Sher goes out of his way to include pop/rock tunes that he feels might help
a band satisfy some requests for something the audience would recognize.
The Wong book (published by Hal Leonard) doesn't do this so obviously, but
there are a heck of a lot of Tin Pan Alley tunes, old movie and show tunes,
and so forth, that no jazz musician has ever covered, and I suspect were
included simply because Hal Leonard owns some interest in the rights to
(completely unfounded speculation, but the only thing I can think of).
When you get down to it, I think the Hal Leonard book has more useful tunes
in it than any one of the Sher books by itself, but it has a couple of
things going against it. It is nowhere near as popular, meaning you might
be the only one at the gig or session with that particular book, meaning
you can't really do most of the material in it. Also, the typeset is so
small, and the layout so awkward (tunes split across pages for no good
reason, no attempt to break lines on phrase boundaries, etc) that it is
pretty much unacceptable for sight-reading, especially in gig situations
where the light isn't neceassarily so good.
So I would say, if you plan to be playing with others in the near future (a
good idea, regardless if this means professionally or not), you are better
off with the "first" Sher book (New Real Book Volume 1). But if you are
looking just to shed some tunes at home, you'd be better off with the Hal
Leonard book (Ultimate Jazz Fakebook). I sure wish there was a better
answer than this.
--------------
Marc Sabatella
marc@outsideshore.com
"The Outside Shore"
A Jazz Improvisation Primer, Scores, Sounds, & More:
http://www.outsideshore.com/