The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #26

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    Some of the tunes have been noted but...you're going to print out what 500 - 600 pages!! Really!! Why on earth do that? Buy the 6th edition or use ireal book or use pdf files for all the books. So much paper/ink/time wasted.

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  3. #27

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    Doesn't really matter who does the printing, I just ask why that's necessary give the low cost of FBs and getting them into pdf form - I've got a ton of the books in pdf and if I happen to need just one or two for a gig, I'll just print off those.
    And, given all the issues with progressions in the 5th edition, why not buy the current issue?

    I'm guessing most people will know this Seventhstring site as a great look up for tunes but just in case -
    The Fake Book Index - it seems a lot easier than the Dumars site noted above.

    Ralph

  4. #28

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    Quote Originally Posted by jazzereh
    Doesn't really matter who does the printing, I just ask why that's necessary give the low cost of FBs and getting them into pdf form - I've got a ton of the books in pdf and if I happen to need just one or two for a gig, I'll just print off those.
    And, given all the issues with progressions in the 5th edition, why not buy the current issue?

    I'm guessing most people will know this Seventhstring site as a great look up for tunes but just in case -
    The Fake Book Index - it seems a lot easier than the Dumars site noted above.

    Ralph

    Newest fake book leaves out many classic tunes, and it costs as much as printing the 5th edition anyway.

    I have all the fake books in pdf.

    Ipads etc run out of batteries, get stolen etc, books are..... books. I can write in them, toss it in the case, write in corrections etc. We are just different, sorry.

  5. #29

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    In 1980 I gave a friend of mine $35 to score me a Real Book. He knew a guy who had a friend and it was all secret and under the table. I gave him the money and he drove to an undisclosed location and returned the next day with my Real Book

    Over the next 35 years, the cover fell off and pages fell out until my Real Book started at Beautiful Love and ended at Pent Up House

    I ordered a replacement from Amazon. Granted the new 6th edition is no replacement, but hey. So I pick out a vendor selling a used copy. The vendor is in Alaska and what he has is an old 5th edition for $15

    I jumped on it and it showed up yesterday

    funny thing is, I remember back in the early 80s when I was playing up in Anchorage that a consignment of Real Books had made its way to Alaska, There used to be a pretty good scene in the 80s up there, and somebody had been a Real Book Mule and packed a bunch of them up to Anchorage

    this one could very well be one of those

    I actually never thought I would own a complete 5th edition again. The prices I've seen are ridiculous for a book that I know about half the tunes in anyway

    but it was like old home week playing through old Real Book tunes starting with letters that come after "P"

  6. #30

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    And the changes on some tunes are a little more "correct." But you still gotta use your ears...

    People get so bent out of shape about Real Books...but if you just use them as a guide, they're a good resource.

    I was told about a music store that supposedly had them back when I was in college...I went in, and didn't know what to say, so I said "I was wondering if you were selling any merchandise that's not on display?"

    The guy looked at me puzzled, and then he said "Oh, Kevin works on Thursdays now. But he can get you pretty much anything--adderall, vicodin, you name it."

  7. #31

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    Really. At a guitar show once, I was talking music and song-books with a guy and he said to step outside a moment. I thought he had some personal instruments or something, but in the back of his car he had about 3 cases of Real Books cached in his trunk, selling for cash only...

  8. #32

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    I still have my two Real Books I bought back in the 70's. The first was a bad xerox copy a music school buddy made, the cover sheet says Real Book Revised Edition no 1st....nth edition then. It was a really bad copy so a few month a guy was coming around the music school regularly and selling Real Books from the trunk of his car, his had real nice hard plastic cover and good printing so I got one. That one was called the "Pacific Edition" the cover had a etching of Pacific NW forest. A friend who taught at GIT had me get him a copy of the Pacific Real Book and when I run into he we get a laugh how we are still using the old Real Book.

    I still remember the first fake book I ever saw, a friend from high school his father played in dance bands in 40's he had a fake book from then with standards and hits of the day. We used to get excited when we check it out because it was "illegal". Fake books got real popular in the 80's because of the xerox machine were everywhere. I thought it was fun having to go to music stores and quietly ask for fake books, and person would look around and pull some from under the counter.

    Has the REAL story of the Real Book ever come out? I remember back in the 70's the story was it was done at Berklee after hour and Metheny, Swallow, Bley, were involved, that's why the original had so many of their tunes in it. Then the internet comes about in the 80's just email and newsgroups then, but the flame wars on what the "correct" changes for tunes should be make some of the nasty threads here look tame.

  9. #33

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    I remember going to Xerox machines at 7-eleven or the library or some place with my buddy Sam. We were up there in the middle of the night with a roll of quarters and a hole punch making our true "bootleg" copies of fake books

    those were the days

    I found an old notebook recently that had a bunch of tunes I hand copied from my friend's dad. Mr Koehler was a band leader in the 50s and he had a load of old fake books, but he wouldn't let us leave the house with them. So we sat up all night down in the basement making hand copies of everything.

    back then we went through all sorts of crazy stuff to get our hands on music you just click a mouse and order today

  10. #34

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    I recently gave all mine away. (including 5th ed)

    They served their purpose.


