Jazz standards for bass

[Spin Doctor]

An exceptional private instructor would help you beyond belief, but if your going DIY:

Step 1: Find some Jazz that you like, literally anything and listen to that. Actually listen, not like on your phone while you post on Talkbass.

Step 2: Learn some songs. I would start with songs featuring repetitive grooves rather than walking lines, just to get you in the groove and playing tunes quickly.

Take Five
Equinox
All Blues
Songs for My Father
FootPrints
St. Thomas
Maiden Voyage

Step 3. Part 1
Learn 12 Bar Jazz blues.
First Play Root notes along with the chord changes in a 2 feel (playing on Beats 1 and 3. Feel free to alternate between root and fifth once you’ve got the roots down.

Step 3. Part 2
Start working on walking lines. Start by playing just the root notes as quarter notes and once you’ve got that down, start to mix in approach notes (played on the 4th beat of the measure leading to the next root note) try playing half steps above, then below, then try fifths, sixths, and sevenths.

Step 4. Learn waking bass lines. Let’s face it, no one just comes up with incredible walking lines. Like every other genre you need to build vocabulary before you can hold it down. There is a series of books called “walking in the footsteps” that are transcriptions completed by Rob Gourlay of the best walking bass lines by the best bassists of there time. They can get a little tricky to follow at times because they don’t all start at the head (some do while others start when the solos start). The book labels chorus’s as A, B, C meaning if you memorize just one of those you’d have a walking line to play the entire time. These are an invaluable tool, play these a TON.

This link is for his Sam’s Jones book which features some common standards you’d likely start with:
https://www.amazon.com/Walking-foot...XR38XY0MBA1&psc=1&refRID=J7PSSNNTDXR38XY0MBA1

Step 5: Start learning easy melody’s by ear. Autumn Leaves, All Blues, Freddie Freeloader, etc.

Step 6: Play the melody on bass and then play your memorized walking pattern and repeat.

I could add more steps but that’s honestly plenty to start with. I wouldn’t even think about solos until you’ve got everything above going strong.

best of luck!!!

This is the best place to start, if you're gonna do it yourself. If you try to begin with, Mingus, Coltrane and Ellington, you're gonna get lost and stay lost, especially if you haven't really listened to jazz much at all. People have done their Masters thesis on these guys. But even then, you're not gonna listen to some songs for a week, and even begin to get it. it takes awhile to get the sound into your ears and into your head.

Even once you do that, the real work starts and you're going to feel very frustrated for awhile. When Miles Davis was starting out, trying to learn jazz, he wanted to quit, because he wasn't getting it. Mike Stern would tell you the same thing also. And we all know how that turned out. You have to love the process of learning it to be any good at it. Don't try to do too much at a time and keep the task small.

As mentioned, best of luck.

 

[Wasnex]

Really silly question, but what do you mean by harmonize the scales using 7th chords?

Not a silly question at all. @mambo4 provided a great answered in post 14 and I will just expand a bit on what he wrote.

Small case Roman numerals mean minor triad, large case mean major tried. The triad may be modified by symbols the follow (specifically the 5th).

The harmonization produces the functional 7th chords for C Major. I added the Roman numerals to show these chord shape relationships hold for all major keys.
IΔ7 C major 7
ii-7 D minor 7
iii-7 E minor7
IVΔ7 F major 7
V7 G 7
vi-7 A minor 7
viiø7 B minor7 (flat 5) * see note below

* "ø7" is a common symbol and it is read half-diminished 7. The 7th is minor and the 5th is diminished or flat. The first scale degree (or tonic), 4ths, and 5ths do not have major and minor qualities. They can be perfect, augmented (raised), or diminished (lowered). Using flat or sharp is common but can be ambiguous at times. All other intervals are normally minor or major, but can also be augmented or diminished.

Some people will argue that the half diminished 7 chord does not exist but, this terminology is taught in many colleges and universities. The the half diminished symbol widely used in jazz chord notation.

If you just have the circle with no line through it "°", it is read diminished or fully diminished. To be clear a diminished 7th is enharmonic to a major 6th. In other words the interval of a diminished 7th sounds the same as the interval of a major 6th.

