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Countdown To Raise Funds for Revolutionary Publishing Technology Featuring Sheila Jordan

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NEA Jazz Master, Sheila Jordan, never imagined her biography would be an innovative digital media book. For more than five years, author and vocalist Ellen Johnson has been researching and writing Jordan's fascinating life story about the vocal jazz legend.

“Jazz Child: The Sheila Jordan Story," a Kickstarter crowd-funding project, will be created with the latest Digital Publishing System (DPS) from Adobe that is revolutionizing the world of rich media delivery on portable devices like the iPad, Samsung Galaxy and Motorola XOOM.

Early publications developed with this emerging technology have been short and periodic in nature such as, Martha Stewart Living and the National Geographic. However, this will be one of the first full-length media books ever published specifically with this process in mind—not merely a digital conversion of a printed book format. If you don't have a tablet device for this app, it will also be available in a traditional layout as either a printed or Kindle book on Amazon.com.

“I was really excited when technology author and producer Jeff Foster suggested we use Adobe's latest software suite to create Jordan's biography in this new publishing format," said Johnson." We didn't have much of a budget so we turned to Kickstarter, one of the new ways to fund creative ideas and ambitious endeavors through crowd-funding."

In line with Kickstarter.com guidelines, creative projects have a set number of days to raise all the funds, or the project receives nothing. The Jazz Child Project has a 25-day fundraising window, from start to finish. If the allotted budget ($65,000 US) isn't raised before March 10, all pledges are cancelled and the project will not be funded. An added advantage is Kickstarter's merchant partner Amazon.com, which enables each project the convenience of receiving funds from anywhere in the world.

Johnson and Foster hope they will raise enough funds to make this project happen so they can share the story of one of the last living vocal legends of the jazz world, Sheila Jordan. Her biography is not only about the life of a jazz singer but about a 20th-century woman who persevered despite tremendous obstacles in her path.To learn more and help support the Jazz Child Project please visit the Kiickstarter page.

Monies raised through Kickstarter will be used towards production and development costs that include: recording and editing audio and video interviews; equipment rentals; layout and production of the printed book and Kindle version with images; layout, production, and programming of the media-rich DPS (Digital Publishing System) apps for iPads and Android tablets; publishing and development fees; transcription fees, book design, proofreading, editing, copyright fees, printing of the books, legal fees, and postage to send them to backers. For more information or interviews contact: [email protected].

About The Production Team

Jeff Foster is an internationally published author of several computer technology, animation, video production, and VFX books. He is an award-winning producer and VFX artist and is a nationally recognized speaker in his industry. He is aptly positioned with the technology and software developers to produce cutting-edge media delivered on the latest platforms. For more detailed information about Jeff, go to: pixelpainter.com or soundvisionsmedia.com. Foster will also be documenting the entire design and development process all the way through to publishing and distribution for an instructional video series for video2brain.com.

Ellen Johnson's knowledge of the jazz world is a result of her combined thirty years experience in the music industry as a professional recording artist, educator, songwriter, producer, journalist, and publicist. An entrepreneurial spirit, Ellen founded Vocal Visions (record label and educational division), Sound Visions Media (video production, publicity and promotion company), and Sound Creativity (creativity consulting and workshops). Ellen currently writes for JazzHistoryOnline.com and in the past served as the jazz editor for Singer and Musician Magazine interviewing for articles about jazz luminaries such as Nancy Wilson, Jon Hendricks and Andy Bey. With three vocal CDs of her own, the last one, “These Days" featured Sheila Jordan in a tribute to her innovation with bass and voice duets. She has published lyrics to the Sonny Rollins well known composition, “St. Thomas" and three Charles Mingus compositions.

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