The Real Book

While most people think that musicians "play" music, they often forget that they also "work" music. It's great to see the composers and arrangers of classic tunes getting their fees. Sure, a handful are missing because the publisher couldn't secure the rights, but I'm willing to trade that for a legal version. In terms of usefulness (I own vols 1 and 2)they cover a lot of ground. A good effort. The bass clef edition is a nice modern convenience for us bass and trombone players!

If you're a student of Jazz, or a serious Jazz musician, while the REAL BOOK V.1 set the standard for years, V2 is the one that I find REALLY has the best tunes (and even in its bootleg edition was written with much better changes.) - - I host and play up to 300 sessions a year and would go so far as to say that not only does the bulk of my repoitoire come from the REAL BOOK SERIES (1, 2 and 3) but that a very high portion has come from V2, especially considering that until this "legal" edition it was twice as hard to find as the hard to find V1. Trust me on this... If you live in terror of playing or hosting a session and having millions of tunes thrown at you that you don't know, get these three books... In your spare time work on the tunes, and when you're on the bandstand make sure all three are within convenient reach.

I'm probably the world champ of fakebook collectors, starting with a complete (and highly illegal) Real Book collection in 1978. I've really appreciated what the Sher folks have been up to, as well as that Stang fellow over at Warner Pubs. This sure is the golden age for accurate and lovingly compiled fakebooks! I've made countless discoveries of unknown (to me) tunes thanks to them. So, I was actually reluctant to pick this one up, even at its ridiculously low price. But I finally caved last week and I'm glad I did. What a beautiful job. Clear, easy on the eyes and with accurate melodies and changes. For example, in 2 pages this book transmits the complete structure of Zawinul's Birdland (not a favorite of mine) with all of its sections intact. Wonderful. And this book includes a large number of tunes that (to my knowledge) have not appeared in other fakebooks. You're going to spend a lot of rewarding hours with this one.

This is a real good collection on tunes with lots of variety- a little trditional, a little standard, bop, fusion, cross-over. Some cornball well worn songs, and some cool lesser known songs. A good value, too.

There's a plethera of books out there, of which most are much more expensive than this one. However, Real Book-Volume 2 gives you an extremely large number of selections for one low price. The changes are easy to read and are accurate for the most part. Of course, if you are an experienced player, you may find occassional deviations from recordings you've heard, but don't take that as the copywritten version being incorrect, merely that many of these standards were recorded a number of times by various artists, often the same artist. Thus, a certain amount of liberty is bound to have been taken by the individuals who were recording due to artistic freedoms that are an essential element of this genre. The actual paper, while not being super thick, still allows the music to be read without the other side being visable. I would encourage any jazz musician to own this as an accompanying resource to Volume 1. You just can't go wrong for the price.