SessionBand Jazz Bundle 4+

I’ve been using Jazz Session Bands 1, 2, and 3 for a few years now—bought them in a bundle. First off, I can unreservedly recommend these apps for any jazz players who like to create their own backing tracks. Each version—one, two, and three—contains styles that are vital for jazz, so *you are going to need all three!* (Can’t wait to get 4!) The sampling is very good, the sound realistic and dynamic, particularly on 2 and 3. But this app definitely has weaknesses as well as strengths. I especially like SB’s piano and drums—but I almost always mute the horns when I play over SB backing trax; very quickly the horn licks get predictable. And you can’t play without bass, obviously, but sadly SB’s bass does not sound anything like a real jazz bass player. Some styles have no walking lines, no nifty little 8th note pickups. The piano, on the other hand, is sparkling and realistic. The drums are outstanding. You can really personalize a track just with the use of drum fills. SB 3, in particular, has a great array of drum fills. Now for my critique. To me, one of SB’s weaknesses is that when you create a backing track with rapid harmonic movement—for example 4 chords per bar, using dominant 7ths or ii Vs, the changes sound choppy. On the other hand, the app shines over chords that are prolonged for 2+ bars. Another weakness is that you can’t create a form in one version, for example, SB 1, and then copy and paste it into a new document from one of the other versions, like SB 2. That’s a drawback, because it is laborious to create forms using this app. If it turns out that a form sounds crummy in one version, it’d be cool if you could export it to another version. Another weakness is that not all the chord extensions and alterations are available in SB 1, 2, and 3. (I understand they are all possible in 4, which is why I plan to get it!) If you like to play over pieces with lots of colors and extensions in the melody, it’d great to have the backing chords that put those colors on top. For example, there’s no minor 11 available, no dom 9, no dominant 7(#11). I would also really like to see a dom 7(13,-9) voicing. You can get around this, of course, by using changes that are consonant with those colors, but I do feel the chord voicings on 1, 2, and 3 are limited. To summarize, you can create some really nice stuff that’s fun to play over, using Session Band Jazz 1, 2, and 3. Get all three in a bundle, if possible. You’re going to want and need them if your repertoire includes a wide variety of jazz styles.

I bought the Jazz Bundle out if the gate and would have just been better off buying #1 and adding the others on down the line. It bothers me you can't import the chords from one to the other and it's clunky having to open each as a separate program to access three different lists.

I admit I'm spoiled by the features of the iReal Pro app, and this has the superior sounds of live musicians over MIDI, but with its limited chord vocabulary and difficulty manipulating blocks of chords, it's more entertaining than functional.

Still, the sound is superb, and reason enough to make the purchase.