Double Bass Essential Jazz songs for learning jazz...

[Chris Fitzgerald]

I was talking with an older musician who told me when he was playing full-time back in the 40's and 50's, they'd have two default bridges, the "Sears-Roebuck," which started on the third and wound down (essentially rhythm changes bridge), and the "Montgomery-Ward," which started on the fourth, like A-Train. If someone requested a tune and they didn't quite know the bridge, the leader would call either one of these bridges and improvise a melody over it until the main theme came back around. He said the crowd never caught on.

Duly noted and swiped.

 

[Groove Doctor]

Here's recent thread with a similar topic. [Invalid or Expired Link Removed] the list I work from, and that I have my students work from. Neither, of course, is exhaustive.

New link to song list.
http://www.chrisfitzgeraldmusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Repertoirelist.pdf

 

[Chris Fitzgerald]

^^^^Thanks, Doc. Fixed in the original post as well. I just had my site moved to a new server, so I suspect there are going to be a number of dead links around here. Good to know!

 

[Michael Karn]

I was talking with an older musician who told me when he was playing full-time back in the 40's and 50's, they'd have two default bridges, the "Sears-Roebuck," which started on the third and wound down (essentially rhythm changes bridge), and the "Montgomery-Ward," which started on the fourth, like A-Train. If someone requested a tune and they didn't quite know the bridge, the leader would call either one of these bridges and improvise a melody over it until the main theme came back around. He said the crowd never caught on.

George Coleman told me that back then the Honeysuckle bridge was referred to as the George Washington bridge, because it's the bridge that everybody knows

 

[sean_on_bass]

New link to song list.
http://www.chrisfitzgeraldmusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Repertoirelist.pdf

Nice list...and poopie i have some work to do!

 

[EddiePlaysBass]

Funny, I came to the DB side of the forum looking to post such a thread. Good thing I browsed for a bit, first! Good stuff in here, and thanks to Chris for that list - I made a download. My main axe is an electric 5-string (yes, I belong to the "dark" side, apparently) but I double (dabble?) on an EUB (NS-design WAV4) and am looking to get into jazz playing.

Silly question (especially in this age) but is there a good compilation album that would cover a good selection of these standards? I am old-school so I do not believe in Spotify or buying (individual) MP3's. I like CD's cos they're small and shiny...

 

[J. Montgomery]

Silly question (especially in this age) but is there a good compilation album that would cover a good selection of these standards? I am old-school so I do not believe in Spotify or buying (individual) MP3's. I like CD's cos they're small and shiny...

For a compilation of jazz? . . . probably not many that are great. Your best bet is to look up the songs on YouTube, or buy the individual albums that these standards are pulled from (you won't be disappointed).

 

[J. Montgomery]

I'm a big proponent of familiarizing yourself with the history of jazz music as it has built upon itself over the past century. A good, listener-friendly starting point for early, New Orleans-style jazz is always Louis Armstrong in my opinion.

 

[EddiePlaysBass]

I was afraid of that. Now, don't get me wrong, I do have a bit of jazz in my collection (mostly Miles Davis, ranging from his quintet to Off The Corner) but I was hoping I could get a nice anthology or something with decent versions. Kind of an instant playlist

On a side-note, I realized I have a "Swing Favourites Big Band" book with sheet music, so I started learning April In Paris today. I can't sight-read (but am learning) so this is a nice challenge, and it accompanies the recent lessons I've been taking on scales & modes.

 

[Ed Fuqua]

Silly question (especially in this age) but is there a good compilation album that would cover a good selection of these standards? I am old-school so I do not believe in Spotify or buying (individual) MP3's. I like CD's cos they're small and shiny...

And you may not be best served by that methodology. I'm not sure where the interview I did with Neal Miner is currently on the site (Oh, here it is...), but he talks about his dad making him a cassette of a bunch of different versions of the SAME standards. Because it's not like you're following directions to get from point A to point B, it's more like a conversation and different folks have different takes on the same subject...

 

[sean_on_bass]

Youtube can be a great resource for listening to many versions of the same tune. I love my Spotify as well.

 

[Groove Doctor]

The album "200 songs Jazz Standards", only $10 on iTunes. All original recordings so quality varies a lot. I've owned a copy for 7 years & still refer to it often.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/200-Jazz-Standards/dp/B004XSVNAQ

[Click the song number on the left to get a 20sec audio of it]

 

[craigie]

I just read a Steve Wallace blog post where he mentions learning obscure tunes and how he was burned at times in his early career not knowing a song. He's one of those guys that out of town musicians use because he can fit in and not get thrown. That's a vital skill for a top level bassist. If a guy like that is playing with say John Abercrombie who knows what he might call? They'd have to know every song from all his records that he might conceivably play, and then he might play standards anyway.

I saw John handy in Toronto and it was awesome. Big black dude in a mumu. Don Thompson told me he wouldn't call tunes. He'd just start playing the next one in whatever key he felt like.

It just comes down to lots of hard work. Which songs? All of them. In any key.

 

[damonsmith]

Also, try to stick with actual standards for a while. Tunes by the great players and composers are tempting because they generally better music. However, while they do relate to the language, there is very often less one to one transfer especially in terms of forms.
I spent a lot of years learning Monk, Mingus, Duke and Coltrane tunes. It worked out great for being a free jazz player, but it did not really prepare me for playing a lot of straight ahead tunes.
Stick with the most basic tunes for a while. You may not be able to help learning some great Mingus tunes, but keep the basic ones going as well.

 

[EddiePlaysBass]

On a side-note, I got a fretless electric last week and have dug up both the Latin Bass book by Oscar Stagnaro and Jay Hungerford's Walking Jazz Lines for Bass book. The former is helping me in my ongoing quest to learn to sight-read and the Hungerford book enables me to play better lines in my blues band Both have excellent material for fretless purposes - I initially did the Latin thing on my electric upright but between sight reading, upright playing and being in tune, it was just too much to handle all at once