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Roman Mars. Since

1:53

the mid 1970s, almost every jazz musician

1:56

has owned a copy of the same

1:58

book. It has a peach- colored

2:00

cover, a chunky 70s style

2:02

logo, and black plastic binding.

2:05

It is delightfully homemade looking, like it

2:07

was printed by a bunch of teenagers

2:09

at Kinko's. And inside

2:11

is the sheet music for

2:13

hundreds of common jazz tunes,

2:15

also known as jazz standards,

2:18

all meticulously notated by hand.

2:20

It's called the real book.

2:23

When I started playing jazz, I remember the first

2:25

thing my guitar teacher said was, well,

2:28

you gotta buy a real book. Best

2:30

producer, Mikkel McAvana. Everybody

2:32

had one. It just felt like something you

2:34

were expected to own if you were a

2:36

serious musician. My high school jazz teacher,

2:38

Mr. Leonard, had stacks of real books on his desk,

2:41

and he told me that he actually got his first

2:43

real book at the place where they were originally published,

2:46

Berkeley College of Music in Boston. He

2:48

had just arrived for his freshman year. I

2:51

heard people talking about the real book, the real book.

2:53

It was just all around Berkeley. They were everywhere. You

2:55

were told when you had an ensemble, bring a real

2:57

book. We're gonna do some tunes at that event. But

3:01

pretty quickly, Mr. Leonard discovered that the real

3:03

book wasn't like the other books he needed

3:05

to get for his classes. You couldn't just

3:07

buy a copy in the campus bookstore. There

3:10

was a guy who used to stand

3:12

on the corner of Mass Ave near

3:14

Boylston Street, and he had a box, and he

3:16

would sit there, and he'd just, hey, want to buy a

3:18

real book? Want to buy a real book? That kind of thing. From

3:21

Mr. Leonard's description, this guy basically sounded like

3:23

he wandered out of a ZZ Top concert.

3:25

You know, jeans, really, really long, like,

3:28

mid-back level hair, big beard. And

3:30

as I understood it, he used

3:32

to get arrested about once every

3:35

two weeks. He would get arrested because

3:37

the real book was illegal. The

3:40

world's most popular collection of jazz

3:42

music was a totally unlicensed publication.

3:45

A janky, self-published book created

3:47

without permission from music publishers

3:49

or songwriters. It was duplicated

3:51

at photocopy shops and sold on street corners,

3:53

out of the trunks of cars, and under

3:55

the table at music stores, where people used

3:58

secret code words to make the exchange. The

4:00

full story about the real book

4:03

came to be this bootleg Bible

4:05

of jazz is a complicated one.

4:07

It's a story about what happens

4:09

when an insurgent improvisational art form

4:11

like jazz gets codified and becomes

4:13

something you can learn from a

4:15

book. Barry

4:19

Kernfeld is a musicologist who's written a lot about

4:21

the history of jazz and music piracy. He's

4:23

also a saxophonist, and at a coffee shop

4:25

gig in the 1990s, he was opening

4:27

his real book. And I started wondering,

4:29

well, we're reading all these

4:31

tunes and learning to play, and where did the book come

4:33

from? Kernfeld says

4:35

that long before the real book ever came

4:38

out, jazz musicians were relying on collections of

4:40

music they called fake books. And

4:42

the story of the first fake book begins in

4:44

the 1940s. A

4:46

man named George Goodwin in

4:49

New York City involved heavily in radio

4:51

in the early 1940s

4:54

was getting a little frustrated with all

4:56

the intricacies of

4:59

tracking, licensing. And

5:01

so he invented this thing that he

5:03

called the tune decks. The tune decks

5:05

was an index card catalog designed for

5:07

radio station employees to keep track of

5:09

the songs they were playing on air.

5:12

On one side, the cards had information

5:14

about a particular song. The composer,

5:17

the publisher, these things

5:19

you would need to know for paying

5:21

right. And on the other

5:23

side, they had a few lines of bite-sized

5:25

sheet music, just the song's melody, lyrics, and

5:27

chords, so that radio station employees could glance

5:30

at it and quickly recall the song. But

5:33

this abbreviated musical notation also made

5:35

the cards useful to another group

5:37

of people, working jazz

5:40

musicians. As

5:43

a black art form, jazz had developed out

5:45

of a mix of other black music traditions,

5:47

including spirituals in the blues. By

5:49

the 40s, a lot of jazz was popular

5:52

dance music, and many jazz musicians were making

5:54

their money playing live gigs in small clubs

5:56

and bars. The standard jazz repertoire

5:58

was mostly well-known songs. songs from

6:00

Broadway or New York songwriting factory

6:02

Tin Pan Alley, like the

6:04

song Night and Day by Tin Pan

6:06

Alley legend Cole Porter. Jazz

6:17

musicians would riff and freestyle over these

6:19

songs. That's always been a key part

6:21

of jazz, the art of improvisation. But

6:24

what made the average gigging trumpeter or

6:26

sax player truly valuable was their ability

6:28

to play any one of hundreds of

6:30

songs right there on the spot. In

6:33

the 1940s, people are working

6:35

steadily as musicians playing piano

6:37

in nightclubs or playing in

6:40

a small group in nightclubs, fulfilling requests.

6:42

You know, the cliche of the drunken

6:44

guy at the egg, and you play

6:47

I left my heart in San Francisco.

