You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Should You Use the Real Book?

Episode Date: September 19, 2019

The hot takes continue in this episode (recorded live on our YouTube channel!) as Peter and Adam discuss the worthiness of Real Books.Also, be sure to check out the latest course from Open Studio (featuring YHI's own Adam Maness): Jazz Piano Basics - Lead Sheet Breakdown. In this course, Adam will teach you the correct way to read from lead sheets as well as how to customize your own arrangements of jazz tunes. For more info, go here: https://www.openstudiojazz.com/jazz-piano-basics-lead-sheet-breakdown And stay tuned for upcoming courses as part of our Jazz Piano Basics series!Like those You'll Hear It shirts Peter shows off on the podcast? Want some YHI swag of your own? Take a visit to our store! Just go to https://teespring.com/stores/open-studioLet us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel and leave a comment for this episode.Interested in more jazz advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase.Follow us on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram at:https://www.facebook.com/heyopenstudiohttps://twitter.com/heyopenstudiohttps://www.instagram.com/heyopenstudio See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Peter. Hey, Adam. Do you prefer the real book or the fake book? I like the real fake, real fake book. How about that? Me too. Okay. One, two, three, four.

I'm Adam Maness. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the Yule here at podcast and a D-flat hanging over on the Kranick and Bach. Daily Jazz advice coming at you. And you know what that means with the Kranick and Bach being used for the intro. That's right. We are live. We are live.

Now, of course, if you're watching or listening to the podcast on the regular day, we're not live. But we recorded this live. We've got YouTube live going. We've got some fine folks joining us, and we're having some fun, man. Yeah, man. This is great. Yeah. Today's Thursday.

Think Future Adam if you could be able to Thursday. I'm trying to remember. This is Thursday next week. No, it's not Humpty. No, it's not. It's Wednesday. Day after hump day. Okay.

So today, you know what we're talking about? I have no idea actually. We're talking about. No, really? We're talking about real books. Oh, that's right. You just told me that like five minutes ago. What's the deal with real books and should you use the real book?

This is a question we get asked quite a bit. And we can even get into a little bit of some lead sheets And you know why we would get into a little bit of some lead sheets Well, do we want to give it away now or wait to talk about that? We can talk about it now. Yeah, we should talk about it now. We are, by the way, brought to you by Open Studio. And Open Studio, we just launched...

Open StudioJazz.com. We need to get one of those like Manhattan Transfer Style, old radio, tight harmony groups to do like a jingle. The opposite of what I just did. Exactly. So we just released a course, a mini-course. A mini-course. And it's actually going to be a series, of course, it's called Jazz Piano Basics.

And the first one, Volume 1, is called Lead Sheet Breakdown. Yes. And in it, I go through this sort of four-step process of how to interpret a lead sheet for solo piano. Like it. Something that I think a lot of people might find interesting. And the very first introduction lesson, I kind of talk a little bit about the history of the real book, as I understand it, the history of lead sheets. Yeah. Do you talk about how it went from illegal?

to legal? That's an interest. Yeah, no, I mean, it is really interesting. I didn't get into that legal history of it, but, you know, the history of lead sheets is, goes right in line with the fake book. So the fake book, which was a book called the fake book, came out in the 40s and 50s. And it was really like photocopied, but they called it something else. I forget what they called it. But like illegal, like facsimiles onto the page of really, really inaccurate lead sheets. sheets for tunes. Like, I was reading up that, like, sometimes they would even have the court symbols were really for, like, ukulele or something. So if it was like a, if it was like an A7 flat nine chord, it was written as like a C sharp diminished. So if you play piano, like, what are you

going to do? I know. And that stuff still, like, it made its way even into modern day lead sheet. I used to, I had one of those at one time. And it might have been like a copied version and then bounding in, but with those kind of charts. And that really, that's what first soured me to the whole real book, fake book kind of thing. I mean, I know they got a little bit better later, but I kind of saw the chronology, not in real time from the 40s and 50s, but I had one of those. Well, okay, so then there were all these different

fake books then between the 40s and on, and then in the 1970s, this group of students at Berkeley College of Music in Boston. Big shout out to Berkeley. And I should look this up, because some of them, I think there was like, you know, Steve Swallow was involved, I think. Yeah. I think so, because there was a lot of Steve

swallows. I didn't really know who he was. I remember when I first saw it. I was like, man, this guy is like, there's like equal number of Charlie Parker and Steve Swallow tunes in here. It was Steve Swallow Heavy, the first edition of that real book.

