Frequently Asked Questions

Crossing Tones was born in 2019 as a volunteer enterprise to shepherd at-risk collections into third-party hands. In late 2025 we changed course toward a new mission, wherein CrT itself will be the permanent archive for those collections. That reorientation coincided with the absorption of a sister institution, the Jazz History Database. Our new capital campaign in 2026 is designed to solidify the organization and expand our collections and programming.

With the questions and answers below, we hope to clarify details of that transition and our new reality. 

  • We help the world to engage with Jazz music—by hearing the sounds, hearing stories about the music, and connecting with the materials that help that history come alive.

  • Yes! All parties become stronger through the recent consolidation, and Crossing Tones will be stronger through your investment in our collective Jazz future.

  • Thanks for asking. If you’re in a position to make a tax-deductible contribution to our endowment campaign, your support helps ensure the future of our mission.

  • Gifts through our online PayPal portal generate an immediate PayPal receipt, which is a basic proof of your contribution. At year’s end, we send all of our donors a separate letter that formally acknowledges the gift. This letter you would use as the basis for your claim in your annual income tax filing. Donations of physical material—what we call “gifts-in-kind”—also get an acknowledgement letter and may have a slightly more complex path to claim the tax benefit.

  • Yes!

    • Email coordinator to manage group notices

    • Social media coordinator 

    • Digital editors of mp4 video recordings

    • PHP/HTTP editors who can write or fix older code modules

About Crossing Tones

  • Crossing Tones is functionally a democracy. We make decisions via a majority vote of our seven-person managing board.

  • We are a 501(c)(3) incorporated in New York State; our present mailing address is in Queens. 

    Most Crossing Tones members are in the Northeast USA, though some are in middle America and even living abroad. 

    Collections are in secure archival and lab spaces as we work independently on cataloging and preservation.

  • The organization deliberately includes board members from a wide range of ages and backgrounds in the music–uniting experience, wisdom and promise. The durability of our membership model has already been proven with the passing of a founding member, and three subsequent cycles of adding new board members.

    We’ve been doing this work for the past seven years, and we’ve accomplished a lot with minimal resources. Crossing Tones is becoming ever stronger through your investment in the endowment, which will sustain the organization in perpetuity.

    We also aspire to have a permanent, centralized headquarters. Of course, let us know if you have expertise or strategic guidance that could assist that initiative.

  • Not actively. Our stance naturally embraces collaboration, but our experience has led us to believe that the Jazz community needs more. With our 2025 reorientation, CrT has moved deliberately away from prevailing models of institutional curation. We bring a pro-active perspective to collecting and sharing materials, while engaging primary voices to illuminate the contents.

More on the 2026 campaign

  • Unless you request otherwise, your contributions will be invested in our endowment account. We’re committed to saving that money and using the earned interest to pay basic annual costs of the organization and its work.

  • We’ll all be relieved to reach the first plateau of stability. But we’ll continue crusading within our community and without, including private foundations, grants, and other funding mechanisms, to further strengthen and extend the scope of our activities.

  • We’re already benefitting from the earnings of your tax-deductible contributions. Only months into the “People’s Campaign”, we’re at around 30% of our goal. Let’s keep going!

  • For all of these you can use the contact form on our website.

Programming

  • Any changes will be minor, such as: The weekly notice for Thursday’s schedule will begin to come from a new email address in mid-2026. Otherwise you can expect the same great breadth of content and roughly the same structure and style.

  • Here.

  • Here.

  • Good question. There’s not yet a comprehensive mechanism for that, and it’s more complicated than you might think. Safeguarding the rights of the musicians involves several editing steps before we can provide public access. Prepping the recordings of those past events is a major area where we could use your volunteer energy. 

    At this time we are limitedly able to field research requests for access. Ask us if you have a particular session in mind, and we’ll do our best to prioritize those items.

  • Our website crossingtones.org is and will continue to be the primary way that content is made accessible. The site is itself growing and expanding as we make this transition. Sign up for our mailing list, and we’ll keep you posted as new materials become available. 

    Aside from volunteering, our in-person sessions and weekly Pot Pourri Zooms are the most direct ways to participate.

Collections

  • Yes, we are always looking for important Jazz material that needs our help and a new home.

  • “Yes, but…” We love records and use them constantly for our work, but our primary mission is to protect unique artifacts. 

    Some donors have pledged their record collections specifically for us to sell, and generate funds for our endowment. (For those looking to acquire new treasures and benefit Crossing Tones, these sales are mostly handled from this storefront.)