Jamming over the internets

In these times of pandemic and lockdown it is not always viable to play music with people in person. Thankfully we live in the age of online with fast connections that allow for rapid file transfer. What is less viable is actual live playing as the latency of the system due to all the equipment between any two players puts everything out of sync. Just try singing with people on a Zoom call and you will see what I mean.

Well, Swing 47 are going to keep playing. We will use the available technology to help us out. There is a mobile app called iReal Pro that can play arrangements based on chords you enter. You can have drums, bass and other instruments in various styles. This can be very useful to provide a backing to play along with. We used it in this case just to guide us and the final track did not include the backing. Steve played the chords and recorded them (using Ardour on Linux) using his Telecaster. He then recorded a couple of solos and sent the files to Danielle who added the 'heads' and some solos of her own on clarinet. She did the final mixing to produce the track you hear below.

The picture is from one of our pub sessions when such things were possible. We hope to be able to do that again some time next year.

The tune dates back to the 1920's. It was written by Lil Hardin and performed by Johnny Dodds. This recording features Louis Armstrong too.