Meaning
1. an often impromptu performance by a group especially of jazz musicians that is characterized by improvisation.
2. a meeting of a group of musicians, esp. jazz musicians, to play for their own enjoyment
Examples
The event was a laid-back jam session for creatives to get together and network.
The musical siblings then invite Lisa over to Billie’s studio for a special jam session.
Playing some favourites by The Allman Brothers Band during a jam session led to the birth of the tribute group Midnight Rider.
The musical siblings then invite Lisa over to Billie’s studio for a special jam session. – Thania Garcia, Variety, 14 Apr. 2022
The homage to a famous jam session at Memphis’ Sun Records that featured Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins opens Saturday. – David L. Coddon, San Diego Union-Tribune, 31 Mar. 2022
This jukebox musical re-creates a 1956 jam session in Memphis that featured rock ’n’ roll greats Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins. Los Angeles Times, 20 Jan. 2022
The five sets include Jupiter Blue, featuring members of the Sun Ra Arkestra; steel pan performer Victor Provost and his band; and a jam session led by the Collect!v Crew. Washington Post, 27 Feb. 2021
Your albums often feel like a jam session with the homies. Abdi Ibrahim, Los Angeles Times, 15 Mar. 2022
Escoffery’s combo plays a set at 7 p.m., followed by a jam session at 8 p.m. cafenine.com.
Things like gathering and playing an ‘ordinary’ gig with friends at a club, or playing a jam session at somebody’s basement, or even travelling around, became something extraordinary.
Mapping and synthesis components sounded dramatically different when used individually than when used in a group ‘jam session‘.
To extend the musical analogy, he is like a young musician trying to show the more experienced players that he deserves a seat at the jam session.
During the aforementioned party, an impromptu jam session took place.
Primarily a hip hop album, it also exhibits musical styles such jazz, blues, and rock music with an experimental, jam session-atmosphere.
After a session of warming their bones and discussing imaginary breakfast cereals, the group went to perform an impromptu late jam session.
Shaffer also described the recording sessions as really unorthodox and more like a jam session than a regular recording session.
In live performance, a segue can occur during a jam session, where the improvisation of the end of one song progresses into a new song.
Following an all-night jam session, he was hired for bass and backing vocals.
It was this jam session that led to the band inviting him as their taiko player.
After the intermission there is a brief jam session of jazz music led by a clarinettist as the orchestra members return.
Jazz players refer to swing as the sense that a jam session or live performance is really cooking or in the pocket.
Two things decided me the sound of a trumpet section in a big band and hearing a jam session.
It often turned into an extended jam session at concerts.
The studio recording also originally ended with a lengthy jam session, which was later edited for the song’s commercial release.
Then he went out into the studio and some time later the jam session began.
Sometimes a music session is referred to as a jamsession.
Cash was also in the studio and the four started an impromptu jamsession.
For exactly one hour this jamsession was held, and remained unreleased until 1997.
The two bands even shared a jamsession as an encore.
The festival featured workshops, film screenings, musical performances, and a 24-hour poetry jamsession.
And that one time they had a jamsession at her house where he played the drums and her brother played guitar.
The jamsession seems to have happened by pure chance.
The song was culled together from a 16-minute jamsession by the band.
They decided to get together for a jamsession.
The three end up having their own jamsession outside.
The song’s entire body came out of this jamsession.
The exception to this rule is when a jamsession is specifically scheduled at a filk convention.
The terms drum jam or jamsession could be substituted.
The recording of a jamsession was carried out in an underground shelter using a cassette dictation machine.
When played live, the song concludes with an extended jamsession.
The jamsession proved not very productive musically.
A jamsession describes the musical act of producing music with little to no prior preparation in an effort to develop new material or simply to practice.
So often on the bandstand at a jamsession, though it is frowned upon, musicians can get away with knowing the form if they don’t know the head.
Once a week there was a jamsession, in which beginners and music students played together with recognized jazz artists when they happened to be on tour.
They decided an impromptu jamsession in the pavilion of a park would do them some good and that proved to be the catalyst to become more relative once again.
In reality, musical practices during jam sessions, although certainly containing spontaneous elements, also reveal hierarchical relationships when examined more closely.
On this night, there was a crowd of people in her building having a jazz jamsession downstairs while weiss was preoccupied writing in her room.
Each audition lasted for around three hours and included a jamsession, song test, and riff test where drummers were asked to play along with a selection of pre-written riffs.
The entire album was written and recorded in a three-week jamsession, after the band locked themselves in an old, abandoned school building, to avoid distractions during the recording process.
It traditionally features an all-night jamsession.
If this element could be defined easily, and put into words quickly and efficiently, then record producers and musicians would know exactly how to create the perfect jamsession record.
Jam sessions forced musicians to learn from one another to develop technique and vocabulary.
Jam sessions were home to the exploration of and self-education in improvisation.
