Members: | Graham Coughtry Nobuo Kubota Greg Gallagher Bill Smith Peter Anson Casey Sokol Al Mattes Larry Dubin Michael Snow Jack Vorvis |
CCMC is a Canadian free improvisation group founded in 1974.[1]
The CCMC was founded by Peter Anson, Graham Coughtry, Larry Dubin, Greg Gallagher, Nobuo Kubota, Allan Mattes, Casey Sokol, Bill Smith and Michael Snow. Three of the founding members (Graham Coughtry, Nobuo Kubota, and Michael Snow) were members of Artists' Jazz Band, a seminal Toronto free-jazz ensemble. In 1976, the group founded The Music Gallery as an artist-run centre[2] [3] where they performed twice-weekly.[4] The group was formally associated with The Music Gallery until 2000. Members of the group were also founders of the Music Gallery Editions record label, which issued CCMC's first six albums.
The group remains active to the present day, though through its various incarnations Michael Snow has been the group's only constant member. The group currently performs as a quartet of Snow (piano/Octave Cat synthesizer), John Oswald (alto sax), Paul Dutton (soundsinging, mouth harp) and John Kamevaar (electronic percussion/electroacoustic sounds).
CCMC's music is based on "improvisation-as-composition" (p. 40) inspired by free jazz. With no pre-existing compositions, live performance is central to the band's identity, and their early recordings were all recorded live in concert. ("Interviewer: Since the very beginning CCMC has recorded every concert, is that true? Michael Snow: Yes, that's, whatever it is, thirteen years of at least twice a week, plus all the tours. A lot of tape, yes."
The abbreviation CCMC originally stood for Canadian Creative Music Collective. By 1978, and the release of the Volume Three LP, the group had collectively gathered several hundred alternate associations, many of which were reproduced as the cover art of that record. Following are a selection of the names found there: