-
I attended one of Joe's workshops and have read a good deal about him. My impression is that he was extremely practical in his approach. He had the knowledge he needed to do what he wanted to do. I suspect he found some things that students discuss to be irrelevant to his music.
He is not the only well known pro who I've heard disaparage the sort of thing that one might associate with college guitar programs. Some of it anyway.
And, I know at least one who seems to be an encyclopedia and uses the full content of every page. So it varies.
Here's a case we don't discuss very much. Joni Mitchell. She wrote and played in 3 or 4 dozen different tunings. The harmonies she got are rarely heard and she wove them into one brilliant song after another.
Her approach to generating all this harmony? She said she'd retune a string and then try all the usual shapes (ie grips) that she regularly used. When she got a sound she liked, she'd incorporate into a tune. Another famous guitarist, whose guitar harmony is awe-inspiring reported doing something similar. He suggested playing a cowboy E chord and then moving the grip all the way up the neck, one fret at a time. Somehow, that led him to write harmony that is accepted easily as jazz.
-
02-12-2026 10:00 PM
-
Like this?
Originally Posted by GBRow
-
If you can get the sound of the tune's chords' progression harmony internalized in your head from listening to recordings, then you may listen to what's in your head as a backing track to your playing the melody on your guitar. Originally Posted by GBRow
Trial and error, the ultimate test for everything is how it sounds. Originally Posted by GBRow
-
Yes, it sounds interesting jazz tune to me. Like all the guitars in the background. Originally Posted by Cunamara
-
I am studying on the intervals and harmonic melodies in the books. Hopefully the books will help me to understand how it works too.
But will be watching the yt videos and read the forum messages to improve my understanding and playing. It will take time, and I need to be patient I feel.
I find the old book good for learning.
- Progressive Complete Learn To Play JAZZ GUITAR MANUAL with 2 CDs by Peter Gelling
This is a new book also good.
- Jazz Guitar: Complete Edition by Fisher
-
OK! Observe what he's doing. He's primarily playing the melody; he is playing the chord on the quarter note beats underneath the melody. He is choosing chord voicings that have the melody note as the top voice. He is reaching above or below the melody note as needed, using extensions of the chord such as the 9th. The song is "Misty" by Erroll Garner. Originally Posted by GBRow
Unlike a pianist who can fully flesh out both, solo guitarists have to resort to a little bit of sleight-of-hand to imply the harmony under the melody: a bass note, a partial chord, possibly a full chord, against the melody. There are guitarists who try to put a full chord underneath every melody note, but it takes a lot of skill to make that sound smooth and musical.
-
Great advice, thanks.
-
Thanks RP for the OP!
I know as a jazz beginner, I’m having a tough time asking the “easy” questions. Lot’s of ridiculously good talent here and kind of intimidating at times.
Dave
-
Using the Real Vocal Books inspires me. Besides the melodies and chords, they contain lyrics that tell you what the song is about (or at least what one talented lyricist interpreted the song to be about).
-
Knowing the words, when there are lyrics, helps so much in understanding and *remembering* songs.
-
Hey Tim,
Thanks for the tip. Did you use the low voice or the high? I guess the only difference for us is the key it’s written in?
Dave
-
Dave, I use the low voice editions now that I'm doing the singing. When I was doing duos with women singers, I used the high voice editions. Generally the high voice editions are written a fourth or fifth above.
Yes, the only difference is the key as far as I can tell. I haven't really compared them in detail.
-
This has turned into an interesting and diverse discussion with lots of really good ideas!
I agree that compared to piano, the guitar has limitations in what it can do in approaching the harmonization of a melody. Some guitarists have done truly amazing things with the instrument mastering the art of one chord for each melody note; I listen to things like that in awe. But it's also daunting to achieve, especially for an "amateur" player like me (in the sense of Merrifield "the pleasure of doing what you love"). Maybe beside seeing guitar as a kind of a limited piano, its limitations can also breed creativity on its own terms. For that I found the Bill Frisell demonstration video to be a game changer, that instead of taking a maximalist approach, a minimalist approach works well by just hinting at the harmony.
That also fits with the points about Joni Mitchell trying familiar chord shapes with different tunings; I think Adrian Belew did something similar. This is taking advantage of the ease with which one can detune and retune a guitar to spark creativity and suggest other ways to harmonize a tune. Other guitaristic features include using open strings and harmonics, which can also help to make a minimalist arrangement of a song interesting and varied.
Of course, however one approaches harmonizing and arranging a tune, the point made about getting its chord progression--and especially its melody--into our heads is crucial, either singing it or humming it, or just knowing it on the instrument. Although some jazz escapes the melody after stating it once, focusing instead on flights of fancy through the changes, I think there's a lot in the melody for variations or as a kind of a "backing track."