Their weekly or semi-weekly jam sessions became the stuff of legends.
Weekend jam sessions by the quartet frequently ran until 3 am or later.
Jam sessions are often used by musicians to develop new material (music), find suitable arrangements, or simply as a social gathering and communal practice session.
The jam sessions were not successful for the group.
There is supposed to be a hidden archive stored away containing several albums’ more worth of studio jam sessions and rehearsals.
After the bar closed, musicians would often use it as a rehearsal space for late-night jam sessions.
Classes include an artistically conceived flow of songs, movement, nursery rhymes, instrumental jam sessions and finger plays.
He invited musicians to regular jam sessions in a back room of the business.
Their flat became a place of regular jam sessions with fellow musicians.
They wrote the music primarily through jam sessions, a common practice for them.
While there, he started participating in regular musical jam sessions.
He also played jazz in club jam sessions.
The band’s performances and jam sessions acted as sampling and looping mechanisms.
The bands eat, sleep and engage in impromptu jam sessions on the train between stops, giving them a chance to collaborate.
There are spontaneous and organised acoustic events held across the site, including jam sessions, sing-alongs, workshops and drumming.
The album showcased a strong bass and rhythm section, as well as lengthy jam sessions, future trademarks of the band.
The style that most directly descended from these jam sessions is known as bebop.
Most of the band’s early material was created through extensive jam sessions.
The group plays totally unrehearsed improvised jam sessions.
The recording was done in informal jam sessions that created some 80-plus reels of tape.
Over the years, it has grown to a gathering in even years, also, with fiddle contests, jam sessions, and dances in the school building.
Jazz enthusiasts would subsequently bring these devices to local jam sessions and record their favorite musicians.
He also changed his approach to his playing, opting to contribute solos and allow songs to be formed from jam sessions.
The style is ambient, lounge, chill-out and jazz and the recordings are made from jam sessions.
Much of the material was recorded in jam sessions and later edited down.
The other difference is that this album focuses on dark, spacey soundscapes as opposed to jam sessions.
Players usually learn old-time music by attending local jam sessions and by attending festivals scattered around the country.
Most of the songs had extended jam sessions, that we ended up editing down.
Many tracks are taken from in-studio jam sessions.
It features calypso shows, beauty pageants, late night liming and street jam sessions.
The members come to rehearsals with basic ideas that the group riffs on and develops in jam sessions and live performance.
There he met many musicians, including many jazz musicians and played in many jam sessions in the city as a bass guitarist.
The band brainstormed lyrics and musical ideas during jam sessions that lasted several hours.
The tune was taken up and performed by countless jazz musicians and is still a favorite in jam sessions.
Many of the songs on the album are improvisational jam sessions and have never been re-recorded or re-released.
But he never gave up his music; he worked as a backing vocalist, participated in jam sessions and had many other musical activities.
These festivals usually last several days and involve performances, dancing, jam sessions, beer, ethnic food, athletic events, parades, and polka masses.
In later years, he participated to some of the jam sessions that gave birth to the bebop jazz style.
In the early 1940s the club became known for its jam sessions, where many of the players involved in the birth of bebop played together.
During this period, the band’s songs primarily came out of their jam sessions, so songwriting credits were shared by the five members.
It is considered the lingua franca of jam sessions, and can usually be contrasted with smooth jazz.
The train journey between cities ultimately became a combination of non-stop jam sessions and partying fueled by alcohol.
Modern exponents of the style often amplify their instruments in concert, but may still play acoustically in small venues and jam sessions.
Much of the recordings were from one-off jam sessions and many of the original takes from those sessions were used to construct the songs.
Many of the songs were written by the four group members, or came together organically in jam sessions.
The next influential introduction of the big band era was the emergence of after hours jam sessions.
Many ideas for arrangements developed from after hours jam sessions.
These jam sessions were also a pivotal forum for the development of jazz improvisation.
Compared to most of the group’s albums it features more short and to-the-point songs and fewer extended jam sessions.
The album’s title refers to the impromptu, sometimes late-night, jam sessions pursued by touring musicians when on the road.
Navarro eventually accepted the position after productive jam sessions.
He was an avid amateur drummer and jazz lover who held jam sessions in his home.
Although singing along and playing along with instruments (including improvisation) is usually encouraged, filk circles are not like jam sessions.
These were noted for their jam sessions, poetry readings, and murals painted in the background during the songs.
Jam sessions and small home studios abounded alongside a burgeoning pub rock scene.
First Known Use of the jam session
The most popular theory about its origin is connected to the jazz scene in the 1920s. It was used to describe black and white jazz musicians playing together when they met after playing their regular gigs.
Jam sessions at least in the early days were very jazz focused affairs but over the next few decades, the format spread to other genres of music as well, like rock, blues, Afro-Cuban, and many more. Nowadays jam sessions in places like clubs and bars are still very popular.