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Realbooks online !!! (4 vol.)

Pascal

By Pascal
in The Lesson Loft — Guitars

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Pascal Newbie

Pascal

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Yes, I had that message too. But I admit I ignored it...
... and now I have the "Real Book" vol. 1, 2, 3 and "Jazz LTD, over 500 tunes the real books missed" + their respective content in pdf format on my hard drive.

:)

Poparad Newbie

Poparad

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They're the standard book of tunes that jazz players use on gigs. I've got volumes I and II in hard copy... but they're hard to come by because they aren't legal (they don't pay royalties). It's an under the counter kind of deal. Having a Real Book basically means you'll be covered for the standard tunes played at just about any jazz gig, unless the people start calling obscure tunes.

However, Hal Leonard Publishing recently released a legal version of all three of these books with the same covers and font type... most of the errors have been corrected. Plus, they're only $25, whereas the illegal versions are about $30-40.

Although they are "illegal" it doesn't mean that the musician's whose tunes are in the books are against it.

Volume I was assembled by Pat Metheny and some other Berkely students in the early 70's, hence the reason every track on his 1975 album "Bright Size Life" is in the book, some under different names than he used for the album.

Volume III was assembled by the former (now retired) head of the jazz department at my college (U of Akron, OH). A lot of the guys in the area (including both my guitar professors) have tunes in there. Roland Pallucci went around accepting submissions from the local cats so they all willingly had their tunes included. Jack Zucker, who has posed on this forum a few times advertising his "Sheets of Sound" book has a couple tunes in there as well. It's a great way to get your music into the standard repotoire that everyone knows since these books are so universally used.

So if you see the names "Bob Fraser," "Dean Newton," "Roland Pallucci," "Gary Aprile," "Ron Busch," "Paul Ferguson," "Jack Zucker," and probably some more that I'm forgetting, these are all local guys that I know, and have either played with, seen play, or studied with. :cool:

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aarockla Newbie

aarockla

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Originally posted by Poparad

They're the standard book of tunes that jazz players use on gigs. I've got volumes I and II in hard copy... but they're hard to come by because they aren't legal (they don't pay royalties). It's an under the counter kind of deal. Having a Real Book basically means you'll be covered for the standard tunes played at just about any jazz gig, unless the people start calling obscure tunes.


However, Hal Leonard Publishing recently released a legal version of all three of these books with the same covers and font type... most of the errors have been corrected. Plus, they're only $25, whereas the illegal versions are about $30-40.


Although they are "illegal" it doesn't mean that the musician's whose tunes are in the books are against it.


Volume I was assembled by Pat Metheny and some other Berkely students in the early 70's, hence the reason every track on his 1975 album "Bright Size Life" is in the book, some under different names than he used for the album.


Volume III was assembled by the former (now retired) head of the jazz department at my college (U of Akron, OH). A lot of the guys in the area (including both my guitar professors) have tunes in there. Roland Pallucci went around accepting submissions from the local cats so they all willingly had their tunes included. Jack Zucker, who has posed on this forum a few times advertising his "Sheets of Sound" book has a couple tunes in there as well. It's a great way to get your music into the standard repotoire that everyone knows since these books are so universally used.


So if you see the names "Bob Fraser," "Dean Newton," "Roland Pallucci," "Gary Aprile," "Ron Busch," "Paul Ferguson," "Jack Zucker," and probably some more that I'm forgetting, these are all local guys that I know, and have either played with, seen play, or studied with.
:cool:



so do you guys or jazz guys have all these songs memorized?!?!?! im trying to get in to jazz but i dont know where to start. I know tons of jazz chords- 7ths, maj7, min7, 9, b9, b7, 13, maj/min 6 etc., and it seems like they are in a lot of flat keys and i can do those pretty well up until Db major (stupid Gb) and i learned them without patterns and tabs cuz i can read most music extremely well (yea is just me or is this handwritten stuff hard to read?), but this 'standards' stuff jsut confuses me.

So do you guys jsut go places and someones like lets play 'Blah Blah' and everyones like 'ok' and plays what they know and improvise the rest or something? that seems incredibly hard.

so in summation, i guess asking 'jazz-where to start?'

Poparad Newbie

Poparad

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Originally posted by aarockla



so do you guys or jazz guys have all these songs memorized?!?!?! im trying to get in to jazz but i dont know where to start. I know tons of jazz chords- 7ths, maj7, min7, 9, b9, b7, 13, maj/min 6 etc., and it seems like they are in a lot of flat keys and i can do those pretty well up until Db major (stupid Gb) and i learned them without patterns and tabs cuz i can read most music extremely well (yea is just me or is this handwritten stuff hard to read?), but this 'standards' stuff jsut confuses me.


So do you guys jsut go places and someones like lets play 'Blah Blah' and everyones like 'ok' and plays what they know and improvise the rest or something? that seems incredibly hard.


so in summation, i guess asking 'jazz-where to start?'

 

 

Ideally, you want to play these songs memorized because it is a hundred times easier to improvise a good solo without having your eyes glued to the page. But, when you're just starting out, you have to learn the tunes from somewhere, so these books are great because all the common tunes are right there for you to look up if you want to play/learn them.

 

"Standards" is just a term for songs that are so well known, that it is 'standard' for any jazz player to know, because everyone plays and records them.

 

As far as gigs or jam sessions go, you pretty much have it. Someone will call a tune, and hopefully you can play it fro memory, but if not, that's what the book is for. You can't expect everyone to know every tune ever written, so these books are great for faking it if you've never played or heard the tune before.

 

 

Pretty much the standard way to play one of these songs is to play the head through once (which means play the whole melody). Then everyone takes turns improvising solos over the chord progression. Each time through the form is called a "chorus." So if I took a solo that lasted three times through the whole song, it would be three choruses. When everyone has had their fill for soloing, they play the head again, and usually add some small ending to the song, and that's it. Each song has a slightly different way to go about playing it (intros, endings, etc) that you'll just learn through playing them or listening to recordings of the tunes.

 

One of the nice things about the Real Books in this thread is that on each page, there is a recording listed that you can find of the song to hear how it's played and get some ideas for playing it.

 

Jazz is a challenging style to play, but it's very fun and rewarding.

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