book review - Complete Django: The Ultimate Djangos Book

TimmyHawken

I just got this book: Complete Django: The Ultimate Djangos Book. It's awesome!

This book has just about every song (82 of them) written by Django with a few exceptions. The songs are listed in chronological order from the first time they were recorded. Each song has at least two pages of notation, tab and chord shapes. The tabbed and notation inludes: intros, melodies, and outros; no solos are tabbed or scored. Every song also includes a brief paragraph stating when the song was recorded as well as some history.

The chord shapes for the songs are very interesting from my perspective. Almost all of them are different from what I've learned to use in the songs. It's really fun going back over the ones that I already know and seeing how my style compares with what is probably the way django's rythem players played.

For me this is the best book that I've purchased thus far, but it does not go over picking or rythem techniques nor does have an audio CD or DVD that goes with it (if that's what your looking for) it's just a straight Django songbook, and a great one.

Tim

Klezmorim

I'm curious. You say the chord shapes are different than those you've learned previously. Are the chords printed in this book the "standard" shapes you'd find in, say, a Mel Bay chord dictionary or are they gypsy-style chords?

Could you provide a couple of examples?

Jazzaferri

Does Michael have it?

MichaelHorowitz

Jazzaferri wrote: »

Does Michael have it?

http://www.djangobooks.com/Item/complete-django-special-edition

Joli Gadjo

This book is a great resource as it offers transcription not only of the head as played by Django, but also of the harmony played by the clarinet or the violin.
A great example is the intro for Djangology, that exists no where else...

Jazzaferri

I know what I want for my birthday....

wim

I've got this book too, it's a good book my favourite thing is the reference on each song of how many times django recorded the tune, where and when, and usually a few other snippets of trivia. Some of the transcriptions are a bit off though.