New Music Distribution Service (or NMDS) was a

non-profit A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

record distributor The music industry consists of the individuals and organizations that earn money by writing songs and musical compositions, creating and selling recorded music and sheet music, presenting concerts, as well as the organizations that aid, train, ...

based in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. It was founded in 1972 by

Carla Bley Carla Bley (born Lovella May Borg; May 11, 1936) is an American jazz composer, pianist, organist and bandleader. An important figure in the free jazz movement of the 1960s, she is perhaps best known for her jazz opera '' Escalator over the Hill'' ...

and

Michael Mantler Michael Mantler (born August 10, 1943) is an Austrian avant-garde jazz trumpeter and composer of contemporary music. Career: United States Mantler was born in Vienna, Austria. In the early 1960s, he was a student at the Academy of Music and V ...

as a means of distributing artist produced recordings of, primarily, experimental contemporary music. It was a program of the

Jazz Composer's Orchestra The Jazz Composer's Orchestra was an American jazz group, founded by Carla Bley and Michael Mantler in 1965, to perform orchestral avant-garde jazz. Its origins lay in the Jazz Composers Guild, an organization founded by Bill Dixon which grew out ...

Association (JCOA). The NMDS began by distributing recordings released by many different independent labels and artists, including Nodlew (

Weldon Irvine Weldon Jonathan Irvine Jr. (October 27, 1943 – April 9, 2002), also known as Master Wel, was an American composer, playwright, poet, pianist, organist, and keyboardist. Biography Irvine, an African American, was born in Hampton, Virginia, on ...

's label), Jahari (

Richard Dunbar Richard Dunbar was a player of the French horn, playing in the free jazz scene. He was born in Brooklyn, New York, on May 22, 1944. He began studying the French horn in high school and never put it down. He also was known to play the bass guita ...

's label), Gibex (

Michael William Gilbert Michael William Gilbert (born August 17, 1954) is an American music composer working in the genres of electronic music and world music. Biography Michael William Gilbert grew up in Connecticut and Brussels, Belgium. While living in Europe he fir ...

's label),

Philip Glass Philip Glass (born January 31, 1937) is an American composer and pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. Glass's work has been associated with minimal music, minimalism, being built up fr ...

's Chatham Square label, and many others. Several international labels such as

Incus The ''incus'' (plural incudes) or anvil is a bone in the middle ear. The anvil-shaped small bone is one of three ossicles in the middle ear. The ''incus'' receives vibrations from the ''malleus'', to which it is connected laterally, and transmit ...

and ECM were also included in their catalogs. The biggest selling album in NMDS history was the ECM release of

Return to Forever (Chick Corea album) ''Return to Forever'' is a jazz fusion album by Chick Corea, simultaneously functioning as the debut album by the band of the same name. Unlike later albums by the group, it was released by the ECM label and produced by Manfred Eicher. The alb ...

, which strained the seams at the service and led to ECM's first US major distribution deal. The service maintained a philosophy of keeping all labels in stock at all times. Carla Bley remembered being rejected by the gatekeepers at traditional record companies and vowed that NMDS would be non-judgemental for the artists. In 1984, the NMDS was awarded a $10,000 grant by the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation. Due to the long illness of a manager, and the resultant failure to pay New York state taxes, NMDS suspended operations in 1990.

References

{{Jazz Composer's Orchestra Companies based in New York City Defunct companies based in New York (state)