Customer Reviews

The Real Book - Volume II (C Instruments): C Instruments 2nd Edition (Fake Book)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

What I love most about this book is its design. Veterans know that fake books are frequently a combination of handwritten, poorly-photocopied, cut-and-pasted, inconsistently-sized charts along with chord naming conventions that go all over the place (an E minor chord can read as Em, e, E-, etc. in the same book.)

The Real Book series (besides the advantage of excellent songs acquired with the proper rights) has a wonderful design. The staff lines are a consistent size; there is one song per page (or sometimes two pages, laid out so there's no flipping involved); chord naming conventions are consistent (it's "E-" throughout); and there is a lot of white space for a clean, clear look and room to pencil-in performance notes. It's easy and natural to go from one song to another without going through a lot of mental gymnastics and adjustments, as one would do in other fake books.

Plus, it's all done in a handwritten-looking font that gives it both a warm, handmade character and the feeling that you've acquired something surreptitious (like every fake book should be)!

The only problem is that the key is only indicated in the first measure of the first staff -- sharps and flats are not repeated at the beginning of the lower staffs, so it's sometimes a little hard to quickly remind yourself of what key you're in. Still, I'm having lots of fun with this.

everything has been cleaned up in this edition (no wrong changes, etc.). However, not many people are using this edition, yet...not to mention the tunes that people learned with the wrong changes that in this edition have been corrected...
but you know, this will be the new 'standard' book soon. gotta jump on the boat sooner or later.

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.

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.

I play keyboard in a group of amateur /semi-pro musicians who get together for jazz jam sessions every few weeks. We've heavily relied on Real Book vol 1, but we're trying to expand our repertoire and so I decided to buy vol 2. Having a large collection of fake books that I used in playing jobs in the past, I was hoping to find more keepers in Vol 2, but a lot of the tunes in there are not very familiar to me (unlike Vol 1) and many do not lend themselves to use in our jam sessions. From that point of view, I figured the price per tune that we could use was about three times as high as the price per useful tune in the first volume. The chords and alternate voicings were OK and I like the fact that you do not have turn pages to finish the tune, but in terms of the selection, I was disappointed.

It's about time that someone (Hal Leonard) compiled a "legit" version of the fake book that has become a standard over the years. I just wish they'd hurry it up with Volume 3 - there are some really great songs slated to be in the 3rd Volume.

As I said in my review of The Real Book: Sixth Edition, all jazz musicians eventually have to have a real book. If you started with Volume 1 (you did, didn't you?), sooner or later there's going to be a few tunes you want to play that aren't in there. Chances are very good they are in here. (Some examples of tunes I wanted out of this one include Georgia on My Mind, Fly me to the Moon, and Caravan.) I would say all jazz musicians should have Volume 1 and Volume 2, at a minimum. That'll give you something like 800 songs you could (hypothetically) play. I'm surprised other reviewers say they use this one more than Volume 1, as that will definitely never happen with me and my music. Also, I'm still missing a few songs that I really want to play that aren't in either of these (like Witchcraft and They Can't Take That Away From Me). Maybe I'll buy Hal Leonard The Real Book Volume 3 for C Instruments before long, too. Anyway, you can't go wrong getting this book as a companion to volume 1.

Another excellent book from Hal Leonard. I own both volumes. Easy to read. If this book was lost I would most certainly replace it.