You got it absolutely right. And, hey, who can blame them since they have much too much chords on their list? Even Wayne Shorter would wonder how to play some of these chords, and he is way out there, harmonically, stacking triads on top of other triads, like Dave Liebman explains.

On the one hand, they should simplify it, there are only 16 or so important chords, even in modern jazz. Really, who uses the third mode of harmonic minor, save for Richie Beirach or Hancock? Harmonic.minor, if you have the first sixth and fifth mode, that will do. But, we need melodic minor, augmented, wholetone and diminished and diminished dominant...

On the other, since they managed to get the piano part right for most chords (sadly not for phrygian or susb9 chords, widely used in modern jazz since Miles’ sketches of Spain), they should work on the bass part. Have you heard the altered chord clashing with the bass? It’s horrendous.

Same goes with the MIDI styles: skip a lot of chords or link them to the chord-scale so they share the same scale tones... and get the parts play the modern chords right like lydian(augmented or not), phrygian and altered. Levine and Berklee teached us how to play good music, if Yamaha and Roland can do the right harmonic thing, PGMUSIC should know how.

On a side note... Oliver Gannon, the OG in PGMUSIC, (I’m so hilarious...) plays old fashioned jazz, but in an intricate modern way, like Ed Bickert, Ron Escheté or Jim Hall. If you check his guitar comping disk, a lot of the really great substitutions he uses are just that: phrygian, altered, diminished, augmented. The things he does to the old 251? Wow. Miles Black, same thing, very advanced player. Why can’t these guys advise the tech guys on a better algorithm? Renee Rosnes...
Slap those IT-guys and girls over the head with some modern harmony until they get it. grin


Biab, Kontakt, Sampletank and lots of nice libraries, from Fluffy audio to Abbey Road drums.
Check out these great contemporary Jazz Styles: www.jazzstylezz.com