Yeah. But they, like this group of Berkeley students and teachers got together and basically made what we now know as the first volume of the real book. Right. And even that, though, notoriously had a ton of errors.

Yeah. In the melody and in the, yeah, I mean, like... Melody Harmon. I mean, that one was the one... Okay, well, sometimes they would sort of tell you why... Like, they would put the album that they took it from. So that would tell you if there was errors.

Like, Round Midnight is a famous one on there because it was the Miles Davis version of Round Midnight. So maybe it wasn't so much of an error, but it was not the original version from the composer, for sure. Yeah, and at least they gave you the version, so you could be like, okay, well, I'll check this out. But sometimes they list a couple albums, too, so you weren't really sure.

And sometimes they'd make mistakes off of them. that album anyway. For sure. Yeah. So, and then sometime in the, I think it was probably the mid-90s, somehow the publishers, I think it was probably Hal Leonard from my recollection. Do you remember the new real book? Do you remember those? Yeah, that was a little earlier. That was probably 80s. Was that 80s, late 80s?

Yeah. So the new real book was like finally it copyrighted, you didn't have to go to baton music and go to the back with the guy and then pay him 70 bucks for like a fake book. You could go to like, well, you could still go to baton. What was really hard is when they, before you got into the back, where they checked you for a wire and made you stripped down and check you for, oh, that didn't happen.

Didn't happen to me. Wow. I was there a couple of years before you. No, so, yeah, so they, you would start finding these copyrighted versions of the real book. And like, two, I think they were varying degrees of success. Like the first peach-colored new real book was all right. It was right. Aren't these the ones that they had like the B-flat version and the E-flat version?

Yeah, yeah. And the binding on it was much superior to the kind of Kinko's quick job that the real books were. It was, it was. So, yeah. And then now, man, now it's like. It's a free-for-all. It's I-reel-be. Yeah.

It's like all in your phone. Now, is that the same people? Because I'm not very familiar with that. I know about it. You don't have the I-reelby on your phone? I'm very, very excited that I do not have that. But is that, that's a legal thing? It is because it's just chord sheets.

It's not lead sheets. Oh, right. It is not, yeah, there's no melodies, which actually, I think it's all right. But it's got the name of the tunes and the composer? Yeah. I don't know if it has the composer. Yeah. I don't know.

Yeah. But it does have the name of the tunes. And then also it has like playalongs, you know, and you can pick your styles and all this stuff. But is it a problem now? And I haven't been on a lot of these gigs recently, but I've occasionally been on them or at least seen them where you've got some younger players that came up with the phone. attached to them, I guess. And, you know, somebody's like, let's play Satin'Dahl. And they're like, the bass

players just like, cool. Like, they think that they know every tune because they can pull it up even if it doesn't have the melody. And that's why you see, like, rhythm section players doing this. Like, we used to have to struggle and be like, either bring a real book or basically just like, whatever you knew is what you knew. Now we've got people

pretending like they know tunes because they can pull it up and even play because it transposes, right? It transposes for you. Yeah. So it's a little bit it's ultimately lazy I mean it really is the it's the pinnacle of laziness for musicians

and maybe that's why cats are not learning tunes like they used to probably I mean remember when we were learning like the real book was even frowned upon as far as like really learning the tune yeah you know and I think I mean in a certain extent that kind of stuff is always still there

so we can do our part right now to frown upon this for the younger generation let's frown okay so one of the things things I talk about in lead sheet breakdown, which will provide a link here in the episode description for, one of the things I talk about is how to approach a lead sheet, how to make the lead sheet your own. If you have a real book version of, say, something like autumn leaves, right? How do you, how much do you trust that real book version? Right. Where can you

