How do I make my Rhythm section sound better?
Me and my friends are trying to start a Jazz Band and currently we are just a rhythm section before we get any winds to join.
I have some experience from when I did jazz band in High school at a trumpet player but I was 2nd chair so my knowledge helped a little but it just doesn't sound as good as it could be considering the players we have. I think we all have pretty good skills it's just harder because we are young and we aren't so good that we can catch all these musical things so it does not really sound like jazz which could also be because of our different playing styles.
We have a guitarist that made it all state that is playing bass guitar.
We have a drummer who is pretty decent and also does percussion and drum line.
I'm the pianist and I know music theory, I'm okay at improv but I just kind of make up licks I don't really know any actual ones, I know a little afro Cuban, blues, bossa nova, etc.
We are pretty decent but we just reached a barrier in todays rehearsal when trying to run through blue bossa because we just quite literally don't know any of like that actual stuff about jazz that's probably important. I think everyone just wants to do really cool fusion songs and we are pretty good technically by ourselves but when it comes together it just isn't that cool.
If anybody has any tips on what to do it would be helpful, whether it's general advice, books, videos, or anything.