Episode 91, ‘Real Book ’Obscurities Part 1

The “Real Book”, Sixth Edition, is sort of like a ‘bible’ for beginning jazz students.  It consists of 400 jazz tunes, ranging from compositions written by jazz musicians to some of the great Broadway tunes that have become jazz standards.  It is the best selling jazz book of all time, and can be used by instrumentalists or singers looking for charts to provide their accompanists. Yet some of the tunes are pretty obscure—in the sense that not too many musicians and very few ‘audience’ members are familiar with them.    In this series I’m concentrating on those ones, playing either the ‘original’ recording of the tune, or a later version. As you listen to them, you’ll get an idea as to why some of the students who put together the original Real Book, or Hal Leonard, who did the latest revision, were inspired to include them. On today’s episode you’ll hear compositions by Stanley Cowell, Pat Metheny, Steve Swallow, Richard Rodgers, Wayne Shorter, John Lewis, Billy Strayhorn, Duke Ellington, and Gil Evans.