Background story:

Please keep in my mind that I do not have any back ground in jazz - I do occasionally listen to jazz and I enjoy it, but not often. I've grown quite curious about the Real Book lately, mostly as something to study to make me a better bass player, and I would like at least an introduction to playing jazz. I'd posted a thread recently asking questions about chords & harmonizing the major scale, and a TB member suggested that I get a Real Book and start practicing my arpeggios over chord progressions from the real book.

So I began looking into what the Real Book is… I read up on the history and the current legal versions. I found a website selling a PDF version, and they offered 3 sample pages, which I promptly printed and began to examine as I still didn’t know what I'd find inside the Real Book. These three "Real Book" songs are: A Foggy Day, Ain't Misbehavin, A Night in Tunisia

After studying the chords (and realizing yet again that I have SO much more to learn…) I sat down to try to play through some of it. I decided to play through some of the written melodies first. The only song title that sounded familiar to me was Ain't Misbehavin, so I figured that would be a good place to start.

My 12 year daughter plays flute, and she got interested in what I was doing and wanted to try playing it. She's been wanting something "less boring" to work on when she practices, and we've looked in the music store, but she didn't find anything that was interesting to her. She got interested in this big time - I'm sure that the main point of interest is working on the same piece of music as Dad, but whatever.

So, we both worked on the same tune last night and we really had a blast. My first thought was to pick up a Real Book for each of us (bass clef and treble clef) and hope that some other tunes from the same book might provide a similar experience.

So I was looking into the new legal 6th edition even more, and I saw what seems to be the complete song list, and I don't see "Ain't Misbehavin" in the book.

Is Ain't Misbehaving a Real Book Tune?

Can I expect more songs similar to this in the real book - similar in that it's highly recognizable and seems pretty reasonable for a beginner to attempt playing. If there are no other song anything like that one, maybe there is a better book for me?

Bass clef, or C instrument version? I need to work on my reading big time. I've searched Talkbass, and read the theory that bass players should practice reading treble clef, but in my case - I really don't read bass clef very well. If I start working on my reading and I'm reading treble clef, I will quickly be a much better reader on treble clef. That seems weird for a bass player. Of course if I just work from the treble Clef C instrument version, I could share the book with the kid and get away for half as much money.

Wow - sorry this is so long, if you read this far - thanks! (and please give me your opinion) thank you.

There are very many different real books, the main ones (AFAIK) being The Real Books I-III and The New Real Books 1-3. Ain't Misbehavin' can be found at least in the real book 3, the new real book 2 and in the Jazz Fakebook.

For most (if not all) jazz standards, all that is written out is the melody, the chords and the lyrics (in case there are any), i.e. lead sheets. Some pop standards (found mainly in New Real 1 and 3) have the basslines written out (in bass clef) but most songs don't have it. So what you need are skills to improvise bass lines over the chords in the lead sheets. It's easier said than done, but I assume that once you have grasped the concept of walking bass and some general knowledge of how chords are built up, things start getting easier. At least if you practice. I don't do it as much as I should, and I still suck....

As a complement to the real books, check out the Jamey Aebersold's play along books+CDs with jazz standards, chord progression and ear training exercises. They are recorded with bass, drums and piano, but the piano and bass are in separate channels so you can pan to the left or right to mute the instrument you don't want to interfere with what you play. Very convenient. Highly recommended. :)

Every "Real Book" has different tunes - and WARNING! often different changes or keys!

You need to go slow and realize there are many levels of tunes in the Real Book, or any fake book. Go to the Aebersold website mentioned above, and check out the beginner play alongs.

First start with the modal and blues based tunes, So What, All Blues, Footprints, lotsa Miles stuff. Then work up to more ii-V-I tunes, then standards, then the really tough stuff like Bill Evans tunes, or Giant Steps at 320 bpm.

Get a book on wallking bass lines, search here, there's a ton of threads on that. Arpeggios are a start, but only the start.

Get treble clef, both if you can afford it.