Jazz sheet music

Lead sheets, real books and fake books

A lead sheet is melody, chord symbols and form — one page per tune, everything else improvised. A fake book is a large collection of them. The Real Book began as an unlicensed student compilation in the 1970s and circulated illegally for decades; licensed editions now exist, pay the composers, and correct a great many errors that the bootleg copies propagated.

Fake books come in C, B♭ and E♭ editions for concert-pitch, tenor and alto instruments respectively, plus bass clef. Buying the wrong transposition is the most common mistake, and a horn player reading the C edition will be in the wrong key throughout.

Transcriptions and charts

A solo transcription writes out what a particular player improvised on a particular recording. It is a study document rather than a piece to perform, and its value is in the analysis. A big band chart is the opposite: fully arranged parts for every player, sold as a set, priced accordingly.

Chord symbol conventions vary between publishers — the same altered dominant may appear three ways. Most collections include a legend, and it is worth reading.