6:50

To be prepared for any drunken request,

6:52

musicians would bring stacks and stacks of

6:54

sheet music to every gig. But

6:56

lugging around a giant pile of paper

6:58

was really cumbersome. And that's

7:00

where the tune decks came in. And someone

7:03

figured out that you could gather a

7:05

bunch of tune decks cards, print copies

7:07

of them on sheets of paper, add

7:09

a table of contents in a simple

7:11

binding, and then sell the finished product

7:13

directly to musicians in the form of

7:15

a book. They called them

7:17

fake books because they helped musicians fake

7:20

their way through unfamiliar songs. These

7:22

first fake books were cheaper than regular sheet

7:24

music and a lot more organized. And

7:27

they became an essential tool for this

7:29

entire class of working musicians. And

7:31

then they could bring that to gigs

7:34

instead of having to crawl through piles

7:36

of sheet music and try to keep

7:38

each individual sheet in alphabetical order. What

7:40

a nightmare. You have your

7:42

bound little book of 300 tunes

7:45

or 500 tunes or a thousand

7:47

tunes. And that became

7:50

the first popular music fake

7:52

book. Musicians

7:54

love these new fake books, but the

7:56

music publishers, not so much. They wanted

7:59

musicians to buy their sheet music.

8:01

And so the publishing companies started

8:03

cracking down on fake book bootleggers.

8:06

The music publishers did everything they

8:08

could, FBI investigations and federal trials,

8:10

in order to suppress this new

8:13

way of distributing music. But

8:15

that didn't stop the bootleggers. And by the

8:18

1950s, there were countless illegal fake books in

8:20

existence, which were being used in nightclubs all

8:22

across the country. But as

8:24

helpful as fake books were, they

8:26

had a lot of problems. They were

8:29

notoriously illegible and confusingly laid out.

8:31

It can't be stressed enough how

8:33

deficient the old fake books were

8:36

in this regard, how impossible to

8:38

read, and how stupidly misrepresented they

8:40

were on the page. Steve

8:43

Swallow is a jazz musician and an all-around

8:45

good guy. A swell guy.

8:47

I always like to be thought

8:49

of as a swell guy. I'm

8:51

a bass player and I write

8:54

tunes. That's the salient

8:56

fact of my life. Starting

8:59

off as a young jazz musician in

9:02

the 1950s, Swallow played at clubs and

9:04

dances and weddings and bar mitzvahs. And

9:07

for a lot of these gigs, he relied on

9:09

these poorly designed fake books. Working

9:11

on jazz music seriously, one

9:14

of the first things I did was to

9:16

buy a fake book. And

9:18

so we're just vexing and

9:21

badly, badly written. The

9:23

other big problem with these fake books at

9:25

this point was that the music inside felt

9:27

really out of date. The

9:30

fake books hadn't changed since the

9:32

mid-40s, but jazz had. Disillusioned by

9:34

commercial jazz that appealed to mainstream white

9:36

audiences, a new generation of black musicians

9:38

took jazz improvisation to a new level,

9:41

experimenting with more angular harmonies,

9:43

technically demanding melodies and blindingly

9:45

fast tempos. Their new

9:47

style was called Bebop. That

9:54

was Bebop

9:56

legend Charlie Parker. And Bebop was just

9:58

the beginning. Then came hardbop

10:01

and modal jazz spearheaded by Miles

10:03

Davis. Then

10:08

you hit the wild dissonant free jazz of

10:10

people like Orenette Coleman. And

10:16

the electrified jazz fusion of Herbie

10:18

Hamptons. By

10:29

the 1970s jazz had exploded

10:31

into this constellation of different styles.

10:34

Meanwhile, the economics of jazz had shifted

10:36

too. There were fewer clubs

10:38

and smaller paychecks. University

10:41

jazz programs also started popping up

10:43

around this time, providing steady teaching

10:45

gigs to establish musicians. And increasingly

10:48

the ivory tower became a place

10:50

for young musicians to learn. And

10:53

if you're going to jazz school, you need jazz books.

10:56

But the fake books at the time

10:58

hadn't kept up with the music. They

11:00

still contained the same old-fashioned collection of

11:03

standards with the same old-fashioned collection of

11:05

chord changes. So if

11:07

a young jazz musician wanted to try and play

11:09

like Charles Mingus or Sonny Rollins, they weren't going

11:11

to learn from a book. That

11:13

is, until two college kids invented the

11:15

real book. I

11:19

don't want to overemphasize

11:21

my role in it,

11:24

which was minor. But I

11:26

knew the guys. In the

11:28

mid-70s, Steve Swallow began teaching at Boston's Berklee

11:30

College of Music, an elite private music school

11:33

that boasted one of the first jazz performance

11:35

programs in the country. Swallow

11:37

had only been teaching at Berklee for a few

11:39

months when two students approached him about a secret

11:41

project. I keep referring

11:43

to them as the two guys who wrote the

11:46

book because way back when, they

11:48

swore me to secrecy. They made me

11:50

agree that I would not divulge their

11:52

names. The Two

11:54

guys wanted to make a new fake

11:56

book, one that actually catered to the

11:58

needs of contemporary music. the jazz musicians

12:00

and reflected the current state of jazz.