You would also need to do the harmonizaton for natural minor, harmonic minor, and jazz minor.

Here is the natural minor. You should notice these are the same 7th chords you should start on the 6 chord and call it i. In other words A Minor 7 is vi7 in C major and i7 in A minor.
i-7 A minor 7
iiø7 B minor7 (flat 5)
IIIΔ7 C major 7
iv-7 D minor 7
v-7 E minor7
VIΔ7 F major 7
VII7 G 7

You probably won't see natural minor a lot in jazz because the Dominant shape on the VII will point back to the III and make it sound like your are in a major key.

Harmonic minor (raised 7th scale degree)
iΔ7 A minor major 7
iiø7 B minor7 (flat 5)
IIIΔ7+5 C Maj 7 (+ 5) ** see note below
iv-7 D minor 7
V7 E7
VIΔ7 F major 7
#vii°7 G# diminished 7

** The "+" means the 5th is augmented or raised. You could also write CMaj7#5. CAug7 or C+7 is an augmented triad with a minor 7th, which is considered an altered dominant sound (non-diatonic). The chord notation is not always intuitive, so you will need to learn to recognize and interpret a variety of symbols.

Jazz melodic minor (raised 6th and 7th scale degrees)
iΔ7 A minor major 7
ii-7 B minor 7
IIIΔ7+5 C major 7 (+ 5)
IV7 D7
V7 E7
#viø7 F# minor 7 (flat 5)
#viiø7 G# minor 7 (flat 5)

Hopefully I got all of these right . So now you should have all of the diatonic 7th chord shapes. As I mentioned

Major 6 and Minor 6 chords are also very common, so you should get used to playing those well. Just remember they have the same notes as inverted 7th chords. For example, AMaj6 (AC#EF#) = F#Min7 (F#AC#E) and AMin6 (ACEF#) = F#min7b5 (F#ACE)

 

[BrotherMister]

So I know absolutely know nothing about jazz. can someone please educate me and tell me where to get started

What jazz do you like and what is it that makes you want to learn how to play it?

Being told to transcribe players and standards doesn't really help understand whats going on in the music you have no idea how the music actually works. You can ear train all day but again that doesn't particularly give you a sense what is going on other than being able to identify what is going on. Jazz ear training encounters significantly more problems than other styles of music. Playing a pop song or something the music stays fairly static and seldom changes, you can play the same song night after night and it's not going to change. In jazz things change every single time we play it so we have to hear absolutely everything at once, hear things in advance and hear everything changing at once. So the bass player has to be able to hear the chord changes, while hearing in advance their bass line to play that all the while hearing to and responding to what the other instruments are doing and following the soloist. Which means the line you are hearing in advance is also constantly changing as well, but you still have to hear the in advance in order to play it. That's a lot of things to hear in any given time while trying to hear what you want to play advance. But, if you have not idea what's going on in this music then it helps to try to hear what is going on first of all.

So let's keep it fairly straight forward and stick with a 12 bar blues, and for even more point of reference let's take the same tune - C Jam Blues. The melody is pretty simple so you should easily here when the melody is being played and when we move into the solo sections.









https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTJhHn-TuDY

For the most part in jazz we are improvising around the form of a composition, the form is largely what keeps things from spiralling out of control because while we can improvise and alter pretty much anything in tune, the form pretty much remains unaltered. The form here being a 12 bar blues. What goes on within that form is varied all the time. Once the melody is stated each soloist improvises over the harmony, a 12 bar blues being fairly simple harmonic wise. You can still hear the I chord, the IV chord and the V chord. So that fundamental essence of the blues still exists. The soloist is improvising over these chord changes, and may be implying other harmony in their solo as well.

At the same time the rhythm section is improvising as well. Everyone knows the form and the changes so we can all improvise within that. We are listening to the soloist and responding to their ideas, so harmonies might be improvised to accommodate the soloists idea or an idea someone in the rhythm section responding to the soloist. While the soloist is subsequently responding to the rhythm section. The music is therefore far more conversational since everyone is listening to, reacting to and responding to one another. This is largely what is going on for the most part of small group jazz, aside from free form and avant-garde stuff. Big Bands obviously have written arrangements but still feature improvised solos and the rhythm section is still improvising with the form as well.

