Publisher (and bassist) Chuck Sher has released The Digital Real Book. Its a collection of 650 great tunes in 2 volumes drawn from his printed editions of The Real Book. I'd like to imagine that Chuck took the cue to go digital from PJN, but perhaps he thought of it independently. Either way, you can now download the books or purchase individual tunes.
The Digital Real Bookis being distributed by FreeHand Music, which, according to their website, has the most extensive selection of legal Digital Sheet Music available for musicians online. Their catalog includes over 125,000 downloadable sheet music titles from the world's leading artists, composers, and publishers. What's great about FreeHand Music is that many of their downloadable jazz charts are transposable to the key of your choice.
There's a search box on the right hand side of this blog that will whisk you over to their website. So if you're looking for a tune, or want to check out The Digital Real Book then head on over there.
I've begun adding links to these downloadable lead sheets to many of the tunes at PlayJazzNow, which I think will be a nice complement to the tracks if you want to work on the melody and/or lyrics to specific songs. We still offer free chord charts to everything, but those do not include melodies or lyrics.
