The Real Book

The required book for my music history class, Ideas and Styles in the Western Musical Tradition, was astoundingly difficult to find.

My professor explained that the textbook has two editions. The first edition, found in many college music history curricula, was snagged by McGraw Hill, a printing company specializing in textbooks. As soon as it secured the copyrights, the publishing giant re-sized a few pictures, changed the cover art and printed an affluence of copies (as big name textbook companies do).

While it seemed like it would be profitable to reprint a textbook that several music departments use, McGraw Hill found that their tradition of producing a gazillion copies was vastly in excess of the universities' demand for it. The now out-of-print book provides students with a headache when searching for it in addition to its extremely boring content.

This past break, I bought The Real Book, which is basically a compendium of jazz standards, in its sixth edition. Being familiar with the fifth edition, I was surprised to find that the reissue omitted several important pieces ("On Green Dolphin St.", "I Got Rhythm"). Those publishers... They never realize that some things work well as they are.

Have a Nice Day,
Matthew