12:03

An immediate Steve South that's how they

12:05

trudged. Or Prince said that they wanted

12:07

to read a fake Both The Dead:

12:09

That would actually be useful to an

12:11

eighteen year old person who wanted to

12:13

become a job is isn't as a

12:15

long time user have some pretty horrible

12:17

fake books. He was excited. He thought

12:19

that a modern, well made jazz fake

12:21

book would be an essential improvement for

12:23

his students. Then. Adidas. The

12:25

that was part of my initial

12:27

response to the their pets. Oh

12:29

I thought jesus why didn't I

12:31

think of this. But.

12:34

He was also torn. She. Knew the

12:36

students couldn't possibly pay licensing fees for all the

12:38

songs they want to include. So. He

12:40

had to decide whether helping them with the right thing to do.

12:43

Because clearly. Their

12:46

intention was to break the laws.

12:49

They. Would also be selling a book filled with

12:51

other people's music. But in.

12:53

The End: Swallow decided that the need for a

12:55

good just fake book was so great that it

12:57

was worth it. And. He agreed to help.

13:00

Swallow in. The students were going to make

13:02

a fake books that would actually be useful

13:04

to a young person trying to play jazz.

13:06

A real or fake book. A

13:09

real book. From.

13:11

The very beginning, the students envisioned the real

13:14

book as a cooler and more contemporary fake

13:16

book than the stodgy outdated once they'd grown

13:18

up with. The. Wanted to

13:20

include new songs from modern jazz

13:22

musicians were pushing the boundaries of

13:25

the genre. I also wanted to

13:27

include the old jazz standards from

13:29

Broadway and Tin Pan Alley, but

13:31

they wanted the update those classic

13:34

with alternate chord changes that reflected

13:36

the way that modern musicians like

13:38

Miles Davis or actually played. The

13:40

Miles Davis was so central savior

13:43

and in all of those and

13:45

and will see kind of it

13:47

Exhumed doesn't suddenly sales of Tin.

13:49

Pan Alley series and he

13:51

and and his side moon

13:54

notably is T in His

13:56

Head. Smooth. the harmonies

13:58

the inertia in a way that that became

14:00

definitive. One of

14:02

those standard tunes is Someday My Prince Will

14:04

Come, a song from the

14:06

1937 Disney movie musical Snow White.

14:09

Here's the original. ["Snow White"] And

14:25

here's the Miles Davis version from 1961, the

14:28

version that the students decided to put in the real

14:30

book. It's the same song, but

14:32

listen to how different how complex

14:34

the pure sound when played by pianist William

14:37

K. Modern

14:48

jazz musicians had altered a lot of classic standards

14:50

in this way over the years. And

14:52

to capture these sophisticated alternate chord

14:54

changes, the two students spent hours

14:56

listening to recordings and transcribing what

14:59

they heard, as best they could.

15:02

It was a huge undertaking because most of

15:04

these chord changes had never actually been written

15:06

down. They weren't necessarily

15:08

thinking about it like this at the

15:10

time, but the students were effectively establishing

15:13

a new set of standardized harmonies for

15:15

a handful of classic songs. But

15:18

the music wasn't the only part of their

15:20

new fake book that the two students wanted

15:22

to improve. They also wanted to fix the

15:25

aesthetic problems with the old fake books and

15:27

make something that was nice to look at

15:29

and easy to read. One of

15:31

the two guys had

15:33

a gorgeous music hand

15:37

the way he formed his quarter notes and his

15:39

eighth notes and all of that. It was lovely.

15:42

And his role in

15:44

the book, among other things, he

15:46

did all the actual penmanship. It's

15:48

one guy who wrote the entire

15:50

book. He notated all

15:53

of the music by hand in this

15:55

very distinctive and expressive script. He

15:57

Also designed and silkscreened the logo on the front

15:59

cover. Just. The words. The Real

16:01

Book. Written. In chunky

16:04

Schoolhouse Rock style block

16:06

letters. And. Holding everything together

16:08

with a plastic bindings and let

16:10

the book easily lie flat on

16:12

a music stand. For

16:15

the summer of Nineteen Seventy Five, the book

16:17

with and the students took it to local

16:20

photocopying shops where they crank out hundreds of

16:22

copies to sell directly to other students and

16:24

a few local businesses near Berkeley. There.

16:27

Was a corner store called the

16:29

Bentley Smoker which was not of

16:31

are not a music shop it

16:33

was just everybody smoked marijuana cigarettes

16:35

store and beneath the counter was

16:38

a stack of real books and

16:40

almost overnight everybody had to have

16:42

one. Including my

16:44

old jazz teacher Mister Leonard. He bought a copy

16:46

of the real book from that guy with the

16:49

long hair on Matthaus on Massenet's i think it

16:51

was twenty bucks which was still sleep at that

16:53

point. the know bleed mile a day but that's

16:55

what you needed have like. minus google kinda.

16:59

Like I used to more than some of

17:01

my by of textbooks or Glass Roof is

17:03

mainly use it with other students in late

17:05

night jam sessions and the practice rooms. Anybody

17:07

can go in inflation and corsair a lot

17:09

of and feathers a big school and if

17:11

you watch it with your books he couldn't

17:13

participate when and be a part of it.

17:15

Mr. Leonard says the real book helped everyone

17:17

get on the same page really quickly and

17:19

Steve Swallow noticed the still. Before.

