About

In 2004, Jeb Banner created Musical Family Tree as a website with the mission of “Spreading Indiana Music”.  It offered what at the time was a unique opportunity for the music community, the ability for artists to post their music and for fans to access it and build a community around that connection.

Through the years, MFT served a number of different roles in the community. From an online forum to creating blogs on music, then to creating physical media, zines and more. We have released tapes and cds, served as promoters, venue owners and a record store. Under then Executive Director Jon Rogers and board member Oreo Jones, MFT was a key to the creation of the Chreece hip-hop festival and a number of other events locally.

In 2020 as COVID 19 forced the closure of the music industry worldwide, MFT served as a leader, connecting music venues and the community to resources at a time of crisis. We helped found the Indiana Independent Venue Alliance, serving as their non-profit financial partner. We worked with the City of Indianapolis and the Indy Music Strategy to build out a grants program awarding CARES Act funding to cover operational costs for 27 music venues in Indianapolis. Altogether we connected Indiana music venues to almost half a million dollars worth of funding in 2020.

Today we serve as a community organization for people passionate about Indiana music. We focus on our Legacy through maintaining and growing the archive of Indiana music, creating blog posts and other physical and digital media around our music history. We Educate artists and audiences, with skills training programming and offering opportunities for community discussions. And we Curate opportunities to bring artists and audiences together to celebrate Indiana music.