Funny you should mention that Boo. I have a few swing styles that are 16 measures long,and if I play a 12 bar blues song ..... I get weird accents and cymbol crashes at the WRONG times ! I should really find a way to shrink these patterns down to 4 measures so they will be more universal, but so far .... no clue how to do that. (Lazy, not stupid)
My favorire swing(jazzy, not BigBand) is from an older Korg series and it's 16 bars long. gets in the way alot, but it's a simple, stylish pattern with a nice ride cym in it. Great for EZ swing tunes like "Nice & Easy" or "Rt 66". I just wish it was 4 bars long !