Jazz bass lines?

[SuperSnake2012]

I'm in the guitar club at school (playing bass of course ) and we are performing Take Five by Dave Brubek on Friday. I was given sheet music for it, but it just has the chords on it. I was figuring I should play a walking bass line under it. Most of the chords are either minors or minor 7ths... what should I do under them?

The chords:

Ebm, Bbm7, Cbmaj7, Abm6, Gbmaj7, Db7, Fm7

http://www.jazzguitar.be/take_five.html

This is the sheet music I was given.

I'm not very familiar with playing bass in jazz, help guys!

[SundanceChile]

To be brutally simple, root-three-five-seven, root-three-five-seven, root-three-five-seven. I take it you haven't done much along the lines of Jazz tunes?

[LzeroKI]

just be careful with your rythm, as Take Five is in 5-4 not 4-4

[SuperSnake2012]

Originally Posted by SundanceChile

To be brutally simple, root-three-five-seven, root-three-five-seven, root-three-five-seven. I take it you haven't done much along the lines of Jazz tunes?

I've honestly never really played any jazz... Usually when I do play any there was a bass clef with the bass line already written out. I'm pretty new at this

[gdawg27]

Well I think you should locate a copy of the original recording and listen to the song a lot to get the feel. From the top of my head I believe the bass is playing roots on the 1st, 4th and 5th beats of each measure. So according to the sheet music you posted, you would play Eb on the first beat, Bb on the 4th and Bb (octave below) on the 5th beat. Hopefully, that should help.

[uturnbass]

Basically, when I learned how to do jazz walking lines, I'd highlight the notes of the chord.
So I hit the root, and if it were a minor, I'd highlight the fact that it is a minor by hitting the Gb (for the Eb minor) so it'd be like,

Eb-Bb-Gb-Eb (octave) or something along those lines.
Thats 4-4 timing but I'm just trying to illustrate my point.

Bbm7 would be like
Bb-Ab-Bb (octave)-Db highlighting the minor 3rd, and minor 7th of that chord.

[DemoEtc]

...And then see if you can find a nice passing note to slide into the next chord/arpeggio....

[uturnbass]

ah yes, forgot about that... yeah, usually the last note is a passing tone or a note that can connect with the next chord.

[DocBop]

Get the song and listen to it so you can get used to playing in 5/4. The bass line is real simple and you sound figure it our while getting the feel for 5. The key is the feel more than the notes, got to keep the 1-2-3 1-2 feel going. Focus on that more even if you have to play all root and fifths.