Sharing the Cost of Production

Artist Share is a crowdfunding platform that produces jazz CDs by soliciting contributions ranging from $12.95 (the cost of a download) to $10,000 in advance from fans of the artist in question. In exchange, contributors receive the CD when it is released (a physical copy costs $19.95), and depending on the amount contributed, perks such as regular email and video updates from the artist (“exclusive access to the artist's creative process”) and co-producer credits in the liner notes. So far, they have released some excellent CDs, such as Maria Schneider's Sky Blue and Ryan Truesdell's Centennial: Newly Discovered Works of Gil Evans. Artist Share has announced that they have formed a partnership with Blue Note Records, one of jazz's oldest and most popular labels, to use the Artist Share model “to help nurture and promote up-and-coming young jazz artists.”

At one level, this is good news. Who can be opposed to helping talented young musicians get a chance to record?

On the other hand, Artist Share contributors pay a lot more on average for their new CDs than other consumers. Those contributions cushion Artist Share against losses, or in the case of commercially successful CDs, increase their profits. When people receive appeals from Artist Share, they are told, in effect, that the CD they are supporting would not exist without their contributions. Clearly, some large donors have a personal relationship with the artist, but the majority are folks who are willing to pay more because they trust that message.

I have no access to Blue Note's balance sheets, but for a jazz label, they seem to be doing pretty well right now. They are home to successful artists like Joe Lovano, Wayne Shorter, Jason Moran and Norah Jones. And even if jazz doesn't make much money these days, they are “part of the Capitol Music Group, a subsidiary of the Universal Music Group”—hardly the struggling independent label they once were. One of the things record companies do is invest in the promotion of new artists. It is in their self-interest, as well as the interest of jazz musicians and fans. In fact, their press release boasts of the fact that they have recently jump-started the careers of Robert Glasper, Lionel Loueke and Ambrose Akinmusire.

Of course, recording unknown artists is financially risky. Are we to expect that Blue Note/Artist Share will increase the number of new jazz artists they record, or is this merely about cost-shifting in order to increase profits? If other jazz labels follow suit, might this turn out to be a de facto increase in the price of jazz records?

I've contributed to Artist Share because I believe the claim that their CDs could not be produced without fan contributions. I'm not sure I want to make a similar contribution to the bottom line of a financially successful media conglomerate just to get them to do something they ought to be doing anyway.

In other Artist Share news:

• Ryan Truesdell's Centennial: Newly Discovered Works of Gil Evans has been selected by the Jazz Journalists' Association as their 2012 Record of the Year.
  
  
• Maria Schneider and Dawn Upshaw's Winter Morning Walks/Carlos Drummond de Andrade Stories has been iTunes' #1 classical music album for several weeks.

You may also be interested in reading:

Best Jazz CD of 2012:  Centennial by Ryan Truesdell and the Gil Evans Project

CD Review:  Maria Schneider/Dawn Upshaw, Winter Morning Walks/Carlos Drummond de Andrade Stories

CD Review:  Various Artists, Newport Jazz Gala