Setlist recommendations?

[Christian McKee]

I don't have much experience playing acoustic jazz, and particularly not standards, but a bass player friend of mine and I have just booked a series of quiet duo gigs at a good italian joint. The engagement doesn't start until later this summer, so I've got time to build repetoire.

What melodies would you recommend to a decent mandolin player who's a relative novice in the world of jazz standards? What about classic italian mandolin tunes? And are there some go-to spots to find charts? I do have a copy of The Real Book I never used much, might have to bust that out.

Thanks, all!

[Pete Martin]

Jazzstandards.com

On this page is a list of the most recorded tunes in Jazz history. Might be a good place to start. A lot of these are in the Real books or the Sher New Real books, both excellent referneces.

Don Stiernberg has recorded a lot of standards. Get some of his excellent CDs and learn some.

[Jean-Pierre WOOS]

A Gypsy style fakebook made by friends of mine: 200 tunes in standard notation.

[pigpen]

A Gypsy style fakebook made by friends of mine: 200 tunes in standard notation.

Ahh, man, this is great!!! Thanks! Now you've gone and added more songs I just gotta know to the long, long list.

[Bruce Clausen]

Thanks for the list, Pete. More valuable than a fake book to a person that knows tons of standards but can never think of a single tune to call on a gig!

And thank you J-P for the link. Excellent collection!

BC

[mrmando]

Christian, have you asked the restaurant what kind of tunes they expect?

I have done a few Italian restaurant duo gigs ... at one of them the restaurateur insisted on "classical" music without really defining what he meant by that. It didn't seem to include standard Italian restaurant fare like Tarantella, Ciribiribin or Santa Lucia, and it definitely didn't include the one or two jazz tunes we took the ill-advised liberty of playing. I am not sure that German composers were "classical" enough for him, although I guess the Puccini opera themes went over all right. The guy was actually Bulgarian, not Italian, BTW.

I hope most restaurant gigs don't involve the restaurant owner breathing down the musicians' necks about the set list, but mine did. Anyway, if you haven't asked about what they expect, you probably should.

[Dan Johnson]

dude.. that book is awesome! thanks for the link... we'll post some of your stuff that we learn from it!

[nickster60]

What is the differance between a C and C- chord. I have never seen the dash before

Nick
Violin Player and would be mandolinist

[Brad Weiss]

the dash, as in C-, is a minor chord (sometimes written Cm, or Cm7 in many jazz contexts)

[nickster60]

Thanks Brad I knew it had to mean something.

[Christian McKee]

Christian, have you asked the restaurant what kind of tunes they expect?

I've had experiences much like that, to be sure. Fortunately I don't think this is going to be one of them. The bassist and I are friends with the owner (the bass player has been tight with him for years) and he's heard us play a bunch in different acts.

Still, you're on to something there - just because we all like each other doesn't mean we're thinking about the same music. I'll double check.

And thanks for the link to the swing book, that's a great resource!