Customer Reviews

Ragtime & Early Jazz - 1900-1935 (Jazz Bible Fake Book Series)

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1 star:		(3)

 

 

As jazz band musician interested in playing ragtime and early jazz I awaited with eager anticipation the arrival of this fake book from Hal Leonard. I could not wait to open the wrapper and feast my eyes on the works of my favourite ragtime composers, legends like ScottJoplin, Joe Lamb, James Scott, Jelly Roll Morton et al. This would be a book to treasure. Classic Jazz composers such as Clarence Williams, Joe Oliver and the rest of the early jazz pioneers would shout their syncopated melodies from the pages. 200 of those marvellous tunes would be waiting to be played. This would be a jazzmans heaven. I opened the wrapper and a beautifully designed cover was revealed. 'Ragtime' the headline said in a 72 point nineteenth century' typeface. With heightened anticipation and trembling fingers, I turned to the contents page. What's this? 'The Blue Room', 'Cocktails for Two', 'Loch Lomond' Ole Man River' 'Noel Coward' Is this some sort of joke? John Coltrane, Stan Kenton. It must be. Where was the Ragtime in 72 pts, where was any Ragtime? Nowhere. Thats where. Early Jazz? OK, a couple by Armstrong and a couple by Ellington. Thats it. Thats all. I am asked to rate this book between 1 star and 5 stars. This book is a minus 5 stars, and I'm feeling generous. It is a travesty.It is a fake fake book. It has no connection at all with Ragtime or Early Jazz. So why is it called that? How can a publisher put out a book so titled. You may have observed by this time that I was not best pleased with the contents. I shall avoid, like the plague, anything else published by Mr Leonard, for you can be sure of one thing, whatever it says on the front cover it's bound to have no relevence to the contents

Having already purchased "The Best Blues Fake Book" and several others, I was prepared to be impressed with this but was not. Real jazz buffs aren't going to be satisfied with the selection in the book. The chords are exactly right and that's a comfort, but the book shouldn't be touting itself as early Jazz when it's missing many of the standards of the earliest days of jazz. I had expected to see more from the early Armstrong days, like "Cake Walkin' Babies." On the plus side it does have "Body and Soul," "All of Me," and "Gee Baby, Ain't I Good to You."

As another reviewer noted, the chords are excellent, so if you're looking for the genuine article to improvise over, this is it. It's just a shame that the book leaned more toward Glenn Miller and less toward the earlier dixieland songs.

This book and its companion, the Swing Era, remind me of the label on the Kirin beer bottle. The Kirin label is supposed to be a picture of a lion. But there were no lions in Japan and the picture shows an animal with hooves and legs like a horse. It's clearly a picture of a lion drawn by someone who had never seen a lion.
I've been listening to ragtime, early jazz and swing since the 50's, and the chord selection in these two fake books seem to be done by someone who has actually never heard the songs played the way they were orginally played. Neither my professional piano teacher nor I were able to get many of the songs in the two books to sound like anything without drastic changes in the harmony. I recommend the Warner Bros. books which have many of the same songs.

Warning to traditional jazz musicians. Though the tunes included in this collection fill the bill, the chords given are modern interpretations, totlally unsuitable for traditional jazz performers - EVERY (yes every) major chord has been substituted with a major seventh chord (as in "Color My World"). The editor considers this a convention.
I would suggest Hal-Leonard clarify this "convention" on the cover ASAP.
There are already enough distractions on a bandstand without adding this.

This book has many of the tunes from the early 1900s that are either hard or impossible to find elsewhere. Mr. DuBoff did an excellent job of translating these classics into leadsheets that sound up to date while at the same time honor the original character of the song. The layout makes learning from this book simple. In addition, this is the first book of its kind to present the chord changes that jazz musicians actually play! A must for musicians.