Noted instructor and instrumentalist Dix Bruce has two new book/CD sets for fans of the Hot Club of France sound, popularized by Django Rhinehart. They are titled Gypsy Swing & Hot Club Rhythm, with one for mandolin and another for guitar.

Each book has the basic melody for a dozen swing tunes (standard notation and tablature) along with chord diagrams and tips on playing in this style. The CDs present each song, first played slowly with a single guitar accompaniment, and then faster with a full band. The stereo image is split so that you can either isolate the melody instrument while first learning each song, or remove it to jam along as you become more comfortable with them.

Dix says that these packages are designed so that newcomers to the style can start developing an awareness and understanding of how gypsy jazz is structured, while experienced players might use them to jam along and work on improvisation.

Audio samples from both CDs are available on Dix’s site.

On another Dix Bruce book-related note… The guitar edition of the Parking Lot Picker’s Songbook, written with Bill Evans, is now available from Mel Bay. It contains over 200 popular and classic bluegrass songs with chords, melodies and lyrics - plus 2 CDs with Bill and Dix playing through each song.

We posted in some detail last month when the banjo edition was released.

Here’s a new Mel Bay release that is sure to become an important reference for banjo pickers. Parking Lot Picker’s Songbook - Banjo Edition includes well over 200 popular songs, complete with chords, lyrics and the basic melody presented in both standard notation and banjo tablature.

The book was written by Dix Bruce and Bill Evans, who also recorded a version of every song from the book for the two companion CDs. Bruce has more than 20 books available from Mel Bay, and is an accomplished guitarist and mandolinist and music writer. Evans is a noted banjo player and teacher, with three instructional DVDs from AcuTab.

The songs in the book include bluegrass, old time, country and gospel favorites drawn from the recorded work of Bill Monroe, The Stanley Brothers, Flatt & Scruggs, The Osborne Brothers. Jimmy Martin, Doc Watson and many others. You’ll find jam standards like Rocky Top, Roll In My Sweet Baby’s Arms, Nine Pound Hammer and Little Maggie plus Bill Evans’ banjo arrangement for Train 45 (with examples of possible variations), as well as Cripple Creek and Sally Goodin.

The book’s introduction covers important jam basics like using the capo, finding the best key for your voice, and how to transpose the chords shown for each song into a more suitable key for both men’s and women’s voices.

Bill shared a few thoughts about this new release.

“My hope is that this will be a real resource for the acoustic musician who is looking to expand their repertoire or catch up on some old favorites that they may have missed the first time around. You can listen to the CD track and then go to the sheet music to learn the chord progression and lyrics. The relatively simple banjo tab melody offers a way for you to begin to work out your own arrangement of the tune – rather than trying to learn and memorize someone else’s version.”

This 304 page book (with 2 audio CDs) is available wherever bluegrass instructional materials are sold, or directly from Bill Evans’ web site where you can also find a sample tab and audio.

The Parking Lot Picker’s Songbook will be available soon in a mandolin edition as well.