A Guided Musical Tour Through Jazz History
This third volume of the Real Easy Book series presents the whole 125-year history of jazz in one book. Each era starts with a page or two of the historical context so that the songs that follow are approached with an authentic feeling.
As jazz educators our job is; a) to expose our kids to the wide world of jazz; b) to help them to enjoy learning how to improvise; and c) to help them discover the particular kind of jazz that will inspire them the most.
This fake book will help you achieve all three of these goals more than any other single publication available!
We’ve included easy, but timeless, tunes from all eras: Trad Jazz,The Swing Era, Classic Bebop, West Coast Jazz, The Blue Note Era, Contemporary Jazz, “Groove” Jazz, Afro-Cuban and Brazilian Jazz.
Educational material - Page 2 of each tune includes all the information you might need to write out for you students as a band director:
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Scales for Soloing
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Piano Voicings
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Complete chorus of a Sample Bass Line
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Guitar Diagrams, and more!
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Educational material developed in conjunction with Stanford Jazz Workshop. It works!
Special Features
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Each era includes both beginning and intermediate level tunes.
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Features 5-10 tunes from each historical era of jazz. The wide variety of styles included means that every jazz combo will be able to find exactly the material that fits their needs.
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Separate horn harmonies parts for some of the Trad Jazz tunes (to give that authentic Dixieland feeling)
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Many extras — like sample drum grooves, sample comping patterns, a Mark Levine essay on using scales and chords, a complete discography, great photos, etc.
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Tune selection includes a generous helping of “non-swing” tunes to help younger players gain a foothold into jazz.
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The short histories in front of each section describe each era and its musical innovations, in addition to discussing the contributions of each era to the evolution of the music.
The end result is a multi-dimensional teaching tool that will keep band directors and their students smiling all year long!
Spiral-bound, 200 pages, Table of Contents.
Sample Pages:
Endorsements:
“This is exactly what I have been looking for for 35 years. This is great stuff - instant jazz combo! The results we have gotten from The Real Easy Book already are fabulous and suddenly lots of kids are not afraid of jazz and improvisation anymore. Thank you!”
— John Herdan
“The Real Easy Book has become the backbone of our jazz program. One obvious benefit is collecting tunes of a similar difficulty level at a price that students can afford. Even more important is the format. The facing page of supplementary materials gives the students the tools they need when they need them. This semester's introductory jazz class achieved a much higher level than in any previous year. I credit The Real Easy Book for that!”
— Will Parsons
“I cannot begin to tell you how perfect these books have been. I use the more difficult songs for my high school students, and have my 5th and 6th-graders play "St. James Infirmary" and "When The Saints Go Marching In." The scales make soloing a much less daunting process, the piano chords work great for comping and for instrumental backgrounds, but the most brilliant thing of all is having bass lines all written out. Thanks again for making such a perfect teaching tool.”
— Andrew Frappier
