Customer Reviews

Just Jazz Real Book, C Edition (Real Books)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This volume of jazz tunes was compiled with the musician in mind. I say that because the publishers focused on: a.) accuracy, b.) quality selection, and c.) ease of use. If you're looking for a real or fake book, look no further. This is where to invest wisely.

Here is why this real book differs from the rest:

1.) It is sturdy and spiral bound.
2.) It uses a large JAZZ font for the chords that is easy to see.
3.) The songs are in the ORIGINAL keys.
4.) The selection is excellent.
5.) There is a DISCOGRAPHY included; you can go to the recordings and understand the arrangements it uses.
6.) There is an extra chapter on voicings.

You'll fall in love with the chord changes--so rich and beautiful. I ordered this along with the Just Standards volume, and I can see I'll be using them for a long time.

Honestly, I have a cabinet full of fakebooks and sheet music so it's gotta be something special to get me to spend money on yet another one. The Warner Brothers "Just Jazz Real Book" is something special, and it should be the model that all other fakebooks follow. Easy to read and use, comprehensive, wonderful type, good alternative chordings, etc. I have to use leadsheets on stage and these can be copied from the book and used as they are.... The leadsheets are often one full page and sometimes two but never more than that and never less either (I hate quarter-page-sized leedsheets!). Also included are intros to songs that often get left off of normal Hal Leonard-variety fakebooks in an attempt to save space, especially the Gershwin selections. There's not much fluff here either - it's all pretty much useable and recognizable material that every pro should have. ... I highly recommend this book and hope to see more like it.

Of all the fake books I have worked with, this is the one I find most easy to use. There are lots of reasons (good spiral binding, nice selection, nice font, etc.) but the most important is that THE CHANGES ARE GOOD! Exactly as the authors claim, they have given the right chord changes for the tunes (both original and recommended variations). The JUST STANDARDS companion volume is good to have as well, for the same reason. When I first started buying fake books (which are expensive!) I wish someone had told me to get this one. It makes learning and playing the tunes much easier. I recommend this very highly.

warner brothers music has come out with a line of fake books -- jazz, standards, and blues. i have the just jazz book, and it is a winner. the typesetting might be the nicest thing about this book. it has a great handwritten look to it, balanced layout, and is very easy on the eyes. try playing out of a hal leanard pop or standards fake book sometime -- chord names are written in the same microscopic font used for the lyrics, and are set too close to the lyrics in the lines above them. your head aches after a few tunes.

for me, the song selection is superior to the 500 song monster that's out there, even though it's only (!) 250 songs. yes, that's completely subjective, too bad there's no table of contents posted here so you can see for yourself.

a final nice feature, in the back of this book, is a great short section on chord voicings, substitutions, and chord theory.

The other reviews published here are well earned. My one reservation: whoever arranged the harmonic turnarounds at the end of sections of most of these tunes or at the finish of a tune, used the simple VIm7-IIm7-V7-IMaj7 progression. It seems like the arranger merely "plugged in" these turnaround harmonies. Although these harmonies "work," I would have liked more variety in the harmonies at the turnaround points.

I played from this book at a friend's party and told my wife "THAT'S what I want for Christmas!!" It took two years, but she found it on Amazon this Christmas.
I'm a former professional musican (12 years) and a lifetime amateur. I love playing jazz on both my piano and alto sax. I have a small collection of musician fake books in both pop and jazz tunes, and "Just Jazz Real Book" is undoubtedly one of the finest! Aside from the easy reading manuscript style, very reminiscent of the better hand-written jazz scores, the tunes are more diverse than the usual book of OLD standards. I like the fact that some songs offer alternate, hipper, chords. On piano, I frequently move in and out of the alternate chords to dress up my solos.
I recommend this book for the professional gigger as well as the player with their own piano bar in the rec room. Excellent!

Bob Dickson

In researching this book, I read a review where someone said that it had a spiral binding (which is like the binding on my JUST JAZZ STANDARDS book). Well it does NOT have a spiral binding but rather a regular book binding. Thus it is very difficult to keep it open on the music stand of my piano (actually its impossible). I can't imagine what purpose the publisher had in mind (although someone somewhere might just want to read the book rather than play from it. On a positive note, the material contained in the book is well done, easy to read (if not easy to hold the book and play), and is the same quality that I found in the STANDARDS book noted above. Perhaps the publisher makes two versions and I got the wrong one. Hence the title "Watch Out"

I don't understand why this C version is bound with either spiral or plastic comb like all of the other versions. This book simply cannot be used with a binding that allows the book to open flat on a music stand. I'll have to take this to Staples to rebind it.

This book is a distillation of jazz pieces from the full "Real Book" (which is a legit copy of the true Real Book) This means you don't have to buy so many volumes of the Real Book to get the jazz piece you want. Since the pieces are literally copied from the larger collection, you get the same errors that occur in that one. My only major gripe is that it's comb bound instead of spiral bound and it tends to be sort of awkward to flip around in. If it's anything like my Real Book I imagine pages will start coming out fairly quickly (which is of course great for Alfred!)

Even though there are several 5 star reviews for this title I wouldn't buy unless I could see a songlist or Table of Contents.