"The Arab Real Book" - a boon for fans of Middle Eastern Book
Binyomin Ginzberg spotted this one:.
I found an interesting book series during my recent visit to Israel and
thought this might well be of interest to list members.
It's a series of books called "The Real Arab Book—For All Oriental Instruments", and it is modeled on the classic jazz "Real Book."
There are two volumes that I'm aware of. I've found a link to an Israeli music bookstore carrying these (Safir music store on Rehov Ben Yehudah). I picked them up locally.
Here are links to Book 1 and Book 2. The version I bought is a revised 2006 version.
In addition to the sheet music, the books also have brief explanatory sections in Hebrew on Arabic song form, the various scales/modes used, etc. The song titles are written in Hebrew and English (and often Arabic too). The index is in Hebrew and English.
I linked to the Music Bookshop website because they have scans of the index available for viewing. You can find it by clicking on the link "לחץ לצפיה בתוכן העניינים" to the left of the cover image on that site. They don't appear to have an English version of their site.
I haven't had a chance to play through these yet, but on quick perusal, I see that includes some specifically Jewish songs like Tzur Mishelo (aka Los Bilibicos), and Yehallel Niv Sefatenu, among others.
It may be possible to get the books directly from the author, E-mail Jacob Nakov