Scott, my idea was to have more of a collaboration on a single agreed-upon piece of music, not a live jam session (although I'm open to other ideas). In my scenario, one of us would put down a minimal basic track (ie. piano, bass, and drums) and others would add an arrangement part such as strings, rhythm guitar, horns, etc. OR a instrumental solo (maybe a vocal later after we get the process down). This would all be funneled to our "engineer" who would mix the part (offline) and resubmit the song with the new part. Everyone would then be allowed to critique the added part and make suggestions for change (or possible deletion). We would continue the process until we had an arrangement + solo that we liked or until the engineer's patience wore out, whichever comes first.

Initially, I think we should follow Donny's suggestion and just put up a simple chord progression played by someone's arranger keyboard (without adornment - fills but probably no intros or endings; fade-in, fill, song, tag, fade-out, maybe). We should agree on a general style and let as many people as want contribute a base track. The participants would choose one to work on.

There won't be much room for egos, though. If three people submit string parts, we will (by consensus) pick the one most appropriate for the tune (in other words, the best one ). Depending on the patience of the engineer, we may do alternate mixes with different part selections. We'll see.

One thing I was hoping for was to get at least some non-keyboard solos from some of the fine musicians here that play other instruments, especially sax and guitar.

This is just a rough idea of how I see it but I'm completely open to suggestions.

chas