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Does anyone know about The Real Book? Apparently it's a "fake book" that some college kids put together in the '70s, but it violates copyright laws. I'm interested in the book, but I'm kind of interested in the story of the book as well. Some say it's sold discreetly from back rooms of music stores, car trunks, etc. Anyone have a story about how they got their Real Book or how to get one today?

There's extensive information on it in
the Wikipedia online encyclopedia. Hal
Leonard apparently obtained the rights to
most of the songs in the original edition
and publishes a modern version of it.
This seems to be more for other instruments
rather than strictly solo piano.

There's lots of urban legends about the source, distribution, etc, but you have the basics right. As far as getting one today goes, you can ask around, or you can try google searching...someone did put together a CD-ROM that has several fake books on it, including the Real Book.

Real Book

Now, as far as legit goes:

In the early 90s, a Bay Area publisher named Chuck Sher decided to end all the Real Book madness and he put together something called the New Real Book, where everything was done above board. He did, actually, release several volumes and related volumes (I like his Real Easy Book for beginning jazz tunes). However -- the New Real Book series only covers a small percentage of the same tunes as the real Real Book.

New Real Book

But -- publisher Hal Leonard went one step farther a few years ago. They decided to publish almost a carbon copy of the real Real Book, and do it properly. So they have it available now:

Hal Leonard Real Book

I'm not sure if the "fake books" are available anymore. I bought about 20 of them in the 50's and 60's. They sold for about $12 - $15 and had hundreds of songs in them. No, I don't own them anymore, so don't send the federal agents here.

They were indeed black market books distributed by the Mafia. Those books were never displayed in music stores. I had to ask in a discreet way for the sales person to pull them out from under the counter.

The Mafia was always friends with musicians; however, they didn't help the songwriters much.

Shame on me for lack of scruples in my early years.

Best, John

Thanks---I'll check out the Hal Leonard book. I don't have any fake books right now and I know there are good ones and not-so-good ones. This Real Book thing seemed to be a gold-standard of sorts.

JenniferGC1:

The reason the original RealBook was a "gold-standard of sorts" was that, back then, that was THE book that jazz musicians standardized on for the chord changes to the various tunes they played. When you were on the bandstand, you played the songs covered in the Real Book using those changes. Everybody knew them and were therefore able to play together with minimal rehearsal and hassle, if needed (i.e. everybody had the same repetoire, and it was based on the Real Book).

The name Real Book is a play on words. Because of the strong influence of the classical music crowd, not playing a song exactly as written out in its entirty was considered "faking it". So books that contained lots of songs in the typical format of the melody with the chords written in letter notation above it, were called "fake books". the Real Book was a play on "fake book".

The idea of "faking it" seems odd to me, because the classical composers were writing music that did not exist before they wrote it, just as those who play from "fake books" are playing their rendition of a tune, rather than having it written out. To me, improvising is "composing on the spot", rather than working it all out ahead of time. Besides that, the Baroque musicians were largely improvisors too. The idea of having to play a piece of music EXACTLY as written (or it is considered a performance error), is relatively new.

We are seeing a similar transition in the jazz world, with the advent of jazz schools. Once a musical style is taken from the streets and formalized, it tends to lose its spontaneaity. Classical music did not come from the streets, since it was the domain of the well-to-do crowd, where some royalty person hired a classical composer/musician to write/play his or her music, as in "sponsoring" that person's work. The peasants had their folk music, in contrast to formal classical music. But it is interesting that jazz music is becoming more and more formalized like its "classical cousin", as the education of its players becomes more and more formalized.

Tony

The Hal Leonard "Vocal Real Book" (green book) leaves out a lot of the useless weird tunes in the Real Book and focuses more strictly on the real American songbook (Gershwin, Cole Porter, Kern, Rogers & Hart, Ellington, etc). Highly recommended.

I don't think jazz is becoming more formalized. It's already completely made the transition. Jazz theory has already been codified or systematized for educational purposes, there is an explanation for 99% of it, which is a good thing.

Owning one of the old real books is not illegal--I have one. However, selling them is.

The new Hal Leonard one is pretty good, they fixed a lot of mistakes, not to mention it is readily available.

And the Leonard edition is more legible.

rintincop:

Yes, I would agree that the transition is complete. However, as with most things in life, there are tradeoffs when discussion "good" vs "bad" (or at least "not so good"). My post that you are responding to, took one view in the context of the fakebook and the origins of the term.

Jazz theory bieng "codified" is a good thing because anybody who wishes to participate in that style, can, even if they were/are not part of a tightly knit core of jazz musicians. The downside of the formalized education is that jazz is being treated more like classical music, with its formalized institutions and all that goes with that. I suppose some people would see that as a good thing, and others not.

One good thing that comes of the formalization of jazz is that it is surviving as an art form.

Really, I could argue any one of many views on this, but then that is one of the cool things about jazz.

Tony

Owning one of the old real books is not illegal--I have one. However, selling them is - Greg

Maybe the law turns their head the other way, but as far as I'm aware, the receiving of stolen goods is still illegal in the USA.

Best, John

When jazz is treated more like classical music doesn't that mean it gets more respect or what?

rintincop:

Yes, I believe it does (defining "respect" as acceptance by those who hold the purse strings so that funding for jazz education and performance gets the same consideration as classical music gets). We are very fortunate in the Twin Cities to have a public radio jazz station (KBEM at 88.5 on FM). There is an active jazz community here, and both classical and jazz genres seem to hold similar positions in the cultural fabric of this area (i.e. in terms of the education and performance, the private and public underwriting, etc.). So I certainly do see the formalization of jazz as a positive thing.

I was just reading your list of "live", "home", and "sold" instruments. That is quite a collection! Very nice.

Tony

I was 18 and in college learning jazz and I will never forget when a horn player gave me my first real book and said you are going to need this and just play a few songs everyday that you don't know in addition to the ones you want to play. Some good advice that to this day I open the books and just play whatever and do not think to much about trying to play mistake free music I mean just let it go and play as free as I can. I feel a release and freedom in doing that. DPVJAZZ

I hated playing the piano as a kid and finally quit.
One day I was at college in the Union. There was a Steinway and no one was around. I sat down and begin playing boogie woogie that I taught myself. Before long a group of kids were around me.
I went home and called my former piano teacher I wanted to learn piano, but I wanted to play fun songs. That summer she had a book and taught me how to chord.
At the end of the summer she told me she taught me all she could. THE BOOK! I asked her if I could get one. She told me it was an illegal book. My mother found a instrument salesman and he sold it to her for $100. I have about six different ones now. The covers are off of most of them. But if you go onto
eBay, there are people that sell The Real Books on CD with pfd opening the books. All of mine have vocal, but only a few of these have the vocal. But yes they were or possibly are illegal. But these I have the songs are from the 30'- 50's. I was fortunate to find one that had songs from the 30's- late 60''s. It is smaller than the others.

I had several of the original books that I bought from one of my friends Dad who was a sax player.

I have several other 'real/fake' books but I like the Warner Brothers Real Books the best. There are Standards, Jazz and Blues and I've recently seen a listing for a Gershwin one.

They are easy to read, have a good selection of songs and good chord changes with alternates.

Just my opinion.

+1 here on the Warner Bros. Just Standards, Just Jazz, and Just Blues Real Books. Very well done, good changes, includes lyrics and rarely-heard verse/intros, and very easy layout and typeface to read.

going back to the original topic, do you think it is ok to buy the ebay real book? For that price, I am very tempted... I am not sure whether they are legal or not..

Ahem search realbook.pdf google ahem