Advice on Booker Little Scores

[Impressionistic]

I apologize for the fact that my first post in this forum is asking for help, as it makes me look somewhat brash or impertinent, but I hope people would be able to help me with an issue that has been bothering me for quite a while now.

As the subject says, it has to do with the music of Booker Little. Having recently formed a band of my own, there are quite a few songs written by Little that I want to perform --most of all "Booker's Waltz"/"The Grand Valse"-- but I have yet to find any any scores for the music --except for the illegal "Real Book," about which I'd feel guilty looking at, let alone owning. Now, admittedly, I am not a professional musician, so I can't decipher the melody and chord changes of a given song in less than ten minutes --it would take me an hour or two to get everything on a level close to "correct." A score could be useful in this manner, as Little's compositions are quite complex, in my opinion...

On the other hand, perhaps it's time for me to leave scores and begin to rely on my own "skill" (as it were) to copy down the melody and the chords --as hard as it might be-- to improve myself.

I'd be interested in what other people think about this; what would you think is the better thing to do?

[bubber]

The only place I know on the net offering music is
www.lucaspickford.com/
but he has no Booker Little transcriptions. Might find something else there, though.

The obvious answer to to your question, however, would be that if you have the time necessary to work it out yourself, you should do it.

[kdd]

I don't know of this will help but I saw a Booker Little tribute concert at Birdland around three years ago with Claudio Roditi, Brian Lynch, Randy Brecker and David Weiss playing trumpet. It seemed as though Weiss lead the group (which also included Don Friedman and Pete LaRoca) so perhaps he would have the arrangements you are looking for. I think Don Sickler also did a Little tribute that I missed and I think he is a music publisher so if you can find a way to get in contact with one of those guys they might be able to help you. I'm not a musician but those Booker Little tunes sound terribly difficult to me. Good luck.