Hi all,

Has anyone own these books ? what is the different other than the Real book is newer & smaller than the old Fake book ?
I am looking to book one of these serie to start the jazz 101 tunes. I don't know which one is better at the moment. I heard many comments about the Fake book that it has a lot of error on the chords. Thus, for jazz, the substitute & alternate chords are so important ! Does the new Real book correct all of these errors ?

Thank you for all of your suggestion & feedback.

Hi Danny: As there are so many jazz fakebooks out there now, please be MORE specific and provide the 'exact title' as well as 'publisher' of the fakebooks you're referring to.

The fake books that I do HIGHLY recommend are the Chuck Sher Fake Books. They were painstakenly edited and reviewed to insure that the chords are accurate and reflect what was 'actually played' by the hit recording artist on the record. The 'specific recording' is often credited as well. Perhaps I'm a little biased in my praise because the editor of many of the books in the Chuck Sher fake book series was none other than my former piano teacher, Larry Dunlap. - Scott
http://www.rambles.net/sher_alljazz.html
http://www.shermusic.com/ajrb.htm
http://www.shermusic.com/standard_real.htm
http://www.shermusic.com/latrealb.htm
http://www.shermusic.com/newrbv2.htm
http://www.shermusic.com/newrbv1.htm
http://www.shermusic.com/newrbv3.htm

Hal Leonard also publishes some good fake books, and some of them are jazz fake books. Danny, you are perhaps refering to The Real Book, the illegal first jazz fake book. If that's the case, yes, some songs display wrong chords.

-- José.

Scott, thanks for your recommendation. I will look at Chuck Sher Jazz Fake Book series.
I was looking at the Ultimate Jazz Fake book "C" edition by Hal Leonard from Amazon. There are also newer books by Hal Leonard "The Jazz Real Books" published in 2001. Hal Leonard is probably a bigger publisher than many others out there.

You can find brief descriptions of virtually all the fake books on the US market at http://psrtutorial.com . There is also a link to the Table of Contents for each book as well as links to Barnes & Noble where you can check out current prices. The Sher books have a unique font more akin to handwritten notation and very different from the pages used in the Hal Leonard series. Some users really like this; others really dislike it. You will also find an online song index to all the songs in all the books so if you have a particular song in mind, you can easily see in which books it appears. All of that online song index can be download in a single MS Word document if you'd prefer to have a personal copy of the index. I own most of these books so I find the index quite useful. Here's a direct link to the Fake Book Section: http://psrtutorial.com/Resources/R_FakeBooks/r_fakebooks.html

Here's a direct link to the FB Song Index: http://psrtutorial.com/Resources/R_FBSongs/r_fbsongs.html

I think the Ultimate Jazz fake book is very good at providing basic stock chord changes, but if you want to know the actual more 'pro' sounding changes (including chord substitutions) played on the record, Chuck Sher's books, imo, are unsurpassed.

I personally prefer the larger easier to read 'jazz fonts' used on the Sher books as well. Just my opinion of course.

Scott

I don't jump in here a lot. just like to read all the comments. Here in Baltimore Maryland, we have Enoch Pratt Free Library and if you call them and ask for a particular song, they will fax it to you free of charge. it usuall is copied from a fake book, although thet probably have some sheet music as well. Why not try your local library? Give it a shot! Bob Lee

Hi Larry,
The Jazz edition of the “Just Real Book” that you asked about for the most part is excellent. The 250 songs have the chords noted by hand. They are large and easy to read, but are quite different looking than printed chords. The chords choices are very good, with only a few skinkers in the whole book. There are many songs that you don’t find in the standard fake books.
HIT THAT JIVE JACK
MOMENT’S NOTICE
TIMES LIE
YARDBIRD SUITE and many more along with the standard stuff.
Frank

Joe Waters did a great job on his Master Fake Book Index. It is very well done and VERY useful !!!