Aebersold was born in New Albany, Indiana.

When he was fifteen, he played with

local bands, then attended Indiana University in Bloomington while leading bands in
southern Indiana and Kentucky. During the late 1960s, he taught at Indiana
University Southeast and in the 1970s and 1990s at the University of Louisville. He
began weeklong summer workshops for students which have spread throughout the world
into countries such as Canada, England, Scotland, Germany, Denmark, and Australia.
Aebersold plays saxophone, piano, banjo, and double bass.[2]

Play-A-Long series
Most of the volumes in Aebersold's Play-A-Long series feature a selection of ten to
twelve jazz standards, though some focus on scales, standardized chord progressions
(like the blues), or original compositions by Aebersold's collaborators. The books
contain charts for the tunes in question, transposed as necessary for instruments
in C, B-flat, E-flat, and bass clef. The recordings normally feature a professional
rhythm section (typically piano, bass, and drums, occasionally including guitar)
performing an improvised accompaniment (comping) to each song. Melody instruments
like saxophone and trumpet are omitted, enabling a jazz student to practice the
song's melody and improvise over the chord changes with accompaniment. Piano and
bass tracks are panned to opposite channels so that a pianist or bassist can easily
omit the recorded piano or bass part by muting the appropriate channel.

Perhaps the most well-known feature of the "Play-A-Long" series is Aebersold's

voice, which counts off the tempo for each track on most Aebersold recordings.[3]

Workshops
For over 50 years, Aebersold has also run summer jazz workshops at the University
of Louisville. The week-long event is billed as a place to learn jazz through
hands-on experience and provides an intensive learning environment for musicians of
varying ages and levels. The standard curriculum includes master classes, ear-
training sessions, jazz theory classes from beginning to advanced, and concerts by
faculty.[4] The official website of the workshops notes that summer 2018 will be
the final sessions.

Aebersold regularly performs and presents clinics at the jazz festival at Murray
State University in Murray, Kentucky. The festival was renamed the Jamey Aebersold
Jazz Festival in 2015 to honor his many years of service to the jazz program at
that institution.

Awards and honors

Given membership to Alpha Alpha national honorary chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia,
2009
Charles E. Lutton Man of Music Award, 2009
NEA Jazz Masters, 2014[5]
References
Cook, Richard (2005). Richard Cook's Jazz Encyclopedia. London: Penguin Books. p.
4. ISBN 0-141-00646-3.
Kennedy, Gary; Kernfeld, Bernie (2002). Kernfeld, Barry (ed.). The New Grove
Dictionary of Jazz. 1 (2nd ed.). New York: Grove's Dictionaries. pp. 16�17. ISBN 1-
56159-284-6.
"Jamey Aebersold teaches the world to swing".
"Jamey Aebersold's Summer Jazz Workshops". Summerjazzworkshops.com. Retrieved
2012-07-29.
"NEA Jazz Masters". www.arts.gov. Retrieved 5 September 2017.