Re: Re: Re: Real Book


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Posted by Anthony on October 06, 2002 at 14:07:01:

In Reply to: Re: Re: Real Book posted by Huh? on October 06, 2002 at 09:26:33:

A big book with every jazz chart in it(except for Mack the Knife!). It's a clever pun on "fake book". Has the head and the chord changes for the chorus sections on each tune. When you watch the Late Show or SNL, chances are that most of the music you hear is being played out of a Real Book(or is being played out of the musician's heads-- but it got there because of the Real book). Is it legal? No, it infringes on hundreds of copyrights. Should every musician own one? Absolutely. Good not only for performing tunes on the fly, but it also makes a great musical reference when putting jazz charts together to compensate for unconventional instrumentation(ie 2 tubas, 2 guitars, tenor sax, piano, drumset, like the group I play in now).

The "legal" copy Tom mentioned has several intentional mistakes to make it "legal". I've done many many many many gigs in the last 2 years using the real book, though, and I've NEVER seen anyone using the "legal" copy. I'd say that the only drawback to the real Real Book is that some of the charts are hard to read, but that's really no biggie. To have the real Real Book published professionally would be extremely expensive... possibly in the four-figure range(to purchase it), though I've never done the math.

all in all, it's the best $30 you can spend.


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