Product Description

The Real Books are the best-selling jazz books of all time. Since the 1970s, musicians have trusted these volumes to get them through every gig, night after night. The problem is that the books were illegally produced and distributed without any copyrights or royalties paid to the master composers who created these musical canons. Hal Leonard is very proud to present the first legitimate and legal editions of these books ever produced. You and your customers won't even notice the difference...the covers look the same, the engravings look the same, the songlist is nearly identical, and the price remains fair even on a musician's salary! But every conscientious musician and music store owner will appreciate that these books are now produced legally and ethically, benefitting the songwriters that we owe for some of the greatest music ever written! 400 songs, including: Air Mail Special * Birdland * Bye Bye Blackbird * Caravan * Doxy * Fly Me to the Moon (In Other Words) * Georgia * Girl Talk * In Walked Bud * I Remember You * I Thought About You * The Jody Grind * Just the Way You Are * Killer Joe * Little Sunflower * Mercy, Mercy, Mercy * Moanin' * The Nearness of You * Now's the Time * Old Devil Moon * Phase Dance * St. Thomas * Speak Low * Stardust * Tangerine * Tenor Madness * Watch What Happens * Whisper Not * Willow Weep for Me * Yardbird Suite * and more.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #56874 in Books
• Published on: 2004-12-01
• Released on: 2005-06-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Plastic Comb
• 416 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780634060212
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Customer Reviews

Essential and Convenient ! ! !
If you're a student of Jazz, or a serious Jazz musician, while the REAL BOOK V.1 set the standard for years, V2 is the one that I find REALLY has the best tunes (and even in its bootleg edition was written with much better changes.) - - I host and play up to 300 sessions a year and would go so far as to say that not only does the bulk of my repoitoire come from the REAL BOOK SERIES (1, 2 and 3) but that a very high portion has come from V2, especially considering that until this "legal" edition it was twice as hard to find as the hard to find V1. Trust me on this... If you live in terror of playing or hosting a session and having millions of tunes thrown at you that you don't know, get these three books... In your spare time work on the tunes, and when you're on the bandstand make sure all three are within convenient reach.

Beautiful job. Wish I knew which actual human being to thank.
I'm probably the world champ of fakebook collectors, starting with a complete (and highly illegal) Real Book collection in 1978. I've really appreciated what the Sher folks have been up to, as well as that Stang fellow over at Warner Pubs. This sure is the golden age for accurate and lovingly compiled fakebooks! I've made countless discoveries of unknown (to me) tunes thanks to them.

So, I was actually reluctant to pick this one up, even at its ridiculously low price. But I finally caved last week and I'm glad I did. What a beautiful job. Clear, easy on the eyes and with accurate melodies and changes. For example, in 2 pages this book transmits the complete structure of Zawinul's Birdland (not a favorite of mine) with all of its sections intact. Wonderful.

And this book includes a large number of tunes that (to my knowledge) have not appeared in other fakebooks. You're going to spend a lot of rewarding hours with this one.

The real thing
What I love most about this book is its design. Veterans know that fake books are frequently a combination of handwritten, poorly-photocopied, cut-and-pasted, inconsistently-sized charts along with chord naming conventions that go all over the place (an E minor chord can read as Em, e, E-, etc. in the same book.)

The Real Book series (besides the advantage of excellent songs acquired with the proper rights) has a wonderful design. The staff lines are a consistent size; there is one song per page (or sometimes two pages, laid out so there's no flipping involved); chord naming conventions are consistent (it's "E-" throughout); and there is a lot of white space for a clean, clear look and room to pencil-in performance notes. It's easy and natural to go from one song to another without going through a lot of mental gymnastics and adjustments, as one would do in other fake books.

Plus, it's all done in a handwritten-looking font that gives it both a warm, handmade character and the feeling that you've acquired something surreptitious (like every fake book should be)!

The only problem is that the key is only indicated in the first measure of the first staff -- sharps and flats are not repeated at the beginning of the lower staffs, so it's sometimes a little hard to quickly remind yourself of what key you're in. Still, I'm having lots of fun with this.