I am starting to see some fairly major jazz (or at least smooth jazz) artists occasionally playing to tracks, and many of their albums, while not necessarily in the abyss of stock arranger use, don't honestly sound like they sat down with a bunch of real musicians and jammed...

I think we beat ourselves up too much about 'arranger vs. musician' polemics. You do what you WANT to do, either economically, artistically, or, as in the case of some of the smooth jazzers (who could put a real band together if they really WANTED to have the extra expense), both! And what you want to do is influenced by many factors. Some of which involve putting meat on the table, or not playing to empty rooms.

So you take what YOU would prefer, and then figure out if you can afford to do it! If not, you end up doing some things that, if you were Oscar Peterson and had an unlimited budget paid for by your record company, you might NOT. Big deal. This is the real world.

But... when we come to a site like this, for MUSICIANS that use arrangers, we spend way too much of our time defending our compromises, instead of concentrating on MUSIC, musicianship, and co-operative help and self-help, criticism (yes, there's a place for it in a sequestered venue like this... we aren't out in public airing our dirty laundry!). I can assure you, most forums for synth players spend virtually NO TIME AT ALL discussing how many gigs they did that week or whether they DJ'd at it to make sure they got the gig they wouldn't have if it was only down to their playing.

Somehow, all these guys want to talk about is synths, and how to use them, mod them, improve them, show of a trick they learned, discuss how some of the chart toppers used this synth or that synth, etc.. Why do only we beat ourselves up about what you have to do to make money, on a forum that ISN'T the 'Professional NH Performer' forum, or the "Dept. Store Background Musician' forum or the 'Pizza Hut Performer' forum?

I'd be a lot happier here if WORK wasn't discussed AT ALL. It seems to be so divisive, and honestly doesn't have a lot to do with music. Compromise is the center of any performing arts scene. Everyone from Mozart to Nat King Cole to Madonna have made compromises between what they would have PREFERRED to do and what they needed to do for their careers. And anyone that is saying otherwise here isn't really making a living playing music. Probably they are retired, have other jobs, whatever...

Let's just stick to music...