It is a while now that I have regular JackTrip sessions with simultaneous participants on both sides of the Atlantic and all across western Europe. It turns out the latency does not need to be a problem if there is a leader, a shepherd dog, who keeps the flock together. While for this long-range collaboration backing tracks with bass and drums are necessary, for intra-european collaborations just drums do the job with a rock solid live bass player.
We have even regular public live stream sessions, the last one with 9 participants.
May 2026 public live stream jam session
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Wow this sounds fantastic and everyone’s right in the pocket! If you feel like doing an updated tutorial based on this jam I would be interested and maybe others would too.
Congrats on stellar outcomes for all your dedication and hard work to livestream with JackTrip.
Yay Thomas!
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Thank you Synthia, for your kind remarks.
Communicating about this takes currently a lot of my time and recruitment for this project is rather slow. I DM any newcomer to Learn Jazz Standards with a promising profile but my guestimate would be that about 1 in 10 gives it a try.
Content wise and in terms of several weekly regular and other sessions it has become so big that coordinating in WhatsApp has reached its limits and I had to start running a community on Skool called Online Jam where all the resources for the sessions are, including lead and chord sheets, backing tracks, BiaB files, Yt playlists, setlists for the sessions, session recordings, a calendar and a directory of members. There is also a whole “classroom” dedicated to tech issues. My Online Jam SKOOL is entirely free and private and dedicated to jazz online sessions from 101 to the big public live stream you have seen. Feel free to join:
Online Jam SKOOL
Regarding a new tutorial there is no single approach that fits all needs. What makes this big session special is its extended geographic range, enabled by Band-in-a-Box rhythm. The few unison passages show the limits of the system. The unison is not perfect, only partly for latency reasons. Maybe the most important aspect is the presence of a bandleader acting a bit like a shepherd dog holding the flock together. Working also (in other sessions) with a live rhythm section requires lower latencies. Currently much depends on my leadership. My vision is reaching a stage where others take initiatives for sessions of their own.
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