17:21

The real the came out used to walk by

17:23

the practice rooms and here students mangling the chord

17:25

changes to all of these jazz tunes. And

17:28

all of a sudden Murray More

17:30

came along and I was making

17:32

this the same walk and and

17:34

hearing the right changes to I

17:36

Love You In the Right Changes

17:38

to My Funny Valentine or whoa

17:41

This is the remarkable. As.

17:43

The Real Books notoriety grew. so did

17:45

the demand. The to students

17:47

had printed enough copies to keep up. But.

17:50

It turns out they didn't need to. Not

17:52

long after they publish, you

17:55

know, a few hundred photocopied

17:57

versions of bespoke somebody else.

18:00

Photo Gabi to Bork and started

18:02

selling it and then copies of

18:04

the coffee's we're sending out to

18:06

New York City and L A

18:08

and and beyond to Berlin and

18:11

Shanghai and so on. The.

18:13

Real Books had taken on a life

18:15

of it's own, and a students ironically

18:17

found themselves in the same position as

18:19

the music publishers and some miners. The

18:21

data recently cut out of the process

18:23

as they watched unlicensed copies of their

18:25

work get duplicated and sold. And of

18:28

course, they were in no position to

18:30

to yell about. Were

18:32

gonna add a just shake their heads. After

18:37

they release the first edition of the Real the

18:39

the students put out to more additions to correct

18:41

mistakes and and their work is done. But.

18:43

The real book lived on. Copied over

18:46

and over again by new generations

18:48

of bootleggers. Steve. Swallow

18:50

doesn't take the copyright issue lately, but

18:52

he thinks the wheel book was a

18:54

net positive for the composer's featured inside,

18:57

and he would now, since he's one

18:59

of them. When. He agreed to

19:01

help the students. Swallow actually donated a bunch of

19:03

his own songs. He figured it would benefit him

19:05

in the long run if more young people were

19:07

exposed to his music. They might even

19:09

record a cover some day, which would bring him

19:12

royalties. And to be fair, the real book is

19:14

actually how I learned to. Steve Swallow was. I

19:16

think good to this day my my

19:19

songs are are are playing to the

19:21

extent that they are. Chiefly.

19:24

Because they were available in the in

19:26

the real book, it's for know a

19:28

blessing. And is the

19:30

number of students and elite conservatory

19:33

jazz programs continued to swell of

19:35

the next few decades. The real

19:37

books with this modern repertoire we

19:39

harmonize standards and beautiful handwriting became

19:41

the de facto textbooks for this

19:44

new legion of jazz students. The

19:46

unofficial officially a chance. Just.

19:51

Like whittled fake books, the success of the

19:53

real book was a major problem for music

19:55

publishers. Some. Companies release their own chess

19:57

on bucks, but they never managed to compete.

20:00

The real book. It couldn't compete with the real

20:02

bought because it just didn't have all the write

20:04

songs. And at this is Jeff sure it'll he's

20:06

an executive at How Leonard a Print Music Publishing

20:08

company. You know the real book was illegal

20:10

so they didn't care about licensing and they just

20:12

for all the best songs and depending on which

20:15

wasn't or thing to do but obviously from a

20:17

competitive standpoint it's they had the best book out

20:19

of the gate. And. The popularity of

20:21

the Real book meant that lots of people

20:23

were getting paid for their work. That.

20:25

Is until Jeff's Rachel decided to

20:27

make a legal version the real

20:29

real book Yet I said hey

20:31

what? We published Jazz fake books

20:33

and Jazz lead seeds and Jazz

20:36

publications of all all kinds. And

20:38

you know yet, the real book

20:40

is still the books and gonna

20:42

wanna! We just published the real,

20:44

bought legally. In

20:46

the mid two thousand Jeff's rate on

20:48

the publisher. How Leonard secured the right

20:50

to almost every song in the real

20:52

book and published a completely legal version.

20:55

You don't need to buy the real

20:57

book out of the back of someone's

20:59

car anymore. It's available at your local

21:01

music shops. And to me the striking

21:03

thing about this new version is the

21:05

way that it looks. We didn't want

21:07

to make the hell hundred corporate real

21:09

bought wanted to maintain that's sort of

21:11

homespun underground. Look at the one of

21:14

the same card stock, the one of

21:16

the same low though, one of the

21:18

same binding, and they even wanted the

21:20

same handwriting. How Leonard actually hired a

21:22

copy of to mimic the old Real

21:24

Books iconic script. And turn it

21:26

into a digital. which means a digital

21:28

copy of a physical copy of one

21:31

anonymous Berkeley students handwriting from the mid

21:33

seventies will continue to live on for

21:35

as long as new additions of the

21:37

book or published. When.

21:44

How Leonard finally published the legal version of

21:46

the real book in two thousand and four.

21:48

It was great news if you were a

21:50

composer with a song in their it finally

21:53

beginning royalties from the sales of the most

21:55

popular book of jazz music in the world.

21:57

But. That didn't totally solve the into.

22:00

Ritual Property problems with the Real Book. And.

22:02

To understand why not, we're going to take a look

22:04

at one of the songs inside. It's. Called

22:06

Sophisticated Lady and it's on page three hundred

22:08

seventy six of the How Leonard Real Book.

