I want to get better at playing jazz.

[red_rhino]

Listen to a lot of jazz.

^^^^^^^THIS

Whatever else you do, that part is essential.

 

[DrGroovenstein]

^^^^^^^THIS

Whatever else you do, that part is essential.

Recommendations of where to start?

 

[JimmyM]

Recommendations of where to start?

See my previous post on pg 1.

 

[Feral Cat]

Lock yourself in a room for 8 to 12 hours a day for 5 to 6 years listening & transcribing, practicing. Get together with Cats that are more proficient than you and Play, Play, Play! Maybe in 10 to 20 years you'll get it, maybe! See how the new Wife feel's about that? Real books are BOGUS, learn off records. You have to LISTEN all the time. Just like any type of music that you want to play. I'll get a lot of flack for this but, that's what it take's with any art form, total dedication.

 

[Marc DLarosa]

Just shorten your strap, and move your fingers alot.

 

[red_rhino]

Recommendations of where to start?

Not really. "Jazz", for all its cliches, is actually a very diverse genre. Not all of it may appeal to you. Start anywhere, and see where it takes you.

Now that I think about it, a lot of the "recommended listening" I got was from other players who were on a similar quest. Hang with some other jazz players, play with them when you can. Find out what they're listening too.

 

[donotfret]

Another vote for learnjazzstandards.com, it's a really nice site. In particular 20 jazz standards for beginners and 10 Jazz Standards that will make learning jazz easier are good lists of standards to get started. There's also all kinds of great advice on that site.

Only use lead sheets when you get completely stuck. Otherwise it's way better to transcribe everything you need yourself.

Mark Levine's books are good too. Personally I prefer the jazz piano book to the jazz theory book. You'll get more or less the same content out of it, just in a different way. The jazz piano book is very good in explaining the link between chords and scales and has a nice must-have discography too.

Also see Scott's bass lessons - how to play walking bass.

 

[J_Bass]

It takes a lifetime.

First thing: learn to read music, F Clef and G Clef.

 

[cnltb]

where do I start?
I am planning on finding a local teacher for a few lessons

but what can I do in the meantime

Listen to it.
Transcribe and analyse bass lines - how do they relate to the chords.
Learn the modes/functional harmony.
know how to read.
Start simple - for me it was a bit like coming up with a bunch of blues lines , including substitutions...
play with someone who knows it and can coach/teach you.

repeat, progress, expand improve.

 

[vonbladet]

If you are playing bass, which seems a safe bet, you could profitably consult Ed Friedland's Building Walking Basslines, which explains carefully and progressively how to build walking basslines. I'm still working through it - it is more work than it looks, and I am very lazy. It includes changes for a handful of (unnamed) standards at the back; you don't really need a real-book's worth of examples right from the start.

Unless you have a burning need to play solos right off the bat I think you can safely postpone most of the additional theory, but listening is certainly good.

 

[AlexBassMP]

Find a good teacher and practice a lot.

 

[jthisdell]

Start with the older Dixieland style jazz, Armstrong, etc. Also check out Gypsy Jazz and Django Rheinhardt. These older songs have interesting chord charts but typically simple bass lines so if you find a chart you can play along readily. I learned a tremendous amount playing in a Gypsy trio. Don't start with Stanley Clark and Chick Corea, you'll just get frustrated.

 

[lfmn16]

Recommendations of where to start?

Youtube. Find something you like, click on suggested similar videos. Barney Kessel, Herb Ellis, Joe Pass are all great standard guitar players. They always have great bass players. Ron Carter, Ray Brown, Paul Chambers are good bass players to start with. @JimmyM has some good advice on which tunes to start with.

 

[JohnnyBottom]

?Just wondering about the transcribing suggestions here and if it would be helpful to me based on my 'mindset'.?

I know all the notes on the fretboard and I understand intervals and scales, and basically map/play them to patterns. I dont have scales memorized by note but I can derive any scale from pattern, and
play any scale in any key by pattern as well, ergo I can change keys just by changing my starting point.
Then I can certainly figure out which notes Im playing. Maybe I have a bass ackward approach.
Thanks,

 

[bassliner50]

Find a very competent piano player to hang with will have so many advantages to mosthack guitarist. (better yet, play piano yourself) Learn chordal and extension theory. Get and study the Real books. Listen to the American Song book and Jazz standards played by jazz masters countless times. (I grew up with these). If they do not appeal to you on a deep level, maybe jazz is not the best direction for you.

 

[JRA]

Maybe I have a bass ackward approach

jazz is what it is --- in any form, so: your present skills will give you some facility. but you may find that you need to alter (or re-formulate) your approach to music (in general) to study jazz. i.e., it's not merely "shifting starting positions and you're pretty much there." knowing the good/best/fun notes before you play them is a distinct advantage!

get the lessons/books suggested and listen to the tunes/types you want to play. different versions/arrangements and different ensembles playing the same tune can be helpful.

good luck with your jazz quest!

if can't read manuscript = learn how. if you can read some = bear down and improve.

 

[bassliner50]

What real book
Should I get?

Real Book I, II, III for starts.

 

[fu22ba55]

1) Get iRealPro for iOS or Android. It will help you get the sound of common jazz changes (chord progressions) in your head, and you can loop the difficult parts you want to practice over.

2) Learn to sight read if you can't already. 15 minutes a day will do wonders. In about two months you should be able to stumble through most instructional materials.
SightReadingFactory
Practice Sight Reading and Sight Singing Exercises Online – Sight Reading Factory®

3) Get Ed Friedland's book "Building Walking Basslines." There are some great YouTube tutorials on walking bass, but Ed's book has a pretty foolproof method for getting you started with walking basslines.

4) Realbook.us has the changes (chords) to tons of standards, but not the melodies.
Realbook.us
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Most people use the Hal Leonard Real Book (Sixth Edition, Volume 1) even though there are better books out there with hipper and more accurate changes. When you go to jam sessions, this is the book everyone seems to have. You can find bootleg PDFs online, with more tunes than the legal version, but most people lug the legal version around.

5) These two videos from Scott Devine were single-handedly the most helpful videos that helped me stop being a rock bassist and start being a jazz bassist. Go to school on these two videos until they make sense:

How To Practice Arpeggios


Soloing on Bass (Using Arpeggios)


That's just scratching the surface on how you can approach soloing, but it will get you started. and STAY FOCUSED. There are a BILLION YouTube videos out there to distract you. Really apply what he teaches in these two vids until the bass neck makes more sense to you.

6) Listen to jazz exclusively for a few months and find out what you like. Here's a good place to start, but there are a million amazing jazz records you've never heard of:

Miles Davis - Kind of Blue
Cannonball Adderly - Something Else
John Coltrane - A Love Supreme
Charles Mingus - Ah Um
Thelonious Monk - Plays Duke Ellington
Sonny Rollins - Way Out West
Sonny Rollins - A Night at the Village Vanguard
Bill Evans - Live At the Village Vanguard / Waltz for Debbie
Oliver Nelson - Blues and The Abstract Truth
Clifford Brown & Max Roach (1954)
Joe Henderson - Page One
Stan Getz & Charlie Byrd - Jazz Samba

 

[Liam Wald]

Go to YouTube and search for Jazz backing tracks.

 

[DrayMiles]

You have to play the melodies. that's a big mistake I made starting out... If you don't play the melodies you need to at least be able to vocalize them.
You have to know the melody and the harmony. Starting with the root movement...