It contains roughly 700 recorded musical works, 800 hours of oral histories, 50,000 photographs and historical documents, an extensive collection of program notes and essays, and thousands of hours of video footage documenting recording sessions, interviews, and live performances.
The Archive was founded in 1990 by businessman Lowell Milken, with the stated mission to "document, preserve, and disseminate the vast body of music that pertains to the American Jewish experience.
In its remembrance of Dave Brubeck after his Dec. 5, 2012 passing, PBS Newshour featured footage of the Dave Brubeck Quartet playing Take Five at a 2007 Milken Archive concert and recording session in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.
[6] In September 2010, Milken Archive Artistic Director Neil Levin was featured on televisions stations across the United States in the documentary 18 Voices[7] Sing Kol Nidre discussing the Kol Nidre, a declaration recited or sung in the synagogue before the beginning of the evening service on every Yom Kippur.
On May 26, 2010, the NPR program “All Things Considered”[8] featured Milken Archive music[9] in its broadcast about clarinetist David Krakauer, “Abraham Inc.: Klezmer with a funky hip hop beat.” The Milken Archive's collection is organized according to the following 20 thematic groups, known as volumes.