The Real Book: Sixth Edition
by Hal Leonard Corporation

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Book Reviews of The Real Book: Sixth Edition

Book Review: Finally!
Summary: 4 Stars

I haven't got any of the 'original' real books - and after trying to get hold of them for a while, I just noticed this one. The publishers have obviously tried to make it as close to the original as possible - at first glance this 'sixth edition' looks almost identical to the illegal 'fifth' edition. The main difference of course being that all the tunes in this one are licensed. There are a few new songs in this one than i've seen in the original, and there are a few that seem to be missing, but the contents page is very nearly identical to the old version. The tunes in this one seem to be much easier to read than the fifth edition (the 'inkpen' type look is actually from a computer rather than the tunes being handwritten), and for the price (about a third of the illegal editions) its great! Two things i noticed about it that annoyed me though are that (1) the spiral-bound type spine is a bit more awkward than the originals; and (2) the pages are more fragile than the original real books.

The only other issue I can think of is the compatibility with the other real books; the structures of tunes are pretty much identical in this book (although some of them have the intros written in as well), but all the illegal realbook mistakes have been corrected, so that could cause problems.

On the back page it says 'also available, volumes 2 and 3, and all volumes in C, Bb, and Eb' but I havent seen them yet. When they get released I will definately be buying the other 2 volumes as well, and probably the Bb editions for my trumpet playing!

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