[Dixielandjazz] [Dixieland] fake books [long ish post]

[dwlit at cpcug.org]

Hi Andrew. It's "Firehouse Jazz Band Fake Book". Lou Brown kept adding
tunes and upped the price accordingly. Someone made me a copy of the
CD-rom, but a large section of the tunes is missing.

I bought a hard copy, and also "Vintage Jazz Standards" revised
(computerized) edition. In August 1999, facing a long period with few
gigs, I decided to make a dixieland fake book for my own use. I also owned
the Charles Anderson fake sheet library. I assumed I'd mainly copy tunes
from these books and put them into my own large-print format. However, I
soon found that for pop tunes, Anderson was more accurate, and more
consistently had verses. When it came to the multi-strained classics, I
found all 3 sources inadequate for varying reasons. I have a couple of the
published Dixieland sheet music compilations, which revealed many errors
in the melodies of basic tunes--clearly the 2 fakebooks were not based on
the original music, and all too often made up melody notes, and even
indicated "breaks" where there should been melody.

After trying to use the other books for a while, I decided to start my
book from scratch and publish it. I determined to do my best to "get it
right": Newbies have to start some place, so they might as well learn the
real stuff. Over the years I've continually sought out better sources and
honed my skills at transcribing tunes from records. To be sure, I blooped,
but as I found errors and better sources, I incorporated new information
every time I reprinted the books. I corrected errors, added verses,
utilized sheet music; the current (6th) printing incorporates completely
new transcriptions of the 1923 Olivers and a few others.

I didn't abandon the folks who bought early printings: all the upgraded
pages are available to my customers as .pdf files, and I've revised the
lyrics .zip files...

All of the above relates to what in 2005 became Vol.1, when I published
Vol. 2.

So: I've said publicly that both fake books were fine for folks who just
wanted to "play dixieland". They just weren't adequate for players who
want to go back to the original stuff. "Vintage Jazz Standards" in its
original handwritten form enabled several generations of players, making a
great contribution to preserving our music. I hope my books do the same.

--Sheik
Dave Littlefield, banjo, piano, guitar, washboard
http://americanmusiccaravan.com/
Coming soon: "20s-30s Fake Book", and
Dixieland Fake Book Vol. 1 (bass clef and Eb editions)


> I have seen signs online that there is a big 600+ page Dixieland book
that has been uploaded to a server for the "Firehouse Five Plus Two"
Dixieland fake book. It was saved in a .pdf format, which would be ideal
for most folks. I cannot locate this document.
>
> Does anyone have the low-down on this Firehouse Five Plus Two Dixieland
Fake book?
>
> I think that David Littlefield most likely took this Firehouse Five book
and, starting from there, made his VAST improvements on it for his
multi-volume set of trad, books  he markets. I am quite impressed with
Mr. Littlefield's excellent on vintage jazz. I agree that they are quite
legible, but must say that they do have a few bloopers (like all fake
books do.) Well worth an investment for any serious dixieland player, to
be sure. He also has researched and has made available the lyrics to
hundreds of these tunes as well as his legible lead sheets.
>
> Still, I'd like to see where he may have started with these Firehouse
Five books. At one time, I think they were available online, but I can't
find them now.
>
> ===== From the desk of Andrew R. Cooper =====
>
> On Nov 19, 2007, at 2:00 PM, dixielandjazz-request at ml.islandnet.com wrote:
>
>> Message: 1
>> Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 07:05:52 -0800
>> From: "Janie McCue Lynch" <janie39 at socal.rr.com>
>> Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Louis Brown Fake Book
>> To: "'Robert S. Ringwald'" <robert at ringwald.com>
>> Cc: 'Dixieland Jazz Mailing List' <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Message-ID: <000501c82abd$adc12140$094363c0$@rr.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="us-ascii"
>>> From Bob:
>> "The last I heard, his widow was not interested in handling the fake
books.
>> The only way you could get them would be to purchase a used copy from
someone else.
>> Dave Littlefield has some great fake books he has created. "
>> I believe the last time the Lou Brown Fake Book topic arose that someone
>> researched it and found that there were some copyright issues that were
murky, and that was the reason the family chose not to continue making
them
>> available.  Just more hassle with clearing up those issues than they were
>> interested in dealing with.
>> I have not heard that anyone else was interested in taking this over.
And yes, Dave's books are great..I have two of them.  Very well done,
great
>> inclusions with good attention to detail and so very easy to read. Jane
Lynch
>> Janie
>> janie39 at socal.rr.com
>
>
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