To all of you Jazz players... what styles are you using for your backing tracks, compositions, etc.?
There's an enormous amount of them, which ones are your favorites? I've bought the BIAB 2012 Everything Pack and I'd like some advice from you, experienced users. I'm a total newbie on BIAB.
I'm all ears!
No Jazz players in this forum?
C'mon guys...
If you have BB 2012, and you press the band button, you will see our favorite jazz real styles.
Note that this list only displays styles that you have the realtracks for.
Well, there are several jazz players on this forum. I simply found the question hard to answer, since I use so many jazz-oriented RealTracks. You should take some time and audition them all; you never know when you will use them.
My favorite is _JazFred.sty
This is a RealStyle, of Jazz Swing.
It is a quartet, piano, bass, drums and guitar (4 in the bar chording ala Freddie Green)
It uses tempo swapping, so it works for wide range of tempos, from slow ballads (60) to fast bebop (300).
I am in the same boat as Matt, I use sooooo many of them I can't pick just one.
Later,
I have used the _JazFred.sty mostly as Peter does I guess. I seem to come to it most often.
I use *any* style that will do the job at hand, regardless of labeled genre or type. .
That may not be the "easy" answer to the original question, but over the years I have found style not listed under Jazz headings that will indeed work well with my Jazz offerings, especially when considering SmoothJazz, sometimes a Style labeled as HipHop works just fine with some of those, or a Gospel labeled style, even some of the Country styles can have their moments.
Best thing to do is to AUDITION styles yourself with the song you've entered, sometimes loading a way out stylename has opened the door to cretivity here.
I have found that it also goes a long way toward not ending up wioth m audience getting bored quickly, having to listen to only a small subset of certain Jazz styles with a lot of tunes.
--Mac
Like a lot of experienced users I use what ever sounds good regardless of the label. Many styles that you would not think would work may work if you change the tempo. I’ve had a lot of fun using the “wrong” style
Have fun trying out different styles.
The question was just to have a guideline to be able to start SOMEWHERE.
There are so many choices it's overwhelming, hence the question.
Does somebody here plays "The Music Inside" by Chuck Loeb?
I'd like to make a backing track for it, and if any of the known styles could get me closer than nothing at all, I'd be a happy camper!
Yours truly,
No Chuck Loeb fans, uh...?
Sure, I'm familiar with that. There is a song and an album both with that name. Are you referring to the song, with the quad-time feel in the percussion?
I'm also interested in Smooth Jazz. I suggest you open the Style Selection dialog and audition all of the Smooth Jazz styles--there are around 65 of them in my version (2011 Everything/Audiophile). Click the "Load Song Demo" button for each style which will give you a nice tune that was designed specifically to show off the style you've chosen. I did this a while back and it was time-consuming but well worth it. What I found was that the MIDI styles (non-RealTrack) were more diverse and "interesting" sonically because of the use of various synthesizer sounds, but they sounded a little computer-y because they're MIDI and I don't have the highest quality on-board synth sounds. The RealTrack styles sounded more like real people playing (naturally), but are more limited sonically--e.g., you get lots of phased or chorused Fender Rhodes in the rhythm section ala 70's/80's Joe Sample. (There might be more diversity in the 2012 jazz/R&B RealTracks which I don't have).
As for straight-ahead jazz: like others, there are so many I can't name one at the moment. I tend to choose ones that reference piano players who are a little more harmonically sophisticated, like Herbie Hancock or Wynton Kelly. I will tell you who my favorite straight-ahead drummer is, though: Terry Clarke. Just about all the styles I use tend to include him. You can choose a filter in the Style Picker that will only show you styles with a particular drummer.
Good luck!
When I audition styles I make a 4 bar, 1 chorus song and generation is almost immediate! My first Smooth Jazz song I used a MIDI style C_MODERN and came up with a Steely Dan sounding sound. I have yet to find a Smooth Jazz Real Style that was anything but perfect.
Hi, Tommy -
When I audition, I usually use an 8-bar song. The first four bars are the A marker and the second four bars are the B marker. That way, I can hear both variations.
Quote:
Sure, I'm familiar with that. There is a song and an album both with that name. Are you referring to the song, with the quad-time feel in the percussion?
Yes, that's the one.