For the jazzers here... piano trio library music... and a mystery!

[Reezekeys]

I was watching a documentary on youtube. At one point I noticed the background music was a jazz trio and it sounded pretty nice. I got curious, pointed my iPhone at the TV and called up Shazam to identify it. It came up as "TrackTribe - Calm Cam." I found it posted on its own on youtube. Turns out this "TrackTribe" is some kind of library music outfit that's posted quite a few tracks. They're on YouTube and Bandcamp, maybe other services too. I checked out a few more that are in that jazz trio vein, as well as a few more contemporary tracks, i.e. the typical synths, drum machines, etc. Not close to jazz. I saw this statement on the page:

 

"We make copyright free music for video creators. Founded by life-long friends and guided by the principles of collaboration, innovation, and charity, TrackTribe is owned and controlled by a collective of artists. We are 100% independent and dedicated to giving back to our global community through what connects each of us to each other - music."

 

The jazz trio stuff I've heard so far are all contrafacts of Real Book tunes. Here's one on "Stella By Starlight": 

 

 

 

This one is a contrafact of "I'm Old Fashioned":

 

 

Nothing remarkable here, I guess - you're not violating copyright by improvising on the chord changes of a song, right? I have no idea how these guys make money though - subs to their channel perhaps? It seems a little dodgy, but I'm happy to be educated on the jazz library music business.

 

OK here's the slightly strange part - the documentary where I heard the "Track Tribe" track that got me checking them out was produced in 1991! It does not sound like those other tracks I posted. No dis to whoever did those, but this sounds like someone else - with a little more outside take on harmony. Kind of Bill Evans-ish in a few spots, Keith-ish in others, with a less "swingy" feel than the other tracks. It took me until near the middle to realize that this too was a contrafact of Stella.

 

Given this exact track was in a 1991 documentary - I have questions! Like, how did it get to be in this TrackTribe catalog? Is it really copyright free? I saw the home page for TrackTribe and I'm pretty sure the principal guys were not born before 1991! More to the point - is this someone we've all heard of? Ran Blake, Don Friedman, Joanne Brackeen, Jaki Byard, Stanley Cowell, Borah Bergman, etc... just thinking of folks from the 70s-90s whose playing leaned that way. Was this kind of library music being produced back then? Anyway, here it is, I'm curious to know what the jazzers here think (and will entertain guesses as to who this might be!) --->

 

 

[MathOfInsects]

Have you confirmed that the TrackTribe track is the one you heard in the documentary? Meaning, have you ruled out that Shazam just got it wrong, which is not uncommon--particularly since the MO of TrackTribe as you describe it is to make tracks that sound like "real" recordings? I think the most likely explanation is that it's not actually the TrackTribe track, but a song that sounds enough like it to trigger that as the Shazam result. Shazam is often confounded by instrumental music, for what it's worth.

What is the name of the documentary?

[ProfD]

As I mentioned in another thread, AI will be used to save time and money generating this kind of music.😎

 

[Reezekeys]

42 minutes ago, MathOfInsects said:

What is the name of the documentary?

 

Ok I think I've solved part of this mystery. I'm going to post the link for the documentary but be warned, it involves a certain political figure making a whole lotta news here in the USA. Hey, I'm just trying to find out who plays the damn piano on this video! What I'll do is link to the exact time the music starts, and will not embed the you tube:

 

https://youtu.be/wYU2FJxsSeE?t=1137

 

43 minutes ago, MathOfInsects said:

Have you confirmed that the TrackTribe track is the one you heard in the documentary?

 

Compare the documentary music in the link above to the TrackTribe link in my initial post ("Calm Cam") – it is indeed the exact same track.

 

However - I went back and listened to the opening of this documentary. The narrator opens with "some years ago we made a documentary about [you know who] that was never broadcast, but now we think it's time for you to see it." IOW, while the original footage is from 1991, they may have added this music bed recently.

 

I still say this track is different from the other TrackTribe jazz trio tracks (at least the ones I've heard). The voicings are more sophisticated and the pianist has a much looser time feel.

[jazzpiano88]

This is a big industry for YouTube creators.   They can’t use any copyrighted music in their videos, so they use content creators who make royalty free music. 
 

it’s really big in competitive eating and hunting videos where they need tunes to fill long periods of video.  

[Reezekeys]

That makes sense. I watch some videos with not much dialog and hear the music - I figured it was library music and someone was getting paid (though I'm guessing that most library music deals are buyouts now?).

 

Do any PROs monitor YouTube? I know TV cues are tracked by them (I've done a few). I think you need a lot of content out there before you make anything more than pocket change.

 

How the hell do these TrackTribe people get these tracks done if they're giving them away? Everyone is working for free?

[jazzpiano88]

Yeah, I only became aware of this by channels of good video material that were limited to a few thousand subscribers because of either lack of musical content or copyright demonetization where even their default video content could contain incidental copyright violation.   They would get helpful advice on this, and that would be to obtain royalty free background music.  
 

it definitely comes in tiers of quality ranging from decent Muzak sounding generic changes or corporate on-hold hell content, to funky vamps, to a what sounds like a teenager playing a blues guitar lick on a 20 second loop.   It’s tempting to look into seeing it there’s still money to be made but the horse has probably left the barn with existing providers and the upcoming AI content.