If you play a sax, trumpet, trombone flute etc. and you want to be successful in a OMB, an excellent sequencer on an arranger is essential, especially if you really like the lively styles on a particular keyboard like I enjoy my i30 Big Band and Jazz styles with the longer loops.

I also enjoy playing the arranger live when I do vocals. If you try to do more than one or two tunes solo on a wind instrument you'll most likely bore people to death unless you can play like Dexter Gordon and Sonny Rollins.

Charley Parker used to practice 8 to 10 hours a day at times for several years. Don't think Art Tatum got there without ever practicing. Maybe he didn't practice after 10 or 20 years of experience. If you try to practice for more then an hour or two a day and try to compete with Charlie Parker’s practice time, you’ll probably have to do as much drugs as he did and you probably won’t live very long. Sad but true. I don’t ever expect to be as good as Charlie Parker.

If you don’t practice you’ll probably play every tune in the same key and perhaps the same 20 tunes over and over. If you are trying to play a wind instrument and you never practice you’ll probably never get a professional sound. You’ll always sound like a second year Jr. High sax player which is OK for a second year Jr. High school kid but not for someone who claims to be playing for 20 years and sounds like he‘s been playing for a few months.

Practice practice practice.