22:11

Sophisticated. Lady was first recorded

22:13

by the legendary pianist Duke Ellington

22:15

and his band in Nineteen Thirty

22:17

Three, A trombonist and Ellington's band

22:19

named Lawrence Brown had the signature

22:21

refunding. Like to play. And

22:23

if you listen to the beginning of

22:25

Sophisticated Lady, you hear it. It's the

22:28

Milky. Here's

22:39

Lawrence Brown talking with journalists Patricia

22:41

Willard. Wrote the disputed

22:43

rated. Everybody

22:45

jumps in and helps out but

22:47

to mainly. I had

22:50

a theme that I played Marla

22:52

Time, what's in the first eight

22:54

bars. That was a basic tune

22:56

of Sophisticated Lady. But the.

22:59

According to brown, Ellington paid him

23:01

fifteen dollars for his contribution to

23:03

the phone. And

23:06

I got the terrific check. For

23:09

fifteen dollars for

23:11

this indicates the

23:13

right even dedicated

23:15

lady. Ah. Now

23:18

I have you ever gotten are

23:20

composed of run. Know now

23:23

that checked cancer the app.

23:25

That means a brown wasn't

23:27

legally entitled to a songwriter

23:29

credit or worth tix. Even

23:31

know he contributed one of

23:33

the songs most recognizable elements.

23:37

I was quite abundant. As

23:41

music. But

23:43

brown. Thought that Sophisticated Lady wouldn't even

23:46

exist without his signature melody, and that

23:48

Ellington took credit for writing a song

23:50

that he merely arranged. i

23:54

told him i don't consider

23:56

you a composer you are

23:58

a compiler to

24:00

which his ego boiled

24:03

over. Ironically, one person

24:05

who did get co-writing credits on

24:07

Sophisticated Lady was Duke Ellington's white

24:09

manager Irving Mills. What

24:11

exactly Mills contributed is debated, but it's

24:14

clear that he used his power to

24:16

get his name on many of Ellington's

24:18

songs and reap more royalties for himself.

24:21

To this day, when you open up the

24:23

Hal Leonard Reel book and turn to Sophisticated

24:25

Lady, you'll see three listed writers, including Duke

24:27

Ellington and Irving Mills. But

24:30

one name you won't see is Lawrence Brown.

24:33

And so while the legalization of the

24:35

Reel book did resolve most of its

24:37

flagrant copyright violations, it didn't clear up

24:39

authorship disputes like these that go back

24:41

to the early days of jazz. And

24:44

there are likely many more musicians, just

24:46

like Brown, whose names will never appear

24:48

on the songs they helped write, even

24:51

if those songs appear in the legal

24:53

Reel book. Even

25:00

if we put intellectual property questions aside for a

25:02

second, the Reel book still has plenty

25:04

of critics. The Reel book, the guys,

25:06

when they did it, they

25:08

transcribed things and they chose

25:10

standard chords that some people

25:13

were using, but not everyone

25:15

was using those same chords.

25:18

Carolyn Wilkins teaches ensembles at Berkeley College

25:20

of Music, and she says that the

25:22

Reel book got so popular over the

25:24

years that people started to treat the

25:26

versions of the songs inside as definitive.

25:29

But even though jazz has all these

25:31

standards, Wilkins says they're not supposed to

25:33

be played in one standard way. People

25:37

especially back in the

25:39

day considered putting

25:41

their original stamp

25:43

on something to

25:45

be far more important than playing

25:48

it, quote unquote, correctly. So

25:50

they might change a chord here, they might

25:52

change a note, they might decide they like

25:55

the key of D flat better than the

25:57

key of D flat. This type

25:59

of improvisation. much less common in classical

26:01

music from the last two centuries, where authenticity

26:03

is more about how well you can reproduce

26:06

what's on the page as precisely as possible.

26:09

When people play Mozart's piano Sonata No.

26:11

16 in C major, they

26:13

don't say, you know what, I'm gonna try it

26:15

in A major this time. And

26:17

so when musicians play a version of Bye

26:20

Bye Blackbird that sounds exactly as it appears

26:22

in the real book, they're acting more like

26:24

classical musicians than jazz musicians. And

26:27

once things kind of became standardized

26:30

into the real book, then you

26:32

have this thing of people who

26:34

just always play the same thing

26:36

the same way, same key, same

26:39

set of chord changes. Nicholas

26:41

Payton is a musician and record label owner. And

26:44

he compares the real book to a study guide

26:46

or a cheat sheet, basically a

26:48

way to distill this complicated art form

26:50

into a manageable packet of digestible information.

26:53

But to see here becomes a problem

26:56

when talking about codifying and teaching black

26:58

music is you can't teach free

27:00

rhythmic thought, you can't put that in a book

27:03

and expect students to grasp it. To

27:06

Payton, the music isn't just information

27:09

to be learned from a book. It's

27:11

a way of thinking and a form of

27:13

expression. And it's fundamentally a

27:16

black cultural phenomenon that can't be

27:18

taken out of its historical context.

