Gig book

billyshakes

I'm glad you weighed in with that, stringswinger, because it looked like the copies I had seen before. I'm certain you are correct about the bootleg pdfs. I think that is one of the reasons why Michael isn't releasing Gypsy Rhythm Volumes 2 & 3, even though they are largely done. Greg Ruby released his long awaited Oscar Aleman book through a kickstarter campaign, thus assuring he'd at least break even. I imagine there are licensing costs for each of these standards. Even if they are only 50 cents a song, that quickly pushes the price on this to near $50 with printing costs, etc.

In discussion of the artwork in the book, I think all the caricatures were the work of Carolyn Ridsdale. She's the wife of Paul Meader, Robin's old bass player. That's certainly her artwork on the front and back of the books. They are nice, and I have a few prints of them hanging on my practice wall. She used to sell them from her website, and may still print them for those interested if you contact her.

https://carolynridsdale.com/

steffo

https://www.djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/comment/108525#Comment_108525

The latter are probably the parents of Josh Meader (?)

https://youtu.be/o3q3ADlA0pk

djangology

Question is: is Paul Meader willing to reprint it? Maybe not?

Stringswinger

Paul Meader and Robin Nolan may be on the outs with each other, which might create a legal obstacle for either of them to sell the gig book without the cooperation of the other. Googling Paul, it seems that he is playing in a trio with his children. In the biography of Paul on that site, Paul's affiliation with Robin is omitted. We can each come to our own conclusions about that. If I was part of the Robin Nolan Trio, I would be bragging about that for the rest of my days. IMO, Robin is truly one of the world's great guitar players.

https://www.rosiemeadertrio.com/about

djangology

I noticed that. Pauls son is a pretty good guitar player.

croth

https://www.djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/comment/108453#Comment_108453

I have to think about the "not cool" comment. If a book is out of print, there are no legitimate copies available anywhere and the author has seemingly no intentions of reprinting it and is no longer selling it, and since no one is being hurt economically, what's the harm in helping people who are looking for one? I'm sure I'm missing something.

wim

Wait what's bootleg about it anyway? Looks like a pre-owned original to me.

I am following Josh Meader for some time and never knew the connection with Paul Meader 🤯 Josh is prodigious, a "pretty good guitar player" is quite the understatement 😀

Stringswinger

Arguable, a tablet with Irealpro, the Django fakebook and perhaps igigbook (along with some other fakebooks) would supercede Robin's gig book these days.

Some of the tunes in Robin's gig book are not exactly Gypsy jazz standards, many important Gypsy jazz tunes are missing and having lead sheets with proper notation and more standardized tab would be very helpful as well.

That said, Robin's gig book served many of us well 15-20 years ago. Perhaps someone here can publish one of their own, offer it for sale and see how it goes?

bohemewarbler

When people new to Gypsy Jazz come to our twice-monthly jam in St. Louis and are interested in learning this style, I usually direct them to the Gig Book pdf because of the extensive repertoire and chord diagrams. This is a good way to learn the chord shapes in this style of music. For a wish list, I would like to see another like it with more chord shape variations in the diagrams and include the tunes that are more commonly called out in contemporary GJ jams, such as seen at Samoreau.

A few years back I implored Robin Nolan to reprint it, and he said he was hoping to do it. Alas, that has yet to happen.