Where to find standards

Tommasino

What is a good printed source for your classic 1930's swing standards (e.g. Avalon, Paper Moon, Moonglow, Dinah, Whispering, The Man I love, etc.)? I am looking for a book (or series) that contains:

~ Original melody line with lyrics

~ Original key

~ Original chords (whether they are displayed as a piano score or guitar chords or symbols)

~ Original version, with no anachronistic chord forms or other "revisions."

I have tried the US Army's Hit Kit series from the 1940's but the songs I listed are few and far between.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Jack

Tommasino wrote:

~ Original chords (whether they are displayed as a piano score or guitar chords or symbols)

How 'original' exactly do you want them? It seems like a lot of the chord boxes used on the originals are way off the mark when compared with what was generally played by working musicians. Are you planning to use them to recreate old arrangements?

Some of what you're looking for seems to be included in the Jazz Bible Fake Book series from Hal Leonard (specifically the first volume-Ragtime & Early Jazz). Alternate, more 'modern' chords are generally included in italics. And as always, check your local library...

Best,
Jack.

Tommasino

Jack,

Thank you for the informative reply.

As for the originality of chords, I meant an edition that maintains the character of the chords in tune with the era and not with later jazz tastes (e.g. keeping all M6 chords M6 instead of turning them into M7).

The use I intend for this book is just to familiarize myself with the original melodies, and to have a readily-available and accurate reference for the chords and the original key, the intros, etc.

How does the Hal Leonard collection stack up in this regard? I've seen mixed reviews on Amazon.

Tom

trumbology

I think a general fakebook discussion would be useful--folks reporting on what they've got and what should be avoided.

I would venture a guess that fakebook publishers don't see much of a market in presenting tunes as close to original as possible, but, to the contrary, are trying to satisy gigging Straight Ahead players.

Jonathan Stout is quite articulate in defining the differences in classic Swing and contemporary Straight Ahead playing here:

http://swingguitar.blogspot.com/2005/08 ... oblem.html

Jonathan himself is quite the student of Swing (actually, as leader of his Campus Five, he is more than a student, but you get my meaning...)

I happened to email Jonathan the other day about what he thinks would constitute a "canon" of swing.

I Haven't heard back from him, but I'm hoping to . I know he reads the U.K. forum; not sure if he checks in here or not. You out there, Jonathan?

I bet Jonathan has spent a good deal of time thinking about charts, comparing harmonies, etc., and would have an opinion worth hearing on this question.



I'm curious if original sheet music editions of songs, which I believe were mostly aimed at parlor piano-playing amateurs, are reliable indicators of what the composers intended.

And speaking of the composers, while sheet music sales were probably lucrative for all of them, the Gershwins, Rodgers, Kerns, and Porters weren't just writing for the sheet music and vaudeville/touring orchestra trade in the way the Tin Pan Alley composers were.

The big names were often writing for specific scenes in movies and Broadway shows with specific orchestral requirements in mind. They may have overseen or authorized sheet-music piano reductions, or they may not have wanted to bother with it personally ('Just bother me when the royalty check comes').



So take a song like Irving Berlin's 'Cheek to Cheek.'

Do we have to compare a fakebook (or three) against the original sheet music edition, and then against the soundtrack of the movie "Top Hat"?

I'm not a musicologist or a professional musician, so I don't really know much about how either determines what a song's "real" changes are.

(Some would argue, in Irving Berlin's case, that he didn't even know what the real changes were, because he never really learned to play piano--he had that weird transposing piano that allowed him to only play in one key--and he relied on arranger assistants to help him put harmonies behind the melodies he came up with).

Hope the great minds around here will weigh in. If nothing else, a concise guide to simplifying fakebook changes to meet our needs (both in terms of chords per bar and genre-appropriate harmony, a can of worms in itself) would be great.

Neil

Tommasino

Hey, Neil, that was a great post, and thank you for the link.

I wholeheartedly agree with you that there needs to be a discussion on what to require in a fakebook for the pre-bebop style. I guess one of the reasons why it hasn't happened is because 1930's swing is only seldom looked at as a "classical" style worthy of being cultivated and imitated on its own merits.

One of the golden finds for me was to obtain my father's own fakebook - handwritten, from the mid-40's. All the rhythmic and chordal indications seem to be 100% in style with what I hear in the records from a decade before - but I am a relative greenhorn, so my saying so doesn't necessarily mean much.

Still, it would be nice to see a definitive and "philological" printed standard for this growing community.

Tom

Barengero

Hi Tommasino
Try to find original sheets of music on ebay! I am looking there for old german tunes that are related to Gypsy Swing Music like "Bei Dir war es immer so schön", "Erzähl mir keine Märchen", "Halt mal die Sonne an" and so on. You can find such stuff here and there on ebay and usually it is not too expensive.

Best,
Barengero

Jack

Tommasino wrote:

Jack,

Thank you for the informative reply.

As for the originality of chords, I meant an edition that maintains the character of the chords in tune with the era and not with later jazz tastes (e.g. keeping all M6 chords M6 instead of turning them into M7).

The use I intend for this book is just to familiarize myself with the original melodies, and to have a readily-available and accurate reference for the chords and the original key, the intros, etc.

How does the Hal Leonard collection stack up in this regard? I've seen mixed reviews on Amazon.

Tom

Hi Tom,

I've found the Leonard books pretty good for melodies, though you'll probably need to listen to canonical recordings for any slurs that have become standard. The chord nomenclature sometimes includes too many maj7s for my taste, and some more modern ii-V changes where the sound of the era was only the V. That said, it's still much closer than your average Real Book. With a little harmonic knowledge, it's very easy to 'trim down' the harmony to what you're after. (I haven't run into much trouble with the keys in the H.L. books.) For my money, it's easier, and, in the end, more instructive, to do it on my own. You'll end up with a fakebook your son will get someday!

You might also check out Jonathan's post about swing era changes-he goes into a lot of what I mentioned above, using All of Me as an example.
http://swingguitar.blogspot.com/2005/07 ... rmony.html

Best,
Jack.

Tommasino

Jack,

Thanks for the link and the sound advice.

Tom