The points made about Joe Pass are instructive, too, in that he knew what he wanted to do. That seems necessary, I would imagine, to have some idea of what one wants to do with a tune in a particular context, according one's abilities and intentions, likes and such.
And finally, I agree that while the Real Book and similar song sources can provide lots of interesting substitutions, for a chord melody it has worked better for me to start with the pared down changes and the melody, and then build up my arrangements from there.
In any case, we all have our approaches and it's wonderful to share them all here!
-
I just got a book called "The Story of Fake Books" out from the library. The last chapter of the book is called "The Real Book".
I just leafed through it, and it has something about the FBI investigating Pat Metheny and Steve Swallow for being involved in its creation. It's too bad they didn't throw those two in a federal prison; they've always been big troublemakers..
I might have to rat out everyone involved in this thread. It's nothing personal; I just need the reward money...
Last edited by sgcim; 05-30-2026 at 01:33 AM.
-
I read the chapter in the book mentioned above, and it tells the crazy story of how the Real Book came about.
By this time, the FBI stopped investigating fake books, so they let the Real Book grow into the behemoth it is today. In a rush now, I'll tell the full story later.
-
I'm getting this from "Story of Fake Books" by Barry Kernfeld, who is also a sax player.
The two guys that started The Real Book are referred to as "B" and "C" because they wish to remain anonymous. When the author tried to contact them B denied all involvement, calling it an "Urban Legend", and C refused to answer phone and email messages, but Swallow and Metheny independently confirmed the
involvement of the two men.
Metheny recalled that B was a vibes student of Gary Burton, while C was was one of PM's own students.
They were both Berklee students who needed money for tuition, and felt there was a need for hipper changes and more CONTEMPORARY tunes than what fake books offered.
They decided that the task was too much for them to do alone, because they couldn't afford the things it would take to do it by themselves, and it would have to be sold under the counter.
They asked Swallow if he would be willing to contribute some of his tunes.
Swallow believed in what they were doing, and saw it was to his advantage to have more people record his songs and then paid composers and publishers their licensing fees in the normal way, even if they were breaking the law.
Then, rather than take tunes off the records, they asked Swallow if he would get his friends to also contribute their lead sheets, so things would be as accurate as possible. He asked people like Carla Bley, Pat Metheny and Steve Kuhn if they would contribute their lead sheets, and they agreed.
Whoops, gotta get the car fixed, be back later...
-
No car for tonight.
Anyway, the author is able to pinpoint the approximate date for the making of the Real Book as some time in between the time that Metheny changed the titles of tunes he was teaching at Berklee to their permanent titles on Bright Size Life in Dec. of 1975. They were previously called "Exercise #3 etc...
Gary Burton knew B and C and gave them the lead sheets to "Mallet Man" most notably, but was unapproachable about his involvement in the years that he became a Dean at Berklee; how could he possibly express his approval of an action involving copyright infringement?
But Swallow said he knew what was going on...
Swallow also helped B and C modernize the the reharms of standards like "My Romance" etc... to fit the way they were being played by Bill Evans, Sonny Rollins and Miles Davis. He specifically remembers correcting tunes he had played with Stan Getz, like "Here's That Rainy Day, and Jobim tunes, "Ipanema" and "Desifinado".
He also helped them in the same way with tunes he played with Art Farmer, when Jim Hall was in the band.
They had tried to copy the records they made, but Swallow had the original reharms that Jim Hall had used when the band was playing live, and he corrected them to Jim Hall's reharms.
He did the same thing with some Bill Evans versions of standards that they had copied off the records. He changed them to what he remembered from Bill's book of changes.
Even Herb Pomeroy proofread all the Ellington things in the RB that B and C had rendered.
When they finished their massive project of almost 400 tunes, they found a copy place that was aware they were breaking the law by printing the book for B and C.
They were ordering runs of a few hundred of these books from a copy place, paying the copy place, and then selling the books out of their dorm and by lugging them around... LOL!
They were actively hawking them in the cafeteria and meeting places!
They also sold them on consignment to smoke shops, where they could be kept under the counter in case cops showed up.
They even got some old guy who owned a bookstore across the street from Berklee to sell them under the counter! LOL!
Metheny said that he never thought the Real Book would have much of a life beyond the few interested parties who were around the scene at that time...
In their push to compile this massive book, B and C made mistakes, and putting down the RB is not seeing the forest for the trees. As I've always said, the more complex the system, the greater chance for error, and we can all think of mistakes we've found in the RB, but Swallow describes what jazz was like before the RB.
