Customer Reviews

The Hal Leonard Real Jazz Book - C Edition

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Although filled with lots of songs, many of the classics like "Misty" and "Autumn Leaves" are absent... replaced by songs like "Meet the Flintstones". Also, with two songs (in very small print) per single page, or songs that cross over non-facing pages, you can't read the songs on the bandstand. This book is only good if you've tired of the essential songs and are looking for the unique.

Don't be put off by the other, tepid reviews on this page: this is a great collection. Or I should say, this is half of a great collection. The thing is, you need volume one--the Hal Leonard "Ultimate Jazz Fakebook"--to go with it.

If you have them both, you have probably every jazz standard--and then some--that I've ever heard on a record--plus many tunes I have yet to hear anyone play.

The way I see it, "Ultimate" has more of the most commonly played songs, while "Real" has the great ones that got left out of the earlier collection, plus a lot of newer stuff.

A look at the compser index for "Real" shows a general trend: Lots of Desmond, Coltrane, and Herbie Hancock tunes are in the later book, while most of the Cole Porter and Gershwin stuff in in the earlier book. (Ellington's best known stuff is here, too, about half in the "Ultimate" book and half in the "Real" book.) There is NO duplication between the books.

I do my Band-In-A-Box work outs with the chords, and they are just fine, for the most part. I've caught a few errors--no big deal in a collection this vast. I find half of what I play tends to be from the grery volmem, and half from the black.

Get em both!

I got this book thinking I was gonna learn some real good jazz,but as I played out the tunes and then listened to the recording of the original song,I noticed The chord changes were not correct..what's the use of having a fakebook with the wrong chord changes? This book could be best used as a practice guide rather than a gig book.

The REAL JAZZ BOOK is just what I thought it would be. It is wonderful for melody lines. I am impressed.

Good jazz book. Son loves it. This item WAS shipped to me, however, I'm VERY VERY disappointed in Amazon's overall lackluster, unreliable (lack of shipping) to military APO addresses. In general, they've shipped to my military APO address about 60% (if that) of the time - for very basic items. Many purchases were not made because items can't be shipped to me, other items I had to have shipped somewhere else and pay additional shipping to get item mailed to me. Shame on Amazon! Unfortunately I've received NO good answer from Amazon!

Why I would buy-

For all of you who are studying jazz or love playing standards in general. Expand your repertoire. Very good value for money. It has an amazing selection of tunes and has some pieces which are hard to find. You can also buy this book in Bb and Eb editions. Most of the tunes from the The Real Book series are in here and therefore you save money and you won't have to worry about carrying more than one book. If you are a vocalist or if you work a lot with vocalists (like I do) then buy this book as it has lyrics for the 'vocal' standards and you wont have to buy The Real Book volumes 1,2.

Why I wouldn't buy-
Chords are not always accurate so would rather buy The Real Book series 1,2,3 and The Real Vocal Book 1,2. Doesn't have bass line for pianists to play tunes like "So What". The print is slighty small which is disappointing as it could have been enlarged slightly - if you had this book (to play for fun or to gig with) until you were quite old or to the point where your eyes starting deteriorating, then don't buy this book.

There are tons of great tunes in this book, it seems to cover quite a lot of jazz from swing, to bop, to fusion, to (blech) Kenny G. I've already found it to be better bound and more accurate than my old, trusty Real Book 5th Edition that I bought ~20 years ago. However, I'm sure, like the old Realbooks, this one probably has some errors and some questionable interpretations of which chords are used where. But this isn't a transcription book, it's a "fake book". It's up to me to take the basic structures/melodies outlined here and make real music out of them (or to consult the recordings of the tunes by the masters). That's the point of a fake book.

My one complaint with this volume is that the font even in this full size edition is very small. I have pretty good eyesight, and these fonts are pretty small for me to read in low lighting with a few feet of distance between me and the music stand. I couldn't imagine someone with mediocre eyesight being able to read these well on a poorly lit stage! So if you have bad eyes, the older format of the Real Books is probably going to make your life a bit easier. I guess the trade-off with the small font is that you get more songs in this book. Either way, this is a nice book to have in your collection if you're serious about learning a lot of tunes to play and improvise over.

A transcription of Bird's solos. Be fair you are not going to learn jazz by playing the lead lines of a Herbie Hancock song from a fake book. This collection does its job, it gives you a start on learning the melody of many modern jazz standards. From there you must learn how to swing on your own.

Weird thing about this book i found; the watermelon man chart has copyright date of 1973, and thats the year the headhunters album came out. However, the chart was the melody and chords for the original watermelon man that came out in '62. Can anyone explain this copyright anomoly for me.

Well, I bought this book cause I'm learning jazz and they didn't have great tunes. Even though it's over 600 tunes, it's still not that good. I suggest getting another book. Plus, like others said, the print is really tiny and it's annoying. My friend, who plays bass, couldn't even read over my shoulder.