Az Samad Lessons

How do you learn Malaysian jazz tunes?

Of course, you can learn them by ear, but what do you do when you don’t know which tunes to even learn? This is where this book from Rafi SUHU comes into play. In 2013, Utusan Publications & Distributors released this book by notable guitarist and music educator, Rafi SUHU.

There are 50 tunes written in lead sheet format in the book, with a wide variety of songs that range from familiar classics to less popular compositions. Since the release of this book, we of course have the release of the Malaysian Real Book. The Malaysian Real Book essentially functions in the same way as this book, except that it has so many more pages and songs. That being said, there are many compositions in this book.

I find that reading through these pieces was an interesting way to discover new pieces that I typically would never play. So far I haven’t gotten any of these pieces into my current repertoire, but I plan to try out more of the songs to see if any could be good candidates for my solo jazz guitar set.

All in all, this book is a great first volume for this concept. I really wish more books came out after this. Get it if you can locate a copy!

Pros: Great resource for learning and discovering new jazz tunes from the Malaysian reperfoire.
Cons: Songs don’t have the name of the composer/lyricist on the tunes.
TLDR: If you want to check out Malaysian jazz tunes, do grab this book should you ever find a copy for sale.

I found ePub (eBook versions) of this book here:
https://ubsmebooks.com/book/info/14408/Jazz-Tunes-Malaysian-Collection-Series-Volume-1

and here:
https://www.e-sentral.com/book/info/14408?srsltid=AfmBOoq3NFMjBPihKheLIXJveuKM2hN2aLCMS9CZCILr0gIkPZShSm6X

Please note that I’ve never bought from these sites, and am just including here in case you wanna to get an eBook version of this book.

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