He talks about walking through the practice room building at Berklee when he taught there, and hearing tunes being butchered!
A month after the RB was published, he heard a huge improvement in accuracy.
B and C then produced five new editions of the RB correcting all the mistakes with pages of errata incorporated into the front of each new edition
Then all the copy places started putting out their own editions of the book, and B and C were cut out of the
process.
So B and C would put out a revised edition, make a fairly large first printing, and try to sell them real quick, before the bootlegs of the bootlegs hit the streets, and in this way kind of limped through school, and stopped all involvement with the RB.
Swallow's last comments are that he regrets that the RB canonized those 400 tunes at the expense of the ones that were left out.Last edited by sgcim; 05-30-2026 at 12:57 AM.
-
Does anyone who went to Berklee back then know the real identities of B and C? In Wiki, they say it was an open secret as to their identities.
Real Book - Wikipedia
-
I found this from B at Barry Kernfeld's website:
A Note from "B," Co-author of The Real BookOn Sat, Jul 10, 2010, 11:20 AM, {"B"} wrote:
Barry,
I read with great interest your book, "The Story of Fake Books," and being identified as "B," I'd like to make a few comments and corrections, and I can be confident that my sentiments reflect those of "C" as well. First of all, I applaud your sensitive and informed (as best as it could be) approach to what has become a world-wide phenomenon. As Pat Metheny stated, no one in their wildest imagination ever thought that the book would have the influence and recognition that it did. For all its faults, I am proud of The Real Book's impact on jazz and the access to quality material it gave to countless musicians around the world. I've heard of Real Book parties, clubs that feature a Real Book Night, and school improv classes for which The RB is a prerequisite. Even the logo, which I hand-cut and silkscreened, is emblazoned on most legal imitator books.
The book was not conceived to finance our education. It was first and foremost an attempt to reinvent the concept of what a fake book was, to raise the bar for all such books to come. We both had been raised on really bad fake books that were illegible, inaccurate, useless, outdated, etc. One book I had in college contained the French National Anthem--hardly a jazz standard, you must concede. I owned about four books that were photo copies of photo copies many times over, and some tunes were barely legible. Again, our main concern was to produce something of high quality with a unique selection of tunes pertinent to the time. Knowing and having contacts to many famous jazz recording artists (Gary Burton, Pat Metheny, Paul Bley, Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea, Steve Swallow, etc.), we had access to first-hand material that enabled us to create an important and very useful collection of tunes. Yes, we knew that we had something unique, but not one of us involved ever imagined the book's incredible longevity. I can't tell you how many times that I've been at a wedding, in a lounge, or at a private party where the musicians were playing from it.
The Real Book was featured in the New York Times and in Esquire Magazine, as stated in Wikipedia, although both articles have errors in their accounts of the book's origins and dates. You, through your sleuthing, came the closest, which is really the summer of 1975. Having picked up the initial copies from the printer and simply walking into the Berklee lobby, all hell broke loose, and the runaway success began. It was snapped up as soon as it hit the streets, and we couldn't sell them fast enough. A sailor from Russia bought a few copies and took them back home, and thanks to Berklee's international student body, the book quickly spread around the world.
There were, however, only three editions produced by us. We originally intended to put out just one edition, but the last two were only validated by the number of corrections that came to us to warrant reissues. We never were concerned about staying ahead of bootleggers, of which their numbers were legion. It was never about the money--it was about the music. The extent of the care we put into the project, from going through bins and bins of albums at record stores to find composers' names and multiple recording sources to having it proofread by a great number of qualified people, including Swallow, Metheny, Herb Pomeroy, and Wes Hensel, was a testament to our insistence on putting out the best book we possibly could. A combination of human errors and sometimes poor sources caused the mistakes the book has been so derided for. Editions #2 and #3 were an attempt to improve our original product, not to "stay ahead of the bootleggers." We knew we could have made a pile of money had we continued, but we weren't in the business of selling fake books -- we were headed for careers as musicians -- and we were definitely concerned of the legal ramifications. I do know of one particular bootlegger who snapped up our new editions as fast as they came out and then headed straight to a copy store. I hear that he continued on long after we had left Boston, and he subsequently bought a nice house on Long Island with Real Book money.
