Ultimate Jazz Fake Books Edition Survey This book has a fantastic selection of tunes. Its almost like THE REAL BOOKS 1 & 2 COMBINED plus THE NEW REAL BOOK only with those annoying commercial fake book chord changes. That is my major criticism. . . Basically what they do is give you chord changes that I guess are meant to help out players who aren't at the level where they can really reharmonize things on the spot, and need something quasi hip to play. The problem with that though is that people shouldn't really buy a fake book like this to LEARN how to play Jazz. You get a book like THE JAZZ THEORY BOOK (by Mark Levine) etc. etc. then apply that knowlege to the fake books. I think using a book like this as "instructional sheet music" (as a reviewer will occasionally imply to have done) actually hurt the aspiring Jazz student because they deprive him or her of the skill gained through instruction or experience of identifying basic Jazz forms (key to building repoitoire and improvisational ability). You just learn how to play specific songs and arrangements note for note - - and never learn how to think of the changes functionally in order to be able to improvise or accompany at a jam session or playing in an ensemble. Its really important for you to be able to look at a tune, tell what type of beast it is, then tackle it from that perspective. . . Hence, this is my main (and strong) criticism about the book : A good and functional fake book gives the musician the melody, the root of the chord, and its fundamental quality (major, minor, dom, etc. ) - - after that, they *should* decide for themselves what type of extensions to or not to use - - - It is the musicians job to decide whether that C7 chord should really be played diminished, dominant, flat nine, raised nine, thirteenth - - But a book such as this will often jump the gun, for example not only won't it say C7 or C7b9, it'll say E diminished or something like that. . . Technically speaking it might be correct, but it distracts the improviser from the main point. (*and let me also say that in many ways this book is better than some of the others and even some of the non-commercially available professional fake books have these "errors" so these complaints aren't leveled exclusively against this book !) both the reviews above are accurate. there are some troublesome formatting issues with this book which lead it to be more useful for study and practice than for performance. and there are some tunes that, shall we say, stretch the idea of jazz (shake, rattle and roll?) . but that seems par for the course for a fake book to me. i liked the breadth of the collection, and have spent too many pleasant nights just browsing and playing things. if you're just starting to do jazz, it's a nice place to begin. also - guitarists - if you're looking to expand your chordal vocabulary, this book can be a fun way to do it. This book has plenty of tunes,but presents them very poorly. The small print of the tunes and the placement of two on a page makes reading very testing for a musician. Also the chord changes on some tunes,the bebop tunes in particular,are wrong. This book is good for the casual player,but one who is looking for decent representation of the music should look into other sources. This copious collection is made up of clear, well-conceived lead sheets. In general, they are melodically accurate and harmonically acceptable. Many of them also contain lyrics. Despite the title, however, the book contains a number of songs which are inconsistent with the idea of its being a jazz source. Such titles as "Jingle-Bell Rock", "Put On A Happy Face" and "Everything's Coming Up Roses" are, at best, gratuitous filler material. Also on the negative side, the lack of double bars and/or other delineations of form may cause less experienced seekers of musical treasures to experience some confusion. Otherwise, this is a valuable and highly economical reference, with tunes costing the buyer only about a half a cent each. My money was well spent. This is a book worth buying only if you are a singer looking for melody and text to jazz/dixie tunes. The chord progressions are weak, with many faults and flaws. The lineup is poor as well, as the
compilation process has forced the songs to be typed with no concern to form etc. No four-bars-per-line here. No book to bring along to the gig, but a great resource for old-and-nearly forgotten tunes.
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