How I got my Real/Fake Books

[Thecytochromec]

The first day of college orientation about eight years ago I met a guy named Gralen, he was a tenor sax player from South Dallas. It's a lovely area if you've never been, the signs at the corner stores say "No drug dealing" so you know it's a ritzy place. Anyways, Gralen used to sit outside of the dorms on those hot summer nights and throw out a bunch of licks and improvise. He was a really sociable guy and intentionally flaunted his prowess to passing chicks. "Hey! How are you? You're going to work out... can I join you?"

Anyways, I told him I really enjoyed jazz and aspired to playing it at some point in my life. He got unusually excited and told me he had a real book to give me. Mind you, the last time I had a music class was the 4th grade, so I have essentially zero formal music training. The only chords I knew were "power chords" which technically aren't even chords, but I knew no better. In fact, notice I didn't capitalize real, because that is literally how I interpreted it - not as a proper noun but as if he were describing that the books exists. I thought to myself, "As opposed to a fake book?"

About a week or so passed and he rolled up to my house and said, "Hey I've got those fake books for you." I thought, "OK, I swore this book was real not long ago and now there are apocryphal copies of it." He goes to his car and pulls our a backpack and brings it inside. He sits down in my room and pulls out a thick textbook. I said, "That's the book?" He said, "This thing? No, I was just going to roll a joint. Here you go." He handed me a flash drive. I stuck it into my PC and voila! There's a folder called Fakebooks. I opened up a file and asked, "Hey man, where's the tabs?"

So I nearly forgot this whole episode which, in retrospect, turned out to be a very important moment in my life. I've taking jazz guitar seriously for about a year and a half and before that I hadn't played for essentially ten years. I got by with lead sheets from here and there but I knew I needed a Real Book. Maybe three months ago I fired up that old fan buzzing, hardware clicking PC, found the file and copied it to a flash drive. I opened it on a slightly more modern laptop and started to dig into the thing. I found 11 different PDF's of Real and Fake Books with a master index citing the location of every song in every book.

I lost contact with Gralen about 2 or so years after we met. He took one semester off, one led to two and then I never saw him or heard from him after a while. I knew it was for the better because he was a really good person with really bad habits. In hindsight, I wish we still had kept a little contact. I know he'd be excited to jam. I don't think I could thank him enough.


Anyways, I thought it was a neat story that I wanted to share with someone who'd actually care to hear it. I'd like to hear how you got yours. I'm sure someone will quickly jump in with "I bought mine from Amazon." Which I don't care to hear, but people need their time to shine.

Let's hear it!

[Doctor Jeff]

Eric Rowland of Chattanooga will appreciate this. Back in the day Eric (a fine guitarist by the way) had a copy of the Real Book, which in the late 70's was almost as hard to find as a virginal cheerleader or an honest politician. I made some xeroxes of a few songs, but xeroxing was expensive and time consuming.

In the early 80's a guitar shop in Atlanta called Diapason (where I took lessons from a super guitarist named John Brown) sold the Real Book. I don't know how they legally did this, since at that time it was still not really kosher with respect to copyright, but I got a copy for $25. Best $25 I have ever spent.

I still have it and prefer some of their interesting chord changes to later versions.

[ah.clem]

I got my first Real book, a book called "Vol. One of 1000 Songs" and a series called "Spaces Vol 1 - 5" from an under the counter deal that was more complicated than a drug buy. I had to have a buddy vouch for me, hang around until the store closed and wait for the owner to drag a pile of books from a back room. He wanted $20 each, but I got them for $100. I really only used the Real and Spaces Vol 1. Over the years I have accumulated many others, but that Real and Spaces are the only ones that still reek of cigs and spilled beer.

Good thread.

[Cunamara]

I found out about the Real Book when I started studying jazz in college. My instructor had one and made copies of songs as needed on the colleges photocopiers. Bill is from Boston originally so perhaps he picked his up there. When I wanted to get a copy for the help, he said "let me look into it." About a week later he had an address for me in Illinois; I sent $20 cash to this address and about two weeks later my very own Real Book 5th edition arrived at my apartment. This would've been around 1981 or 82. It felt like there was a certain amount of skulduggery involved and when it arrived I thought it was about the coolest thing I'dever bought. With that, my Fender Pro Reverb and my Ibanez GB10, I thought I was ready to take on the world.

