"Jazz" feel

[TexBass]

One of the books that I am working with is Serious Electric Bass by Joel Di Bartolo.

In Chapter 3, page 35, he goes on to talk about subdividing notes. Then gives examples with straight eighth notes, sixteenth notes, triplets, etc.

Now, on page 37, Exercise 1, it's major scales written in 4/4 time but his remarks are to play with a "Jazz" with eighth note triplet subdivision.

What the what? I am confused. So I have been playing it as it's written. I have been playing it as triplets. I have also played it giving each note the first count but then silence on the other two beats of the triplet. Make sense?

Can someone please enlighten me?

 

[Steveman]

Swing eight notes are = a triplet with the first 2 notes being tied together.

 

[Spin Doctor]

Listen to a LOT of jazz... Then do what they do. If you wanna play jazz but all you listen to is rock or classical or whatever, the boat is gonna sail without you.

 

[mambo4]

That's basically what it means.

But realize this is not precision, it is approximation.
Listening to a lot of jazz will show you how swing gets interpreted in many ways.
The rhytmic origins of jazz are deep, stretch back to 19th century New Orleans
and arguably further back to west africa.
Some will claim that "you just have to feel it"
but the truth is you acquire a sensibility for it
via experience and study of the tradition.