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For fans, a pay-as-she-grows experience

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Special to The Times

Maria Schneider has been nominated for three Grammy awards this year, and there’s another for saxophonist Donny McCaslin for a performance with her orchestra. That’s not exactly a common occurrence in the jazz world, where nominations usually arrive one at a time.

But the really fascinating story behind Schneider’s nominations is that the album that triggered the selections, “Concert in the Garden,” hasn’t sold a single copy in a retail store. Its sales have stemmed entirely from Schneider’s participation in a new Web delivery system called ArtistShare.

“It just amazes me,” says the sylphlike, red-haired jazz composer and bandleader, “that we’ve had this response for an album that was launched on a whole new platform for distributing music, a whole new way of doing business for a musician.”

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Strictly defined, ArtistShare is not a record company. It’s a method of participatory experience in which the music listener has the opportunity to share in an artist’s creative process.

“We feel that it’s not the end product that people are really paying for when they buy a CD,” explains Brian Camelio, ArtistShare’s CEO and a self-described “recovering guitarist.” “It’s the creative process of the artist -- that’s the most interesting and most valuable thing, the most essential ingredient.

“So we founded ArtistShare on the notion that people would be willing to participate in projects with their favorite artists, get a closer inside, personal look, feel personally involved in the creation of new art and new music.”

Here’s how it worked for the Minnesota-born Schneider, 44, who has been the company’s flagship artist. Her website, mariaschneider.com, announced the beginning of the recording process for “Concert in the Garden,” scheduled to run from October 2003 to July 2004. A budget plan was put together, based on Camelio’s projection of how much support Schneider could expect to receive from her fan base.

The website presented a range of levels for fan participation, from the $1,000 Gold Participant to the $9.95 MP3 Download Participant. Each level also included a variety of additional perks -- cover art files for the Download Participants, access to score samples and sound clips for Composer Participants, streaming video and Schneider’s journal notes over the course of the recording process.

The recording was limited to 10,000 copies, with 9,000 available for pre-order to participants and 1,000 held in reserve for later auction. And the results were impressive.

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“We try to make sure that the artist has the production cash in hand,” says Camelio. “And we actually met the cost of Maria’s original budget before she started recording.”

Schneider, who has spent most of her career scrambling to raise funds to sustain and record her orchestra, was astonished by her fans’ response to the ArtistShare offering.

“Because I had all these participation levels, where people can have these participatory experiences throughout the process and beyond just the CD, I raised well over $90,000 on sales of something over 4,000 copies.”

The experience was a dramatic contrast to Schneider’s earlier recordings.

“I spent $30,000 on the first record I made, and the record company bought it for $10,000,” she says. “Over the years I got about $7,000 in royalties. So I’m still out $13,000 plus half my publishing [rights], which has amounted to quite a lot over the years. And that album sold over 20,000 copies.”

In contrast, Schneider earns something over $13 per CD through ArtistShare as well as the added funds from the various participation levels -- a striking difference from what she received on a commercial label.

“I look at it this way,” says Camelio. “If you open a coffee shop, you don’t make 10,000 cups of coffee in the hope that people will come in and buy them. You slowly gauge your business and you slowly grow your business. That’s what each of these artists on ArtistShare are -- they’re a small business. And we try to give them good solid business principles as applied to the life of an artist.”

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Others give it a try

Others have signed on for ArtistShare slots, always on an individual project basis. Veteran guitarist Jim Hall’s “Magic Meeting” has just been completed. Trumpeter Brian Lynch’s “The Brian Lynch/Eddie Palmieri Project” has been launched, as have projects by pianist Danilo Perez, singer Monday Michiru, pianist Deanna Witkowski and the group Convergence.

Artists who are either on board or considering ArtistShare participation include Phish’s Trey Anastasio, pianist Herbie Hancock and bassist Scott Colley.

“Music is my business, but it’s my personal spiritual path too,” says Schneider. “And with ArtistShare there really are no anonymous sales or anonymous fans. I now have the capacity to be in contact with everyone who participates. And that’s beneficial to me business-wise and in a creative sense as well.”

Camelio agrees. His business model, in which ArtistShare takes 15% of proceeds, appears to be working well for both the company and the artist.

“We’re looking for longevity here, not to make a hit, for a way in which artists can say what they have to say, without commercial intrusion. In the beginning, we were told, ‘You can’t do it on the Internet because people need CDs in stores.’ Well, we proved that wrong. They said you can’t do it just on the Internet because you won’t be eligible for Grammy Awards. Well, Maria’s nominations have proved that wrong too.”

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On the Web

To hear samples from Usher, Kanye West, Alicia Keys, Jay-Z and Missy Elliott, visit calendarlive.com/hilburn.

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To hear samples from Green Day’s “American Idiot,” visit calendarlive.com/green.

To hear samples of various Critics’ Choices, visit calendarlive.com/critics.

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