Find any jazz standard in any real book or fake book, instantly.
An app for jazz musicians on iPhone, iPad, Mac and Android. Search 10,000+ standards across 90+ real books, fake books and play-along volumes. Know which book to open before the next chorus.
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What it does
Whether you're learning a new tune, prepping for a gig, or exploring what's in the books on your shelf, Fake Book Index helps you find the right standard in the right real book or fake book, fast. Type a title or a composer, and see exactly which book and page to open.
Looking for a play-along to practice with? The same search points you to every Aebersold and Hal Leonard volume that has the tune, with key, tempo and style.
Built by a working jazz saxophonist for working jazz musicians.
Features
- Filter by your library — select only the books you actually own. The whole app instantly adapts: searches, results, composer index, everything filtered to your collection.
- Instant search across all your fake books at once — by title, composer, or both.
- Composer index — find every standard by Wayne Shorter, Cole Porter, Antônio Carlos Jobim, and hundreds more.
- Play-along integration — Aebersold and Hal Leonard volumes indexed track-by-track, with key, tempo and style.
- Works offline — the entire database is bundled. No internet needed during a gig.
- Auto-updating — new books and corrections delivered over-the-air without app updates.
- One-time purchase — no subscription, no ads, no account required.
Real book or fake book?
Both terms refer to the same thing today: a compilation of jazz standards in lead-sheet format (melody, chord symbols, sometimes lyrics). Fake book is the original term, dating back to the 1940s, named after the musician's practice of "faking" a tune from minimal notation. The legendary Real Book, created by Berklee students in the 1970s, was a tongue-in-cheek twist on the name: theirs would be the real one, with more accurate transcriptions than the fake books circulating at the time. The name stuck, and today most working musicians use both terms interchangeably.
Fake Book Index covers everything: the original Real Book series (now legally published by Hal Leonard), the New Real Book series from Sher Music, dozens of genre-specific fake books, and the major play-along catalogs.
Publishers indexed
The database covers all major fake book publishers and a curated selection of community and out-of-print collections:
Who it's for
Jazz musicians who play from fake books at sessions, gigs, rehearsals, and at home. Students learning the standard repertoire. Teachers preparing setlists. Anyone tired of flipping through six books to find a tune.