Every living jazz musician has had to contend at some point or another with the idea of using a play-along track. For those who aren’t familiar, this is an audio track consisting of rhythm section instruments (most commonly drum set, string bass and either piano or guitar) playing behind an imaginary soloist. Jazz musicians use them to practice when they have no live rhythm section of their own to play with. The musicians who record the track (except in cases where the track is computer-generated) simply play the chord progression of a familiar tune together for anywhere from two to ten minutes, and the consumer at home can use it to pretend they’re playing with real people while they practice this tune. Here is what one of these tracks sounds like:
Perhaps to the untrained ear this just sounds like normal jazz music, but to a jazz musician it sounds like something is missing – what’s missing is you, the soloist who needs to practice Giant Steps. So how did this strange, anonymous musical collaboration come to be? How did this sort of virtual reality become the norm for aspiring students of jazz music?
50 years ago (roughly half the amount of time jazz as we know it has existed) a young saxophonist named Jamey Aebersold stumbled into one of the most prominent tools in jazz education (an educational field virtually nonexistent at this time). Seemingly without realizing it, he launched the Jamey Aebersold Play-Along Series after students at a summer camp requested that he make them a recording of piano accompaniment for a few standard jazz tunes. You can read about how this series took off unexpectedly and became one of the most recognizable volumes in jazz music here. For more from Aebersold himself on jazz education, which itself as a technology has only been around for half a century, you can check out his article “Music is for Life“.
Fast forward to today: Learn Jazz Standards is a free online resource with literally hundreds of videos including backing tracks and podcasts about common jazz education topics like tune-learning and improvisation techniques. This page gives you a good idea of the sheer volume of content they have available. Apps like iReal and Drumgenius offer a seemingly endless array of customizable backing tracks for anyone with a mobile device. This is a remarkable difference from Aebersold’s earliest tracks, which were recorded in his basement studio and sold in an LP format with an attached book of lead sheets. (For reference, this is a lead sheet, or simple statement of the main theme of a tune with the basic underlying harmony, to be expanded upon by improvising jazz musicians. This is the sheet music the players from the above video would be looking at. Giant Steps)
Of course, there is disagreement among jazz players and educators over the merit of playing with pre-recorded tracks. Some say this detracts from the spontaneous and improvisational spirit of the music, training the student to treat rhythm section players like a static background drone instead of living, constantly improvising musicians. Kelly Rossum, professor of trumpet and jazz studies and Christopher Newport University insists that his students play with real jazz recordings with interacting musicians instead of backing tracks, even if it means the student plays over John Coltrane’s saxophone solo. On the other hand, many insist that playing with tracks is the only way to develop one’s aural skills as an improviser, as practicing alone or with a metronome doesn’t give one a sense of the form and harmony of a jazz standard, and playing over another soloist is not indicative of real playing situations. Others see the tracks as a sort of unique challenge: Bill Dobbins, professor of jazz composition and arranging at Eastman says of the tracks’ repetitive nature: “Some people complain that when they’ve played with a track a few times, they know exactly what’s coming. Well, you should use that to your advantage. Get creative with it!”
Play-along tracks have undoubtedly made great strides since they first came about in the 1960’s. As a technology they have clearly made a seamless transition into the digital age through the internet and mobile technology, and as a tool of jazz education they have at the very least become ubiquitous enough to warrant specific opinions from jazz pedagogues. In any case, backing tracks are out their for students of all ages to use, for better or for worse…