27:20

It's a communal music at its

27:23

essence, and it's a living, breathing

27:25

organism. It can't be housed or

27:27

archived in that way. Payton

27:30

says that reading books like the real book,

27:32

even going to music school can only really

27:35

get you so far. At some

27:37

point, you're going to have to immerse yourself in

27:39

the culture of the music. For

27:41

Payton, and many other musicians, learning

27:44

directly from elders in person is a

27:46

crucial part of what it means to

27:48

really know the art form. I

27:50

think for many people who perhaps don't

27:53

live in a thriving music culture like

27:55

Detroit or New York or New Orleans

27:57

or Chicago, if you live in the

28:00

More in Iowa, you know, school might

28:02

be a good resource in tone. But

28:04

eventually at some point, if you're serious about playing

28:07

this music, you're going to have to be around

28:10

people who actually do it. But

28:12

Carolyn Wilkins says that the Reel Book does

28:15

have its place in jazz education. Over

28:17

her years at Berkeley, she's seen how

28:19

it can be a useful starting place,

28:21

a tool to bring young jazz musicians

28:24

together. A traditional

28:26

Reel Book gives you

28:28

at least some sense

28:30

of this is the

28:32

repertoire. These are the

28:34

tunes. If you want to

28:36

walk into a jam session anywhere in

28:39

the world and unpack your

28:41

instrument and say, can I sit

28:43

in? These are

28:45

the tunes that you're going to need.

28:48

And if you say, all right, we're

28:50

going to play Beautiful Love, boom,

28:53

now everyone has a Reel

28:55

Book, there's Beautiful Love,

28:57

D minor, we're ready.

29:00

But she also says if you only play songs

29:02

as they're notated in the Reel Book, and that's

29:04

as far as you take it, you're not really

29:06

playing the music the way it's supposed to be

29:08

played. To do that, you have

29:11

to go further. Then

29:13

you go out and listen to 20 different

29:16

people play it and

29:18

find different ways. And then

29:20

ultimately, you must find your

29:22

own way. After

29:33

the break, Miquel and I talk about the central mystery

29:35

of the Reel Book. Who were the

29:38

two Berkeley students who compiled the first

29:40

version and sold it around Boston? We

29:42

go down that rabbit hole after this. I

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33:54

so we're back with Miquel McAvanau who

33:56

reported that story and Miquel, as

33:58

I understand it, you know, There is a

34:00

central mystery at the heart of the story,

34:02

and that's who wrote the real book, the

34:04

first real book. The identities of the authors

34:07

have remained anonymous after all these years, but

34:09

you were determined to try to figure this

34:11

out. So why did you want to know

34:13

the identity of the authors? So

34:16

the real book was just this kind

34:18

of omnipresent thing when I was learning

34:20

jazz in high school, and it

34:22

didn't even really seem like it had authors

34:24

to begin with. It just felt like this book

34:26

that everybody had, and it just

34:28

popped out of thin air. And so when

34:31

I learned that there was this backstory and

34:33

there were these people, mysterious figures behind the

34:35

real book, I was just like, I have

34:38

to know. Part of it too

34:40

for me was really just, the real book

34:42

had a big impact on my approach to

34:44

learning jazz in high school. And

34:46

the guys who put it together, the

34:48

choices that they made kind of directed

34:50

what I was doing, kind of like

34:52

this invisible hand guiding my musical development.

34:54

And so to kind of try and

34:56

reach out and find those guys felt

34:58

weirdly meaningful to me in a way.

35:01

That makes sense to me. So, okay, so where did you start? So

35:03

I started by talking to my high school jazz

35:06

teacher, Mr. Leonard, who was a student at Berkeley

35:08

in the late 70s, a couple of years after

35:10

the real book came out. But

35:12

he told me that, you know, when he was a

35:14

student there, no one was really interested in the

35:17

story behind the real book or where it came

35:19

from. No, at that point, we were just concerned

35:21

with trying not to get lost, buying it from

35:23

the guy in the corner. I don't

35:25

even remember it being much of a topic

35:27

of discussion. Okay, so

35:30

Mr. Leonard is a bust. So where did you turn

35:32

to next? So next I

35:34

talked to Steve Swallow. And Steve Swallow was,

35:36

you know, pretty intimately involved in the creation

35:38

of the book. Right. And,

35:41

you know, obviously he knew who these guys were, but

35:43

he wasn't about to tell me because they had sworn

35:45

him to a note of secrecy after they

35:47

finished and put it out. But

35:49

still, you know, I asked him, do you

35:51

have their contact information? Would you be able to

35:53

reach out on my behalf if you do? And

35:56

he said, yeah, I think I was in touch with one of

35:58

them via email, maybe like 10 ago. We've

36:01

had email contact maybe, Jesus,

36:04

maybe 10 years ago, but I would try.

36:06

I would send an email to that address,

36:09

and if it still works,

36:12

see what he says. Sure. Okay,

36:15

here we go. All right. And

36:18

so he did, and it came

36:20

back, you know, returned to sender, bounced back

36:22

immediately. So that was also a dead end.

36:24

Okay. Okay. At

36:27

this point, I'm feeling a little bit frustrated,

36:29

a little bit stuck, not really sure what

36:31

to do next. And then, you know,

36:33

I just start reading everything I can online

36:35

that anyone has written about the Real Book. And

36:38

one day I'm on this random blog post

36:40

somewhere on the internet, and I scroll

36:42

down to the comments section. And one of the first comments

36:44

is from a guy who's claiming to

36:47

be one of the original authors. He's saying,

36:49

you know, I was one of the authors

36:51

of the Real Book, and he only goes

36:53

by one letter. So no

36:55

real name, he leaves just a letter to sign off

36:57

on this comment. And the letter is B. Mm-hmm.

37:01

So mysterious. Very mysterious.

37:03

This B guy, he also says he

37:05

was in touch with Barry Kernfeld, who

37:07

is a musicologist who I had actually

37:09

already interviewed for this piece. Okay.

