Hi, Fish

I asked Jamie a similar question a couple years ago, related more to live playing, and here is the response I received. You can make your own judgement as far as how to use them... there seems to be a wide gray area. He makes some solid points without coming down hard or legalistic.

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Letter from J. Aebersold

"Hello,

As you might guess, we get asked quite often for permission to use our jazz tracks in live performances. Here are a few points to keep in mind:

1. We can not give anyone permission to perform a particular copyrighted composition. We only license these songs ourselves, so the permission is not ours to give. For any recording or public performance with either a live group or a play-a-long, you should contact the copyright holder.

2. The legendary musicians on our play-a-longs recorded the tracks with the trust that they would be used primarily for educational/practice purposes,so please keep that in mind and try to honor that trust.

3. In the past 40 years we have made great strides in improving the quality of rhythm sections around the world so that you don't have to consider play-a-longs as your first resort, but we also realize it can be difficult to find competent live rhythm sections in many parts of the country and that the temptation to use play-a-longs is very strong.

4. These play-a-long CDs were designed to make musicians better, not unemployed. Please think LIVE musicians first, whenever possible.

I hope you can understand our official position. Thank you for your interest and good luck.

Jamey Aebersold Jazz, Inc. "

Brad -- My FAWM