What is a good first jazz song to learn on bass?

[Gertok]

Hi, I have experience playing bass in metal bands. I would like to expand my arsenal. Here is my background I am a pretty good metal bass player, and know some advamced technics such as multi finger tapping, extended plucked arpeggios etc. I can keep a steady rhythm at various speeds.
I cant slap to save my life.
I enjoy listening to jazz, so I would like to learn some songs. What is a good starter song to do?

[St Drogo]

Good to hear you're growing musically, man. I went from metal/sludge/stoner to expanding my tastes to jazz too. Started with take five by dave brubeck, chameleon by herbie hancock and (maybe more funky than jazzy) come on, come over by jaco. That last one's a doozy, especially the chorus.

Good luck!

[Chris K]

+1 to those.

So what (Miles Davis)
All blues (Miles Davis)
Mercy, mercy, mercy (Cannonball Adderly)
Watermelon Man (Mongo Santamaria)
Song for my father (Horace Silver)
Cantaloup Island (Herbie Hancock)

Have fun!

[KNURRR]

Autumn Leaves is pretty nice.

[rabassaf]

you could also try learning a song that you allready know, like, and want to play/capture its sound. many beautiful melodies are there.

[Bruce Lindfield]

Nobody has mentioned that the whole point about Jazz and especially bass lines - is improvisation!

So if you just learn what somebody else played and play that verbatim - that is not Jazz!

Jazz has always taken the popular songs of its day and "Jazzed" them up - that is, the performers have made the tune their own, and have improvised their own melodies over the chord changes.

You could take any tune and make it Jazz - but to play a tune associated with Jazz, "straight" - is just not Jazz!

So - one the most renowned current Jazz performers - Brad Meldhau - plays Radiohead tunes - but makes them his own - now that's Jazz!

[Kevin.Kevin]

Originally Posted by Gertok

Hi, I have experience playing bass in metal bands. I would like to expand my arsenal. Here is my background I am a pretty good metal bass player, and know some advamced technics such as multi finger tapping, extended plucked arpeggios etc. I can keep a steady rhythm at various speeds.
I cant slap to save my life.
I enjoy listening to jazz, so I would like to learn some songs. What is a good starter song to do?

Basically forget about all that techinical stuff. Sit down, put your metronome on two and 4, and arrpegiate the chords to a basic blues in F or Bb. Then when you can do that without thinking/in your sleep, learn/lift the melody to Nows the time. Memorize, now you got a tune. PLay in every key and you got a start.

Other good ones to learn, Oleo/rhythmaning, for Rhythm Changes

little Suede Shoes, for your ii-V licks.

Then come back and we can talk about improvising. ALot of the bass in jazz is as a time keeper. Takes a while to get to the point where you can play a coherent line that interacts well with what the soloist is doing.

And start working on your ear training like crazy. Ear triaining and rhythm are probably the two most important things you can get going, the song forms and theory will come with time.

[fdeck]

Originally Posted by Bruce Lindfield

Nobody has mentioned that the whole point about Jazz and especially bass lines - is improvisation!

So if you just learn what somebody else played and play that verbatim - that is not Jazz!

Strictly speaking, that's true. However, there is nothing wrong with listening and playing along to some classic recordings in order to get into the groove... while waiting for a good theory-oriented book on walking bass to arrive in the mail.

Any record with Ray Brown on it will suffice for your first 20 years of learning.

[Bruce Lindfield]

Originally Posted by fdeck

Strictly speaking, that's true. However, there is nothing wrong with listening and playing along to some classic recordings in order to get into the groove... while waiting for a good theory-oriented book on walking bass to arrive in the mail.

Any record with Ray Brown on it will suffice for your first 20 years of learning.

But my point was that a contemporary Jazz artist can take any song - whether by Radiohead, the Strokes etc and make it Jazz!

[Blake Bass]

But my point was that a contemporary Jazz artist can take any song - whether by Radiohead, the Strokes etc and make it Jazz!

The OP is a beginner at jazz, I don't think you should expect him to be doing what a "contemporary jazz" artist would do.

[Ed Fuqua]

No, but at some point (and generally the sooner the better) the OP needs to understand that this is not like metal or pop or the romantic classical repertoire - that is it's not that you learn the "bass part" and the guitar player learns the "guitar part" and now you are playing ALONE TOGETHER.

