iternabe I suppose players listen to each other and adjust accordingly?
Somewhat, yes. But it's still more than essential to keep the pulse strict, because "feel" only gets you so far 🙂 There is a fairly simple way to force yourself to get this "feel" for yourself, iternabe. Just play along with one of your own recordings. Preferably in duet form, but you can also record just the left hand part and then play along with your right hand. I think you will find it rather shocking at first how hard this is (you can "cheat" and use the metronome to ease you into this). It's one of the fool proof ways to get the precision and pulse needed 🙂
And yes as Bart said, even when playing solo there is very little more grating than a jazz (or any) musician who doesn't have a steady pulse... I can barely get myself to listen to such a performance.
