urgent: playing out of a fake book

[le_poete_mourant]

Since this has to do with notation, this is where I'm chucking the topic. 

I have to play a gig tomorrow night with a jazz band.  It's the first time I've done something playing out of a fake book (although it's called the real book).  For the most part I'm set with chords and stuff.  I just have a few questions I was wondering if somebody could help me out with. 

1)  Major 7th with flat9 - do you lower the 9th note of the major scale a half step?
2)  When playing a chord such as G7 while in the key of C minor, must you obey the B-flat of that key? 
3)  Diminished chord diminishes the 3 and 5 of a major chord, right?
4)  What the heck is a sustained 4 (sus4)? 

[jlh]

Since this has to do with notation, this is where I'm chucking the topic. 

I have to play a gig tomorrow night with a jazz band.  It's the first time I've done something playing out of a fake book (although it's called the real book).  For the most part I'm set with chords and stuff.  I just have a few questions I was wondering if somebody could help me out with. 

1)  Major 7th with flat9 - do you lower the 9th note of the major scale a half step?
2)  When playing a chord such as G7 while in the key of C minor, must you obey the B-flat of that key? 
3)  Diminished chord diminishes the 3 and 5 of a major chord, right?
4)  What the heck is a sustained 4 (sus4)? 

1) Yes
2) No -- you're playing a dominant chord in this case, which is Major.
3) In short, yes... diminished means all the chord tones are related by minor 3rd. Cdim is C-Eb-Gb.
4) sus4 is a suspended 4, not sustained 4.  It means take the 3rd out and replace it with a 4th.  An example would be Csus4, in which case the notes would be C-F-G.  A sus2 is closely related, and means basically the same thing, in that a Csus2 means play C-D-G.

[prometheus]

Often a diminished chord on a jazz sheet is not a triad  but a full diminished chord 1 b3 b5 bb7

[jlh]

Often a diminished chord on a jazz sheet is not a triad  but a full diminished chord 1 b3 b5 bb7

True, and if that's the case it will be easily evident because it will say 7 in the symbol.  Such as Cdim7.

[prometheus]

I guess now we can also add that one has all the freedom to chance chords from dim7 to diminished triads, to dom7, to half diminished and everything else you want.

[le_poete_mourant]

Thanks a bunch!   

[prometheus]

Ooh, I just reread and saw you are going to play with a band. To avoid confusion. If you are going to play a standard differently from the way it is in your fake book you need to make sure the other band members know about this.

Actually, often different rea/fake books will give different chords for the same standards so you need to make sure that everyone knows what everyone else is going to do.

Since I have no experience with this at all I can't really help any more with this. My point was just that the chords given by a fake book isn't the 'official' way to play that standard. There is no official way.