Jazz Bass

[lawetlatla]

I'm joining my school's big band after ages of having my name down for it (I've had an after school class that's soon finishing). However I haven't played much in that style, mainly playing with a soul & funk band, & then playing random pieces outside of that. My bass teacher has been going over walking bass lines in the past few lessons & that's definitely helped, soon we're also going to work on reading music (other than chord charts & tabs). But it still is a bit daunting after only using tabs given to me or just playing basic root notes when given chords. I was wondering what helped other bassists when they started playing jazz?

 

[Michael J]

I should think playing along with other musicians and learning to read standard notation would be very high on the list.

 

[Bainbridge]

Just go in and do it. If you've been doing roots, then you'll be right at home. Jazz assumes roots in the bass. In some cases, it's the only way that they can use those big thirteenth chords without harmonic ambiguity. You should learn to read, if you don't do it already. A good way to learn is to copy your parts out by hand.

You might be asked to solo, and soloing is the scary part, but everybody at the high school level is going to br in a similar place unless they've been doing this all their lives. You start basic and get better.

 

[aaron61]

Get "Building walking basslines" by Ed Friedland.

Along with examples, it gives you the theory behind building lines which is
better than just parroting other people.

Hard work, but don't rush through, really absorb Ed's lessons.

 

[Mushroo]

Work on your ear training. Listen to lots and lots of great jazz bassists (like: Ray Brown, Jimmy Blanton, Ron Carter, Paul Chambers, etc.) and learn their bass lines. This will build your vocabulary so you can speak the language of jazz.