I suppose part of it was the clandestine feeling of getting all of this stuff, since Winona Minnesota was not a hotbed of jazz, archtop guitars or suitable amplification. I felt like I was in something of an exclusive club.

[fep]

$20 from my college big band instructor around 1980. It was invaluable and most of the aspiring musicians interested in jazz had the real book. You kind of needed one. Word was, it was put together by students and instructors at The Berklee School of Music. (Can anyone verify that?)

But it was serious copyright infringement. Fortunately, now you can buy legit ones. I have several newer ones that I bought in the last 6 years from amazon.

[fumblefingers]

The first day of college orientation about eight years ago I met a guy named Gralen, he was a tenor sax player from South Dallas. It's a lovely area if you've never been, the signs at the corner stores say "No drug dealing" so you know it's a ritzy place. Anyways, Gralen used to sit outside of the dorms on those hot summer nights and throw out a bunch of licks and improvise. He was a really sociable guy and intentionally flaunted his prowess to passing chicks. "Hey! How are you? You're going to work out... can I join you?"

Anyways, I told him I really enjoyed jazz and aspired to playing it at some point in my life. He got unusually excited and told me he had a real book to give me. Mind you, the last time I had a music class was the 4th grade, so I have essentially zero formal music training. The only chords I knew were "power chords" which technically aren't even chords, but I knew no better. In fact, notice I didn't capitalize real, because that is literally how I interpreted it - not as a proper noun but as if he were describing that the books exists. I thought to myself, "As opposed to a fake book?"

About a week or so passed and he rolled up to my house and said, "Hey I've got those fake books for you." I thought, "OK, I swore this book was real not long ago and now there are apocryphal copies of it." He goes to his car and pulls our a backpack and brings it inside. He sits down in my room and pulls out a thick textbook. I said, "That's the book?" He said, "This thing? No, I was just going to roll a joint. Here you go." He handed me a flash drive. I stuck it into my PC and voila! There's a folder called Fakebooks. I opened up a file and asked, "Hey man, where's the tabs?"

So I nearly forgot this whole episode which, in retrospect, turned out to be a very important moment in my life. I've taking jazz guitar seriously for about a year and a half and before that I hadn't played for essentially ten years. I got by with lead sheets from here and there but I knew I needed a Real Book. Maybe three months ago I fired up that old fan buzzing, hardware clicking PC, found the file and copied it to a flash drive. I opened it on a slightly more modern laptop and started to dig into the thing. I found 11 different PDF's of Real and Fake Books with a master index citing the location of every song in every book.

I lost contact with Gralen about 2 or so years after we met. He took one semester off, one led to two and then I never saw him or heard from him after a while. I knew it was for the better because he was a really good person with really bad habits. In hindsight, I wish we still had kept a little contact. I know he'd be excited to jam. I don't think I could thank him enough.


Anyways, I thought it was a neat story that I wanted to share with someone who'd actually care to hear it. I'd like to hear how you got yours. I'm sure someone will quickly jump in with "I bought mine from Amazon." Which I don't care to hear, but people need their time to shine.

Let's hear it!

I have the exact same thing. Got it free from an ex-UNT guy. small world.

[Groyniad]

i have the exact same thing too - i got it free from a guitar playing friend. i use it a great deal (but never on gigs.) that master index is superb.
has this collection been superseded in the funky world of fake books?

[mrcee]

My old original vol 5 RB is getting beat up and was planning to get one of the new legit ones from Hal Leonard.
Are they the same tunes and format as the old ones?

[fep]

My old original vol 5 RB is getting beat up and was planning to get one of the new legit ones from Hal Leonard.
Are they the same tunes and format as the old ones?

Pretty much the same... Probably 95% or more the same tunes. There are some corrections, the new real book is more accurate*, imo. The font is consistent throughout and easier to read.

* Accuracy of Real Books is often a point of contention. One of the issues is tunes aren't performed the same from musician to musician. If one got a lead sheet based on Mile's version of 'Summertime' they may feel it's very inaccurate as they're expecting Gershwin's version... even though it is an accurate lead sheet of Mile's version.