37:12

Okay. So how do you know

37:14

that the person who wrote this comment was the person

37:16

who actually wrote the Real Book and not just somebody

37:18

claiming to be? Because I could go on a message

37:20

board and say, I wrote the Real Book too. Yeah.

37:24

Yeah, totally. And so I

37:26

actually reached out to Barry Kernfeld again after I

37:28

had interviewed him, and I asked, is this legit?

37:31

Mm-hmm. Did you get an email from this

37:33

guy? Were you in contact with him? This guy who said he was

37:35

in contact with you who claims to have written the Real Book? And

37:38

Barry said, yeah. Oh, okay.

37:41

He said, actually, about 10 years ago, he got

37:43

an email from this guy, and, you know, they

37:45

were in contact, and he said he

37:47

actually still had that email. And so I

37:49

had to ask him, obviously, can

37:51

you get back in touch? Can

37:53

you email this guy again? And

37:56

he said, sure, I'll try. It's been a

37:58

long time, but I'll give it a shot. So

38:00

Barry reached out to this guy a couple

38:03

days later. She tells me to reach out directly.

38:05

Okay, here we go I reach out and then

38:07

a couple days later I hear back and It's

38:10

a message from a ultra

38:12

encrypted email server based somewhere

38:14

outside of the United States

38:18

And it's someone using an obviously fake

38:20

name. Mm-hmm, but it is

38:22

definitely this guy it is be I

38:27

Mean this is the guy is this I

38:30

mean when you're going through this is this

38:32

level of subterfuge does it feel? Necessary

38:35

or theatrical or how is it striking you

38:37

at this point? It feels

38:39

a little bit over the top You know, I

38:42

do feel like I'm corresponding with you know, like

38:44

a double agent, you know deep in

38:46

the Cold War somewhere But

38:49

it's also a little bit exciting. Yeah, you

38:51

know, it's it's not a huge mystery, but

38:53

it is mysterious Definitely. So

38:55

what did this email say? So I asked him

38:57

if you would want to do an audio interview

38:59

and Predictably he said

39:02

no, right then I asked him, you know, do

39:04

you want to answer a couple questions over

39:06

email? and he said sure and so

39:09

I sent him an email with a list of questions and

39:12

Waited a couple days heard nothing

39:14

back. Mm-hmm sent a follow-up email.

39:16

Mm-hmm We did a couple more days heard

39:18

nothing back sent another follow-up email And

39:21

then this continued four or five

39:23

times and at this point I just kind of resigned myself

39:25

to the fact that I was not gonna

39:27

hear back from him Yeah, yeah Let's

39:29

do that and you know I just

39:32

started pursuing different avenues to try and and this

39:34

guy or one of the guys, you know I

39:36

asked my high school jazz teacher again, you know,

39:38

do you know people from Berkeley? Do you know

39:40

some names? Can you put me in touch with

39:42

them? And you know He got in touch with

39:44

a teacher of his who passed on some names

39:46

to me and I started emailing people not getting

39:48

You know any more responses I felt like I

39:50

was kind of circling the drain at this point

39:52

and Were you pretty resolved at

39:54

this point that you were never gonna hear from this person

39:56

or find them before we put the story out? Yeah,

39:59

I I was like, we're never going to

40:01

hear back. I was so close and we lost

40:04

the thread. It's not coming back. So where are

40:06

we now? Well, four

40:09

days before this episode was set

40:11

to air, I

40:14

opened my email. It's about 10 p.m. I'm

40:17

ready to go to sleep. And

40:21

it's an email from B. Yes.

40:23

With answers to all of our

40:26

questions. Oh, nice. So

40:28

what did they have to say for themselves? What kind of

40:30

question did you ask? So

40:32

we asked kind of the

40:34

gamut really of everything related

40:36

to, from handwriting,

40:39

was it his handwriting? How did he feel about

40:41

that handwriting being omnipresent in real

40:43

books throughout the world? How did it feel

40:45

to create this thing that some people have

40:47

major beefs or major

40:49

problems with in terms of how it's

40:52

affected jazz? And he

40:54

had answers to all of those questions. So

40:56

was it his handwriting? It was.

40:58

He says, yes, the handwriting is mine, although

41:00

it looks amateurish to me now, but

41:03

it's quite a hoot to see it everywhere.

41:05

Someone created a real book font based on

41:07

my hand. It's close, but no cigar. Wow.

41:10

Throwing a little bit of shade at how Leonard there. Did

41:14

they have a sense of the phenomenon

41:17

that it was going to become when they were making it?

41:20

Definitely not. So on that note, he says,

41:22

we had no idea in our wildest dreams

41:24

it would become the phenomenon that it is.

41:27

Countless times we've personally seen the real book

41:29

used in bars, clubs, schools, and wedding receptions.

41:31

It's everywhere. In 2018, I visited a friend

41:33

of a cousin who had a home recording

41:36

studio, and there were six real books scattered

41:38

around the room. And

41:40

if you've given up this level of

41:42

secrecy, you can't just point to him and say, hey,

41:44

I did that. Yeah,

41:48

it would be a really tough temptation. If I'm like,

41:50

if I see my book that the

41:52

curtain I did for 90% invisible out

41:54

in the world, you bet. I'm going

41:56

to say, well, hey, I'm

41:59

that guy. To

42:02

do that for like forty years and never see

42:04

him for us. You

42:07

know, I guess you some the

42:09

bigger issues with the we'll both that we

42:11

talk about. You know the kind of you,

42:13

that copyright and the clarification of a style?

