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In truth, the vast majority of jazz musicians are semi-pro or hobbyist, meaning they show up to a $50 gig with some sort of stand and their book or iPad, and then read from the chart while they perform. Sometimes from a set list, other times from saying, "hmm, how about autumn leaves next?" "Okay" (shuffle shuffle tap) "all right, count us in"

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Don’t professional gigging jazz players also use lead sheets, assuming the gigs consist of a large repertoire of standards (as opposed to a fixed set list like you might see on a concert tour)?

They usually (or often) have them, but often the most common tunes in the first few Real Book volumes (and other standards) have been memorized so they never actually pull them out. When I used to sit in with some guys from the local university, they'd usually play everything from memory and only pull out the fakebook for newbies/guys like me who didn't know the songs they were playing [so we could 'fake' our way through].

A lot of those guys would pride themselves on having played along with the recordings dozens or hundreds of times (and often with computer transposition) so they could play the tunes with their eyes shut, in any key and at any tempo.

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