I happened to be listening to American Mavericks in the shop the other day and at the end of the segment they spoke of a composer who's instrumental works have been picked up by several dance mixers for building their compositions.

While this isn't my zone of interest I did find the jazzy instrumental backtrack energizing and thought that it would be great foundation for improvisational exercises. Unfortunately I didn't hear his name mentioned and can't find this on their web site.

If any of you know who this was or any other instrumental jazz composer who's work lends itself to playing all over top of (that doesn't sound very flattering I know) I'd appreciate hearing about them.

(oh ya... Saturday Night Blues on CBC had Bill Payne in interview for an hour talking about Little Feat, Lowell, the bands inception and his side work with other blues artists. Great interview. It may be available in realaudio from the CBC Radio site)

Jamey Aebersold makes backing track CD's and Books of the standard jazz repetoire, and i highly recommend them if you're interested in jazz at all.

Thanx for the tip Funk Jazz!

This guy has built an entire world around educating the world in jazz from every direction. I had no idea this was out there.

I filled out the form for the catalog and I'll likely get some material from there but have downloaded some mp3s they had at the host site jazzbooks.com

Should be perfect for what I'm interested in learning more about. There's something about jazz beats that gets in the head and you just start trippin on your merry way.
Most natural...