verify it? Where can you come up with ideas that are probably closer to the original? So, obviously, go to the source. Is this just like entering the United States? say it's trust but verify that's right that's why they ask for a passport see to trust but verify yeah there should be a uh a tune passport uh autumn leaves might be a weird one because it's such a old weird french tune that's done like a million times it was probably like early early 20th century originally yeah in france i don't know even la france and then but like take a tune like um over the rainbow yeah right harold arlin uh if you go to the real book there's a bunch of weird chord changes probably ukulele changes.

And if you go to the film and listen to Judy Garland to sing it, you can hear exactly what the composer had in mind, you can hear some great orchestration. I forget the guy's name who orchestrated that on the film, but he was really, really good. Igor Stravinsky? It was not Stravinsky, no.

But it's super, you get all this information that's not in the real book. You get information like, what are the actual chord changes, what are the actual bass movements? Then you get things like the counter melodies that are like super important, You know, you get the viola parts and the clarinet parts

and the things that are happening under the melody. And you're probably not getting any crazy changes, though. You are not getting any crazy changes. Which is nice because I like this idea. I know that you talk about this some of the chorus is like, how do we decide, how do we build that up either ourselves and make that a style? Yeah.

Or how do we take things that have kind of become jazz conventions and have made it? Because, I mean, we always talk about jazz standards. They didn't start out as jazz standards. And for sure, Autumn leaves is a jazz standard. For sure, for sure. And somewhere over the rainbow, over the rainbow is just kind of like a big popular tune. Great American songbook standards.

And a little bit jazz standardy. But it's interesting these different levels as far as like how much harmonic freedom do we have. How much, I mean, ultimately it's whatever we want, but like how much do we take that's kind of become the standard jazz version of that tune, right? Yeah.

Yeah, totally. But those are decisions that can't be made unless you actually do some research to what the tune was originally. So you can see what the lead sheet that is in the real book has. You can hear the original and you can make some decisions based on maybe another recording, like a recording from another jazz musician who's played the tune. And then you can decide like, okay, I'm going to take this from the original. I'm going to take this from Miles's version.

And I'm going to make my own version. I'm going to add my own intro, maybe re-harm this part of it. You know, that's what in my experience is what I do. It's what you do. It's what pretty much all the, the, the pro. musicians I know do is not rely solely on one source for a tune. And then sometimes you, we can't discount word of mouth here either. I know. Because sometimes it's like, I, I might know Beatrice only from what Willie Aiken showed me. Right. You know what I mean? That's it.

We're a product of our environment. Yeah. Shame on me for not actually doing more research, but I trusted Willie that he would, you know what I mean? Yeah. So those kind of things are also important. But I feel like those kind of word of mouth things are an important part. I like those, and they're kind of become some regional things, too. Like, I know this from St. Louis and New Orleans and New York, kind of the three main places that I've lived, and you see the way musicians in those communities learn and play the same tunes. There is different little stylistic things, and sometimes they're purely stylistic, but oftentimes they are sort of changes the way that people play them.

It's not a right or wrong, but, you know, just from playing gigs together, and like you say, learning from older musicians, you learn it in that way. I think that that's a cool thing. I mean, you can have, like, we always talk about reference recordings, and I think that when we say that, maybe some people misinterpret that to mean, like, you have to play it that way. And to me, a reference recording is just like a version that you can learn it off of. Because I like to, you know, as much as possible, learn things by ear.

For sure. And encourage that. And so when you do that, it's almost like people, when they take the real book or a fake book or whatever, that's becoming your reference. So something is going to be your reference point. And if we're going to play it in a jazz style, you can't only use the original Judy Garland singing it because you're not going to play it just the way,

you're not going to sing it like that. Yeah, first of all, she sings it in A-flat, which is a terrible key on the piano for that tune. Right. So you're already doing some interpretation. But it's kind of like, and that's where I think a lot of times, for me, the reference recordings,

as much as, you know, how you could combine that with the lead sheet and how much you're going to use of that can be, you know, I don't know, Ella Fitzgerald, just because I love her singing. She always, I think, straddles the line nicely, between like she really could sing the songs the original way, but then gave them that jazz vibe.