42:15

Did he have any sort of insight into

42:17

that kind of thing? Yeah, it's

42:19

really interesting what he said about that.

42:21

So. And now courting directly from

42:24

from what he wrote to me, the

42:26

real book truly changed the world and

42:28

many good ways but also not so

42:30

good. The. Intent was

42:32

to create a tool for learning tunes

42:34

but not something to be used on

42:36

the bandstand. it's proliferation into club screen

42:38

the negative effect seemingly dictating what and

42:40

how to play. Mile. Or.

42:42

This as we really hit the nail

42:44

on. And

42:46

actually even more on that he says

42:49

never was there any intent to codify

42:51

anything. The. Book was meant to help

42:53

people learn tunes and beyond what is in

42:55

the book. It's the responsibility of the musician

42:58

to listen to as many versions as possible

43:00

to form one's own sense of how to

43:02

play the tune. That's why we listed some

43:04

different recording sources at the bottom of tunes.

43:06

Every recording have it's own tempo and key.

43:09

You know melodic interpretation, form, and re harmonisations

43:11

and they're in life. many opportunities to create

43:13

your own version. Mile. And a

43:15

so interesting because he basically agrees with most

43:17

of the critiques of the real book that

43:19

of people had when you talk to them.

43:22

Yeah, he's essentially saying of almost the

43:24

exact same thing that Carolyn Wilkins said

43:26

about the Berkeley professor that we we

43:28

talking towards the end of the peace.

43:30

basically almost even word for word kind

43:33

of anything And with also striking is

43:35

that he basically says the same thing

43:37

that Nicholas Peyton with a musician that

43:39

we talked to also said about the

43:41

real but you know if you're members

43:43

Nicholas Peyton was saying that you can't

43:45

really learn jazz from a book at

43:47

all yes and be in his answers

43:49

says i think books are fine for

43:51

theory and learning tunes. But no amount

43:54

of book reading will substitute for the

43:56

actual act of playing music. feel, timing,

43:58

groove, and in privacy. You need to

44:00

be learned by doing. It. Is

44:02

kind of amazing that like he is

44:04

saying basically the exact same thing that

44:06

we heard from Nicholas Peyton here. and

44:09

yeah that's really remarkable. What about this

44:11

I need for anonymity? Like is is

44:13

something that I mean obviously at this

44:15

point of people knew about it. He

44:18

not getting prosecuted for anything really realistically

44:20

at this point. So what What is

44:23

that all about? Yeah.

44:25

You know, it's kind of seems like. He

44:28

likes the mister isn't as he likes keeping

44:30

up the mysteries. I'm going to quote again

44:32

from what he wrote, The. Internet

44:34

is full of articles and you tube videos

44:36

about the real book and chat rooms all

44:39

over the web are rife with discussions about

44:41

the origins with zillions of different opinions. That's

44:43

what's fun about it. Keep the mystery alive.

44:46

Why? Mess with an urban legend. You

44:49

know I like the guy. A

44:52

professor? I couldn't agree more. Surface

44:55

not muslims muslim have is anonymity out

44:57

they call method that sounds good Are

44:59

thinking like health is a so much

45:01

fun Facts: Robin Jackson Much. Ninety

45:07

Nine Percent Invisible Whispers this week by

45:09

Mccown, the Capital and April Twenty Twenty

45:11

One Edited by Emmett Fitzgerald. Music by

45:13

Swan or Health next by a Meteor.

45:15

Gonna try Social. Thanks this week to

45:18

author and professor Gerald Horn for we

45:20

have interviewed for this story. You can

45:22

check out Nicholas Pitons music at Nicholas

45:24

peyton.com and follow him on Instagram at

45:26

Nicholas Pace. you want to read more

45:28

history of faithful to check out very

45:30

current elves, books, hops on piracy and

45:32

the story of fake books can be

45:34

to his or executive producer. Coasted is.

45:36

the digital directors to amy hall is

45:38

our senior editor or as a team

45:40

includes arabic chris brubeck states and billion

45:43

gabrielle gladney martin gonzales chris for johnson

45:45

we've been led wasserman don't take up

45:47

more than on of medina mean a

45:49

part of cali prime so rosenbergs and

45:51

me roman mars the nine amazon as

45:54

the logo was created by stephen lawrence

45:56

we're part of the to her answers

45:58

that some podcast family Now

46:00

headquartered six blocks north in the

46:02

Pandora building in beautiful uptown

46:06

Oakland, California. Home to the Oakland

46:08

Roots Soccer Club, of which I'm

46:10

a proud community owner. Other

46:12

teams make them a go, but the

46:14

roots are Oakland first, always. You

46:16

can find us on all the usual social media

46:19

sites as well as our newly launched Discord, which

46:21

has over 2,000 members at this point. We're talking

46:23

about the power broker on there. We're worrying about

46:25

architecture. There's even a music channel so you can

46:28

post your favorite jazz tunes and also talk about

46:30

this episode, which is an all-time favorite of mine. But

46:32

please do not try to

46:34

start an amateur internet detective hunt looking for

46:36

the real book authors, because that is a

46:39

mystery. That should stay a mystery. There's a

46:41

link to that Discord, as well as every

46:43

past episode of 99PI on our website, it's

46:45

99pi.org. We

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