Rating: 
Summary: Good, Not Great
Review: This is a good buy for a pro pianist like me who might get requests for tunes I've never heard of from shows I've never seen. It has three indexes: by tune, by show, and by composers and lyricists. One of the best things in the book is an alphabetical show-by-show synopsis, containing information about each show's history, its major personnel, and its plot. However -- and it's a BIG however; in fact, several howevers: an awful lot of the songs are second-rate and I can't imagine getting requests for them, or even wanting to play them myself. The book proclaims its inclusion of "great songs" from several more recent shows such as "Rent"; gimme a break -- these songs are barely listenable, much less "great." Throughout the book, many of the chord changes are incorrect (this is a musician's constant complaint about ALL fake books). Most of the songs do not include the verse (and for Rodgers & Hart, Gershwin, and Kern these are often essential parts of the song). And there are inexplicable omissions. For example: (1) Some of the included shows are lacking some of their best songs: "The Nervous Set" omits "Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most," "Finian's Rainbow omits "Necessity." "The Merry Widow" omits "The Merry Widow Waltz." "Mack and Mabel" omits "I Promise You a Happy Ending." (2) Some excellent shows are missing altogether. No "L'il Abner." No Cy Coleman's "I Love My Wife." And Leonard Bernstein is represented only by two songs from "Wonderful Town"; no "Candide," no "On the Town," no "West Side Story." And of course there are many songs I already own in other collections, although the book is useful as a one-stop source for all of these, and there are about fifty to a hundred decent to superb songs that I own nowhere else. There is ample representation of Rodgers & Hart, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Kern, Gershwin, Porter, Frank Loesser, Jerry Herman, Harold Arlen, Lerner & Loewe, Andrew Lloyd Webber, et al. In the end, despite its flaws, to me the book was well worth the price.
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