For sure. Now, it always depended upon what the arrangement and stuff was around her. But in terms of like the melody, you're getting some interpretation, but you're really getting the words. You're getting the tune in a jazz style. So it kind of bridges that great American songbook over into jazz. Even if you're not learning to sing it, it's great to know the lyrics and to hear them and have that part of it.

So I've used that a lot of times as a reference. I think Frank Sinatra is really good in a similar way with that. Like, he's singing the song. song, but he's never like right down the middle, you know. Agreed. And so, but it really can be in it. I mean, Billy Howell, I mean, just really, whoever you like. Whoever's a good jazz singer is good at that kind of thing.

And I didn't mean to mock Miles, not Miles earlier, it's just that like if you're going to learn round midnight, I mean, if you're going to learn one of Miles's tunes or one of his music band's tunes. Yeah. Yeah, you go to Miles. And his version of round midnight is great, but he's already so heavily interpreted that that I think a little bit of a deeper dive into the Flonius Monk's original version with the form and the harmony and the intro and the intro and the whole thing. Right. His version is the way to go, you know. I mean, even if you think about, like, modern jazz standard, something like a Miles tune,

like if you think of blue and green, if you just approach that from the real book, first of all, some of those changes are not quite right. Right. Well, they're wrong. They are, yeah, by not quite right. I mean, they're completely wrong. But then also, you miss some of the coolest parts about that tune,

which is how it the time doubles at sections and then doubles again at the end, you know, all that stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The meter changes, like those little details, If you're just, I'll tell you right now, if you're like a young musician, a beginning musician wanting to get better at that, knowing those details when you go to a jam session

or when you get called for a gig with players who are a little more experienced with you, those go a long way as far as people, you know, expecting now you are like one of the players. Like you know your stuff and you don't just have this, you know, elementary real book version of this. Absolutely.

Well, this was fun. Please check out Open Studio Jazz. We're going to have a link in here for the new course, jazz piano basics, lead sheet breakdown. Check that out. We get way deep into this on that course. And the three tunes that you cover, correct me if I'm wrong here, autumn leaves, some over the rainbow. Yes.

And summertime. Summertime. That's right. Summertime is a good one because the real book version has a ton of nasty changes in there. That take away from like Gershwin's amazing orchestration of that. Right, right. Yeah. So you were, I think Autumn Leaves was the one you felt was closest to.

playable in the original that was in the real book. Yeah, when I checked some older recordings and some copyrighted versions, there wasn't that much difference. It's such a simple tune. Yeah. But summertime has some egregious errors. Over the Rainbow is kind of all over the place.

Trying to, like whoever did the real book version of Over the Rainbow, they tried to relay some counter melody information using chord changes and it just doesn't. You know when they do that? Like you'll see like, you know, G minor 7 and then E flat. Yeah. and then G minor and then G diminished. But all they really want to do is do a counter melody of F, E, flat, D, and D.

Like, that's what they did. And it's like, well, how does any of those supposed to know that without listening? You know what I mean? Like, this is a terrible way to communicate that. Right, right. So all of that stuff is worth investigating for sure. So since we're on the YouTube Live right now, too, Neil has a great comment. You rarely want to hear a standard played as standard.

Do you? No. I like that. That's great. Cool. Well, thanks to everybody here on YouTube Live. and our listeners not live. Yeah.

You got anything else in this, Pete? Well, no, I was just saying that's such a great comment to kind of appear. But Neil also says, I can't read lead sheets. I need I reel pro. Ha, ha, ha. So you've got kind of been ying and the yang. I like that. Neil's a bit of a joker.

Good stuff, good stuff. What else we got? That's it, man. That's it. Well, until tomorrow.