[Dave70]

I remember seeing a guy playing "Well You Needn't" at an open mike and he told us he learned it from a big fat book called "the Real Book". Hm, I was just getting into the jazz genre and this book sounded pretty cool.

Soon after I got my real books at the music store I was working at. I asked the owner if he knew about this book. They were kept in the back and you had to ask for 'em...

Lol, I probably have two or three layers of duck tape holding the cover on my Vol. 1.

[destinytot]

Bought a vocal version (in two huge volumes) from the 'Taller de musics' in Barcelona. I can hardly believe that was thirty years ago.

[zdub]

Ah, fond memories. Visited a friend studying at Berklee, circa 1975. Went to a club to see Gary Burton with both Metheny and Goodrick. Next day went to a dinky place filled with maybe 30 people watching Metheny jamming away. Course, I HAD to get a Real Book while I was there, and with cash in hand the deal went down to procure what was apparently the work of Jamey Aebersold. The whole thing oozed paranoia; you'd have thunk it was a major drug deal or something...

[Doctor Jeff]

I found out about the Real Book when I started studying jazz in college. My instructor had one and made copies of songs as needed on the colleges photocopiers. Bill is from Boston originally so perhaps he picked his up there. When I wanted to get a copy for the help, he said "let me look into it." About a week later he had an address for me in Illinois; I sent $20 cash to this address and about two weeks later my very own Real Book 5th edition arrived at my apartment. This would've been around 1981 or 82. It felt like there was a certain amount of skulduggery involved and when it arrived I thought it was about the coolest thing I'dever bought. With that, my Fender Pro Reverb and my Ibanez GB10, I thought I was ready to take on the world.

I suppose part of it was the clandestine feeling of getting all of this stuff, since Winona Minnesota was not a hotbed of jazz, archtop guitars or suitable amplification. I felt like I was in something of an exclusive club.

I used to live in La Crosse, WI--beautiful part of the country. My son lives in the Cities now. There is a great guitarist named Dan Neale who plays with the Galactic Cowboy Orchestra--check him out if you get a chance. He is a high-school buddy of mine from Chattanooga.

[Cunamara]

I used to live in La Crosse, WI--beautiful part of the country. My son lives in the Cities now. There is a great guitarist named Dan Neale who plays with the Galactic Cowboy Orchestra--check him out if you get a chance. He is a high-school buddy of mine from Chattanooga.

Yep, that it is. I think I've met Dan once, his band CGO followed mine a couple of years ago at the Golden Valley Day festival in Golden Valley MN. They played much, much better than we did. I enjoyed them (although I think for some reason I was paying more attention to the violinist/vocalist than the guitarist).

[Greentone]

Gob Vol 5 of Book I in the late 80s, IIRC, from under the counter at a great old music store in Arlington, VA, that is now gone. Loved the old guy who owned the store and the vibe of the store. Some great DC musicians came in and out of the store regularly. It was Danny Gatton's haunt.

I only use the Hal Leonard version on gigs.

[Stringswinger]

I got my first fake book (not a "real book") from a music store in Illinois in 1973 . It was an under the counter deal, strictly for pros. I was doing casuals (even though I was only 15 at the time) and a local pro introduced me to the owner who sold me the book. I still have it. It was $40, a lot of bread at the time, but it was great help for the gigs I was doing. A few years later, I visited a friend in Boston who was going to Berklee. He hooked me up with a seller who sold me a copy of The Real Book Volume 5 which cost me $25. I still have that one too. (They were easily obtainable at Berklee in the late 70's.)

Over the years, I have collected quite a few fake books, legal and otherwise. I find them a great tool for learning a tune, but in the end, my ears tell me what the good changes are. There are lots of bad changes in almost every fake book. Substandard jazz musicians play these wrong changes and can't even tell that they are wrong. These players should not be playing outside their own living rooms. One of the reasons jazz is losing it's audience is that there are a lot of substandard "real book" players playing out who shouldn't be. They suck, and when non jazz audiences hear them, the non jazz folks decide that jazz isn't a very good genre. Jazz is great, just so long as it is done by a competent pro. Amateurs should do jazz a favor and stay home.

These days I know hundreds of tunes, so I do not have much need for a fake book on a gig. The ireal book on my phone is useful for the tunes I don't know