    I had a bit of a fake book problem for a while. I'm all better now.

  11. #35

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    Haha - I remember finding about it in the early 80's from forum member Eric Rowland - it was indeed like some exotic drug. I wasn't able to get one until about 1982-3, when I bought one (legally) from a guitar shop in Atlanta - Diapason, if anyone else is familiar with it.

    I still have it, of course the top sheets are torn off. Lots of coffee stains as well. I still prefer some of the transcriptions from that version compared to the current iRealbook.

    From what I've read it did come out of Berklee - I don't know if the actual authors are known. It has been debunked that Metheny or Swallow or any "big names" were involved. Since they came from Berklee and their music was so popular at the time, a fairly large percentage of the tunes were theirs.

  12. #36

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    yea, the legend I heard was that the first ones came out of Berkley, but that it was just students, not anybody famous. allegedly they were transcribing the tunes that were coming up in jam sessions on campus

  13. #37

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    Quote Originally Posted by Nate Miller
    yea, the legend I heard was that the first ones came out of Berkley, but that it was just students, not anybody famous. allegedly they were transcribing the tunes that were coming up in jam sessions on campus

    another part of the myth is they were using the school's printing facility to print the books. I wonder if those guys made any money to help pay their Berklee tuition? Berklee is $40,000 per year now they'd have to sell a lot of fake books to pay that tuition.

  14. #38

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    There's a book about fake books, written by a guy named Barry Kernfeld. He includes a lot of info about the origins of the Real Book. There's also some detail about the Real Book on his website, Abstracts of Papers including that Swallow and Metheny were involved.

    John

    Edited to add: FWIW, I got my copy of the 5th Edition of the Real Book ca. 1982 from a used record and bookstore near Columbia University that sold them openly. Later on, I got vol II from a pianist I used to play with (he made a whole bunch of copies on his office's xerox machine and gave them to all his musician buddies). I've still got both, but they're in pretty sorry shape. At some point I downloaded pdf's of these (I forget from where).
    Last edited by John A.; 05-05-2016 at 05:06 PM.

  15. #39

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    If you can't get the 5th edition, would the sixth edition do?

    What's the best edition to get if not the 5th?

    thanks
    edh

  16. #40

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    Quote Originally Posted by edh
    If you can't get the 5th edition, would the sixth edition do?

    What's the best edition to get if not the 5th?

    thanks
    edh

    5th edition was the last of the illegal versions and they are getting hard to find, back to looking for guys handing around music schools with the trunk of their car open. I would say the 6th edition is what a majority of Real Book users have these days just because it's easy to get. Most people are getting electronic copies so they can load it on their cellphone or tablet and sneak peeks at tunes in jams sessions.

  17. #41

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    Enterprising undergrads that we were, struggling on student wages, we did a few print runs and sold them to all the new first year students coming into the school.
    Cheers!

  18. #42

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    Quote Originally Posted by NoReply
    5th edition was the last of the illegal versions and they are getting hard to find, back to looking for guys handing around music schools with the trunk of their car open. I would say the 6th edition is what a majority of Real Book users have these days just because it's easy to get. Most people are getting electronic copies so they can load it on their cellphone or tablet and sneak peeks at tunes in jams sessions.
    I found copies of the 5th edition here. There are links to each of the 3 volumes near the top of the page.

    Partitions gratuites. Real Book - Volume 1, 2, 3(C, Eb, Bb)

  19. #43

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    With a bit of clever Google searching, you could find the ~50MB RAR file containing a PDF of the Fifth Edition. Hint: "Berklee" is in the filename.

    But I think most cats use the Sixth Edition nowadays.

  20. #44

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    When the original Real Book came out, there was only one.

    Now, there are multiple editions with different tunes, different arrangements and, often, different changes.

    So, at a session where people are reading, it used to be that everybody would be looking at the same chart. Nowadays, every tune is a new discussion. Different paper versions and some players with tablets with every possible version. The paper guys are comparing books while the tablet guys are scrolling and complaining about the interface.

    If you play with the same people regularly, it would be great for everybody to have the same charts, somehow.

    And, yes, the people I play with know the usual standards. Nobody wants to play anything that familiar. So, we read.

  21. #45

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    22:30

  22. #46

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    Thanks for the 'Sixth' suggestion. Found a used print version online.

  23. #47

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    Is the "557 Jazz Standards Swing to Bop" one of the versions, or is it its own thing? When and where did it come from?

  24. #48

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    That’s completely separate I believe, I think someone said it was produced by someone in Europe.

  25. #49

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    Quote Originally Posted by pauln
    Is the "557 Jazz Standards Swing to Bop" one of the versions, or is it its own thing? When and where did it come from?
    I think it's an independent effort. Lots of these songbooks are local or personal projects. I have a facebook with about 500 tunes in it that was assembled by a local guy, a pianist, who anchored lots of local jam sessions for years and just developed his own collection of head arrangements/lead sheets. Many involve extensive corrections of the Real Book, or variants on the tunes.

    I think being a jazz player involves being something of a connoisseur of fake books.