Yes, there is value in transcribing PC and Ray Brown and Sonny Dallas. Yes there is value in jumping in and listening to a lot of this music to gain some familiarity with the way the language sounds. Yes, there are a number of skill sets - hearing with clarity, understanding what you're hearing and having a relaxed physical approach to your instrument. None of which is really addressed by "learning a good starter song".

And it's not about waiting till you're a "contemporary jazz artist", my teacher uses the same approach with beginners as he does with me.

[slybass3000]

Me too would suggest Autum Leaves for the melody AND the harmonic structure of the tune. The whole song is based on the modes of the Major scale and the relative minor harmonic scale and modes. It is perfect to make your teeths on jazz harmony.

You can practice your modes over it. You can also improvise with only one scale like the minor blues scale or the major scale based on the relative major all trough the song which is a good start to solo.

A Major Blues with ii-v in it would be another good start.

Sly

[Kimpini]

Originally Posted by Chris K

+1 to those.

So what (Miles Davis)
All blues (Miles Davis)
Mercy, mercy, mercy (Cannonball Adderly)
Watermelon Man (Mongo Santamaria)
Song for my father (Horace Silver)
Cantaloup Island (Herbie Hancock)

Have fun!

+1

[Bruce Lindfield]

Originally Posted by Ed Fuqua

No, but at some point (and generally the sooner the better) the OP needs to understand that this is not like metal or pop or the romantic classical repertoire - that is it's not that you learn the "bass part" and the guitar player learns the "guitar part" and now you are playing ALONE TOGETHER.

Yes, there is value in transcribing PC and Ray Brown and Sonny Dallas. Yes there is value in jumping in and listening to a lot of this music to gain some familiarity with the way the language sounds. Yes, there are a number of skill sets - hearing with clarity, understanding what you're hearing and having a relaxed physical approach to your instrument. None of which is really addressed by "learning a good starter song".

And it's not about waiting till you're a "contemporary jazz artist", my teacher uses the same approach with beginners as he does with me.

Yup - if you intend to actually play Jazz at any level - then you need to know that it's not just about playing what 'xxxxxx' did on a particular track..... What makes it "Jazz", is not what song you are playing! That's the most basic premise of Jazz!

[One Bad Monkey]

Originally Posted by Chris K

+1 to those.

So what (Miles Davis)
All blues (Miles Davis)
Mercy, mercy, mercy (Cannonball Adderly)
Watermelon Man (Mongo Santamaria)
Song for my father (Horace Silver)
Cantaloup Island (Herbie Hancock)

Have fun!

If I didn't know better, I'd swear you stole a set list from my high school jazz combo. +1 for all of these; very easy to learn, memorize and play the head as well.

[joinercape]

It's accepted that becoming a jazz player is a life-long study, but if you want to get local "jazz" gigs, it's about knowing some tunes, and being able to hear your way through tunes you don't know. There's hundreds of standards you will be expected to play on, but things like A Train, Satin Doll, Opus One, All The Things You Are, Night And Day (many others, but you have to start somewhere) and Autumn leaves will give you the common iiV patterns and turn arounds you'll need to be comfortable with. Check out Carol Kayes website and read her threads on practicing chords (chord tones) rather than scales, you'll move along faster. Have fun, versitility is a great thing!

[Gertok]

Thanks for being very helpful guys. I will start to incorporate jazz into my practices. I just want to get my feet wet with a few covers first, to get an idea.

[azureblue]

For example, Blue Monk is just blues in Bb. The head is simple to learn.

Stolen Momements is just c minor blues with a different turn around

Blue Bossa is also C minor blues, but part of it is up a half step.

and there are tons of other jazz blues tunes, just dig around for them. Find recordings of the tunes and listen to what the bass player was playing on them. And get a Real Book - you can get a CD of it on ebay.

[TimmyBoomBoom]

The "Louie Louie" of Jazz; Van Morrison's Moon Dance.

[Dr. Cheese]

Originally Posted by Chris K

+1 to those.

So what (Miles Davis)
All blues (Miles Davis)
Mercy, mercy, mercy (Cannonball Adderly)
Watermelon Man (Mongo Santamaria)
Song for my father (Horace Silver)
Cantaloup Island (Herbie Hancock)

Have fun!

That is a great list of nice songs that are not harmonically challenging. I also recommend anything that uses the circle of fifths. As a pretty ignorant player, I can tell you that it is great to play songs that use the circle of fifths because it is great to learn to recognize it, not only for jazz, but for any sort of songs.