Grammy/Emmy Winning Jazz Bandleader Gordon Goodwin Comes to RBN!

[FairwoodStudios]

Fairwood Studios is proud to announce a partnership with jazz composer and bandleader Gordon Goodwin to bring three tracks from his group, Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band, to the Rock Band Network platform.

These tracks, the largest single effort by a jazz musician in Rock Band's history, were selected from the Big Phat Band's most recent album, That's How We Roll, and chosen to demonstrate the group's breadth of talent. The three songs run over a combined 20 minutes and feature numerous trumpet, guitar, and saxophone solos courtesy of the band's talented instrumentalists.

These selections will be authored for Rock Band 3:

That's How We Roll
Howdiz Songo?
Race to the Bridge

"That's How We Roll" bring plenty of pop sensibility and style while still holding on to the jazz feeling, a blend most like the big band classics. "Howdiz Songo?" is a tempered tour of talent, with a guitar, trumpet, and sax solo right after each other, nevermind Bernie Dresel's drum breaks. But if that's too easy, "Race to the Bridge" is a high-speed dash with three solos that Gordon himself describes as "really, really hard", "even harder", and "impossible to play".

All tracks will be released for $1.99, £0.99 UK, €1.49 EU (160 Microsoft Points for Xbox 360) per track. Tracks will release individually beginning in 2012.

For more information on Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band, visit http://www.bigphatband.com/

[MagicMurderBag7]

This is amazing! I can't wait.

Quick question though. Have you considered charting the sax to vocals like that one song from the RBN launch that got pulled?

[BohemianMatt]

Oh man! Should be a blast. Congrats on nabbing him!

[FairwoodStudios]

This is amazing! I can't wait.

Quick question though. Have you considered charting the sax to vocals like that one song from the RBN launch that got pulled?

We've considered it, and haven't fully ruled it out, but it's a question of making a vocal chart that feels fairly natural to play. The Bruford track had a sax that had a very vocal structure to it, so it worked well as pseudo-vocals; these Goodwin tracks, there's a lot of different horns but they tend to have a lead structure. But we'll see.

[Dangimarocker]

We've considered it, and haven't fully ruled it out, but it's a question of making a vocal chart that feels fairly natural to play. The Bruford track had a sax that had a very vocal structure to it, so it worked well as pseudo-vocals; these Goodwin tracks, there's a lot of different horns but they tend to have a lead structure. But we'll see.

Please do it right if you do.

[instantdeath999]

Thank you. Jazz is so underutilized in Rock Band; can't wait to see it.

Any idea how you guys are gonna handle the sax and trumpet? Have not yet had a chance to listen to the songs, so I don't know if piano is playing. In other words, are you opposed to charting brass to keys if no piano is playing?

Just to add input, I'm personally not wild about charting instruments to vocals. It's okay, and I like that more instruments are playing I suppose, but it's very strange. I would honestly not be opposed at all to buying different versions of the songs, one having piano charted to keys, one having sax, and so on.

[Skode]

Please do it right if you do.

I would rather they didnt take the risk... few people actually test the vocals on songs before passing them for the RBN store as it is without trying to test something totally out of their normal comfort zone and thats just the reviewers never mind the folks at Fairwood.

[PaperMario21]

That's great, instant buys.
These tracks require proper hi-hat pedal charting.

[Dangimarocker]

Thank you. Jazz is so underutilized in Rock Band; can't wait to see it.

Any idea how you guys are gonna handle the sax and trumpet? Have not yet had a chance to listen to the songs, so I don't know if piano is playing. In other words, are you opposed to charting brass to keys if no piano is playing?

Just to add input, I'm personally not wild about charting instruments to vocals. It's okay, and I like that more instruments are playing I suppose, but it's very strange. I would honestly not be opposed at all to buying different versions of the songs, one having piano charted to keys, one having sax, and so on.

I can confirm keys in the third song listed since I gave that a listen already. They sound fun too.

[FairwoodStudios]

Keys and guitar will be fairly flexible in terms of what they represent. I'm pretty sure, for example, the massive sax solo on That's How We Roll will be on guitar, but I think the sax solo on Race to the Bridge will wind up on keys.

To my knowledge, every track has piano, guitar, bass, and drums. That's the band's rhythm section. So most of our planning and experimenting is a matter of when do we jump from that, and to what. Putting anything on vocals does add the concerns for consistency- it's more confusing for vocals to jump from sax to trumpet to trombone than for the guitar to do so. We do have harmonies at our disposal, but... yea, there are enough concerns that we're not guaranteeing that we will do hornvox because we can't guarantee it'll work well or go over well. But hey, worth a try.