An initial attempt was made to legitimize the book, and we had meetings with two copyright experts we knew in Boston. It was determined that we would have to pay royalties of about ten cents per tune per book, which would have been about $48.00 per book--a prohibitive amount, considering that we hoped to sell it for $30.00. A large publishing company such as Hal Leonard has the clout and resources to make blanket deals with blocks of tunes, something far beyond our abilities at the time. We WERE very concerned with recompensing the composers in the early stages. After realizing that legitimate sales would be impossible, the best we could hope for was enhanced exposure to the composers' music by which musicians might record those tunes, resulting in the Butterfly Effect of even further exposure and royalties. It seems that that has happened in spades.
I am a composer myself, and I fully appreciate copyright protection. But I do agree with Swallow that, had someone approached me 35 years ago about having my tunes in a new, upcoming fake book, I would have gladly said "Yes." I'm very sure that the ubiquitous nature of The Real Book has ultimately been a benefit for the collective composers represented. Perhaps hundreds of thousands of musicians have learned, performed, and recorded those works that otherwise never would have.
"B"
________________________________________
From: BARRY KERNFELD
To: {"B"}
Sent: Sat, July 10, 2010, 11:05:07 AM
Subject: Re: The Real Book
Dear {"B"},
Thanks so much for your note. Absolutely fascinating. I am delighted that you wrote to me. Would you object if sometime I had an opportunity to publish your corrections (while keeping your name anonymous, of course)?
I am just now finishing a much larger project, in which jazz fake books play only a small, tangential role. The book is titled Pop Music Piracy since 1929: Songs, Distribution, and Disobedience.
I shared your experience in the 1970s, being an aspiring jazz saxophonist handicapped by the absence of a merely decent fake book, and I was so grateful for the appearance of The Real Book, which was 1,000 times better than merely decent. The people who put it down for having mistakes have NO IDEA what sort of musical vacuum you were operating in, and how well you filled it.
best regards,
Barry
________________________________________
You are very welcome, and thanks for your comments. Sure, you can use anything I send to you.
It's funny how people react sometimes. I was working as an arranger with a trumpet player about 15 years ago on a show that was going to Monte Carlo, and when he learned that I had written The Real Book, suddenly it was as though he was in the presence of God. Even though we were in a panic mode trying to get the job done, all work came to a complete halt while he grilled me all about it.
Another thing about the mistakes... it was very distressing for us to learn of them. We had worked so hard to minimize errata, but obviously the job was much bigger than we could handle, in that department. In the end, everyone who purchased a book was a potential "proofreader" of sorts, and we gathered as much feedback as we could.
A bit of trivia... it's true about the naming of the book according to Wikipedia. There was a street paper in the Seventies out of Cambridge called the Real Paper, and then of course we purposefully used "Real" to create another level of book beyond "Fake." In fact, I've heard the term used to describe something superlative, as in "That was a Real Book meal!"
Also, the first edition had a white binding, as opposed to black for editions two and three. If you can find a book with the white, then you've a Real collector's item.
Be well,
B
-
the contemporary tunes are the best bit of the OG Real Book. Originally Posted by sgcim
I’m also wondering if Richard Niles had any involvement in this. He has tunes in there, and was in class with Mike Stern and Pat. He promptly decided jazz guitar was not his forte ended up becoming an arranger/producer iirc.
I jammed with him in a Wetherspoons some years ago. He was living in London at that time.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
-
I asked AI on Amazon who it was, and Richard Niles was a possibility, so then I told her, "Look, you tell me if it's Richard Niles or not damn it! Originally Posted by Christian Miller
She started getting flustered and said she couldn't commit to Richard Niles. I pressed her again, and she said "The real author of the Real Book is the greatest mystery of Jazz that will never be solved!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I've given up. You can't argue with that.
-
It’s Niles for sure Originally Posted by sgcim
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
-
If that's so, we shall go on a Niles hunting expedition and track him down to his lair, where we will subdue him and put him in a cage and put him on exhibition all over the world. We'll be wealthy! Originally Posted by Christian Miller
But it will have to wait until I can get my car out of the shop on Monday...
Bio – Richard Niles
-
I’m loving this discussion, especially the excerpts from Kernfeld. Thanks for sharing.
When I was playing in a wedding band and jazz combo in the 80s, we used a 5th edition RB. I still have it. What I always enjoyed about it was the reference to an LP at the bottom of the chart for each tune. I’d head to the NYPL and check out records to listen.
-
Sounds reasonable Originally Posted by sgcim
If that's so, we shall go on a Niles hunting expedition and track him down to his lair, where we will subdue him and put him in a cage and put him on exhibition all over the world. We'll be wealthy!
But it will have to wait until I can get my car out of the shop on Monday...
Bio – Richard Niles
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Reply With Quote
Recommandations for Hollowbodies for $600 and under?
Today, 05:20 AM in Guitar, Amps & Gizmos