[Harp-L] Jazz chromatic books-fake books

["sam blancato" <samblancato@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Somebody wrote : "Gimme a break, How much junk from the 40s and 30s
 and ...damm..even the 20s can a person stand. When is everyone
gonna get off the Ellington kick?"

I have to strongly disagree with you here, Bub.  There is a reason that
great jazz musicians keep going back to this material (and the 50s and 60s
too) and it isn't because they could study those songs in some fake book.
All that "junk" from the 40s and 30s etc. represents some of the best
popular song writing EVER.  Gershwin, Kern, Sammy Kahn, Billy Strayhorn,
Johnny Mercer, et al. wrote beautiful songs that great jazz musicians keep
coming back to over and over again because the songs have great structure,
basic simple sentiments that are timeless without being maudlin,  and are
loose enough and predictable enough to make them open for interpretation.
By predictable I mean that that "junk" usually follows certain rules of song
structure that make them accessible to both the listener and the player.  

When is everyone going to get off the Ellington Kick?  I guess when everyone
gets of this stupid Mozart/Bach/Brahms kick.  I jest.  What I'm saying is,
that is how good Ellington is; he's right up there with the great composers
down through history.  

Since you (who ever you are) seem to be so disdainful of the broad cannon of
popular songs that show up in fake books, maybe you could share with
everybody here the material you would like to see included in these books
that apparently isn't there now; this stuff that is not junk and is not
Ellington.   Prey, tell.

Sam Blancato, Pittsburgh