Positioning Chord Symbols and Rehearsal Marks for Jazz

[Fred G. Unn]

Nate Chinen writes extensively about the Real Book in his book Playing Changes from 2018. Here's a page from that chapter:

[John Ruggero]

Getting your first fake book was like a rite of passage for many young musicians and the nefarious part made it just that much more attractive.

Marsh Woodwinds! When were you in Raleigh, "Fred"?

[Fred G. Unn]

Marsh Woodwinds! When were you in Raleigh, "Fred"?

I went to Jordan High School in Durham and studied privately with Paul Jeffrey. Paul directed an "all-Triangle" selective jazz band for high school kids at Enloe high in Raleigh that I played in back then. I was probably 15 or so when I first made the band (couldn't drive yet) so Paul would pick me up and take me, and sometimes we'd go early to stop by Marsh Woodwinds to try out whatever they currently had in store. Rodney Marsh was always cool and let me try out mouthpieces, saxophones, whatever, I guess because Paul approved of me. Obviously since I had an "in" with Paul, Rodney sold me a Real Book without any hassle. I bought reeds, a few mouthpieces and a clarinet from him, and had him consign a Selmer saxophone for me at one point. I think he only took $200 to do it. Great guy!

I can't remember the name, but there was a jazz club on Glenwood Ave I think in Raleigh too back then (late 80s - early 90s). Paul didn't really mix with the local jazz scene much other than his own gig at Anotherthyme near Brightleaf Square in Durham, but a bass player (whose dad owned The Tuba Exchange back then) and I used to go sit in at that Raleigh club sometimes. I don't get back down there often, but the NC Music Educators Association brought me down to direct the Regional Jazz Band at Panther Creek High in Cary in January 2020, right before COVID shut everything down.

[David Ward]

I wonder if this use of ‘fake book’ and ‘real book’ is US only, or if it crossed to this side of the Atlantic. I never (knowingly) encountered it, but that doesn't mean it wasn't there.

[John Ruggero]

So two musicians discuss various music notation matters on the web for about 20 years before they (at least me) know that they both grew up in NC (except I was born in NYC and came down later) and went to high school a few miles apart (Broughton for me)! I love the internet!

There were also "fake cards" (my own name for them) which were index size cards with lead sheets on them. Judging from the copyright notices on the bottom of my father's, one could buy these legally, and keep them in a box for gigs. If someone requested a song you didn't know, you could just look it up and make up ("fake") an quick arrangement.

The point of the fake book system was that musicians who needed music to learn songs would have had spend a fortune to buy all the necessary sheet music. Apparently publishers turned a blind eye to fake books (for professionals only) because it was a necessary component in the industry. Later, publishers started producing their own legal fake books that one could buy openly.

David, there must have been a similar system elsewhere for the same reasons. Maybe someone out there knows about international fake books.

[Fred G. Unn]

I wonder if this use of ‘fake book’ and ‘real book’ is US only, or if it crossed to this side of the Atlantic. I never (knowingly) encountered it, but that doesn't mean it wasn't there.

I'm pretty sure it's universal as it's one of the primary ways jazz musicians (esp. beginning jazz musicians) learn tunes. Barry Kernfeld wrote an entire book on "fake books" a while back. I never bought it, but I imagine he would probably address how widespread the use of them were.
https://www.amazon.com/Story-Fake-Books ... 0810857278

Certainly now they are available virtually anywhere.

So two musicians discuss various music notation matters on the web for about 20 years before they (at least me) know that they both grew up in NC (except I was born in NYC and came down later) and went to high school a few miles apart (Broughton for me)! I love the internet!

Funny! I never knew you went to high school down there. I guess I just assumed you moved down later in life. We moved around a bit when I was a kid (born in Chapel Hill, then moved to Virginia, then elementary school years in Ohio) but moved back to NC when I was in 8th grade. After studying with Paul, I wanted to get out of there and move to NYC. (I'm now in NJ as NYC was too expensive once we had kids.)

There were also "fake cards" (my own name for them) which were index size cards with lead sheets on them. Judging from the copyright notices on the bottom of my father's, one could buy these legally, and keep them in a box for gigs..

One brand of legal ones were Tune-Dex cards. Plenty of illegal ones too of course.

[teacue]

I wonder if this use of ‘fake book’ and ‘real book’ is US only, or if it crossed to this side of the Atlantic. I never (knowingly) encountered it, but that doesn't mean it wasn't there.

Living in Germany I bought my copy in january 1981 (I wrote the date on the cover).
At this time and much earlier too, every musician playing jazz here used the Real Book.

[Fred G. Unn]

If anyone is interested, here are a few more paragraphs discussing the Real Book from Nate Chinen's book I mentioned earlier in the thread:

[bophead]

Typically a D11 would have a G appearing a minor ninth (or displaced by one or more octaves) above a F#, hence the 11th. Otherwise it would be C/D, Am7/D, D7sus, etc. It's not super common, but examples are found easily enough.

The pyramid in Charlie Barnet's Skyliner is a fairly well-known example (at least among arrangers) that arpeggiates straight up an Ab13 with a natural 11th (as opposed to #11)

You are of course right about the existence of a pure 11th chord with the third underneath. I only hear the top melody of “Skyliner” like this:

Skyliner Break.pdf

(30.82 KiB) Downloaded 156 times

That is an interesting way to write the stacking of the chord notes with one voice coming in after another. I would have written every lasting not again tied to the next chord. I have to figure out how to do that in Musescore ans Lilypond.

Side note: I was looking into archive.org’s shellac collection hoping to find a better recording, as they have FLACs there. Looking at the record label it struck me to find a reference to my hometown. From Charlie Barnet’s English wiki article:

“Skyliner”, arranged by Neal Hefti, was written as the theme music for the late 1940s US Armed Forces Network program “Midnight In Munich”, broadcast from the AFN station in Munich, Germany, and hosted by Ralph Moffat. Thanks to the station’s immensely powerful twin 100 kW transmitters, AFN Munich could be heard as far away as the UK; this, and the popularity of Moffat’s show, evidently helped “Skyliner” and many other contemporary American swing hits to gain wide popularity across Europe and become hits in the UK. The title […] may be a reference to the practice of American pilots flying into Munich who used the radio station’s powerful signal to home in on the city.

I have yet to check out the Ellington stuff.

Rethinking our speculations about the interpretation of 11th chords by T. Monk: He is known to have played clustery stuff trying to find the “notes between the cracks of the piano”. So why shouldn’t he have played a major third underneath an 11th? Or fourth and third in the same octave.

[bophead]

I know what rhythm slashes are and see them in the Monk part. My comment was in response to Fred comment about the D 11.

I should have thought twice. Of course you as a pro know what rhythm slashes are. Sorry, no offense intended.