That should (I'm hope!) on a very basic level, give you an idea of what is actually going on in the music at least.

A good teacher is going to help guide you with this. It is very possible to do it yourself, and a lot of it is done yourself as well but it is also very easy to get lost with this music. All of it might seem overwhelming to begin with but trust me that it's nothing consistent practise can't get anybody doing.

 

[Wasnex]

This is known as playing "outside" right?

For example if I play diminished scale notes for tension and then resolved back to a minor scale? Or am I way off?

I think the characterization of "wrong" is not really the best way of describing it. The chords are simply non-functional, which means they can not be analyzed using traditional rules of harmony. But the chords are definitely not wrong.

The problem is much like physics, there is no grand theory the unifies all of the ways of making music. In other words there are no rules to formally explain why something works. But there are definitely formulas that are used over and over again that reliably produce the same incredible results.

Often the key center in jazz is ambiguous and one could argue about the key center, so you are free to play in different keys. This sort of lends to the idea of playing outside. But I think playing outside is more when you purposefully playing outside of the key when everyone really sort of know where it is. There are progressive ways that you can do this using pentatonic scales for example, that a fairly easy to do.

Take a listen to this video starting around 15:00 where it starts to push the pentatonic handgrip outside the key with an F#

 

[Spin Doctor]

This is known as playing "outside" right?

For example if I play diminished scale notes for tension and then resolved back to a minor scale? Or am I way off?

Yes, this is playing outside. Generally you can do this type of stuff on any V chord. Half/Whole diminished, Melodic Minor, Triad pairs, etc. The V is the "anything goes" chord, because it has so much inherent tension in it. And there are also easier ways to play outside, other than "exotic" scales.

But honestly, before you get into any of that, you really need to know how to manipulate a plain ole major scale. And that manipulation is wildly more involved than simply playing it up and down. Once you can do that, all that exotic stuff becomes almost instantly recognizable.

 

[Wasnex]

Really silly question, but what do you mean by harmonize the scales using 7th chords?

For context, much of my knowledge was gained in three semesters of college level music theory and ear training courses. Developing the required knowledge on your own is a pretty steep hill to climb. What I have outlined probably seems pretty overwhelming, but IMHO it's all really foundational and necessary if you want to be able to play jazz with any level of competency from a lead sheet.

You can't learn all of this stuff at once. IMHO you need to learn it incrementally, so its really helpful if you have a person or intuition that can organize it and present it to you in a systematic and logical order. Also it's important for you to keep you using what you have already learned while you are learning the next building blocks.

A bit more about my journey:
In third semester I finally declared a music major, and then life happened, so I dropped out instead of attending 4th semester. I continued with self study of the Real Book from there and kept growing musically, but I am sure there is a lot of additional important knowledge that I was not exposed too. Eventually I won a job with a military band and had to work really hard because I really wasn't qualified. But they gave me training, mentorship, and a few carrots and sticks, and I grew into the job.

 

[Pings Bass]

Couldn't agree more

The institution of "jazz" as an academic field of study is such a double-edged sword. On the one hand the music gets the respect it deserves, and lives on. On the other hand you get these kids coming out of universities with killer chops and ability to analyze the most complex music on every level... but there is often little or no connection with the culture that gave rise to the music. It's intangible, but you can hear it missing.

 

[Spin Doctor]

The institution of "jazz" as an academic field of study is such a double-edged sword. On the one hand the music gets the respect it deserves, and lives on. On the other hand you get these kids coming out of universities with killer chops and ability to analyze the most complex music on every level... but there is often little or no connection with the culture that gave rise to the music. It's intangible, but you can hear it missing.

Yep. Just my opinion and observation, all the phenoms go to the same 3 or 4 schools, they all have the same instructors and they all sound the same. I think they are more into the formulaic approach rather than through the aural tradition. It's technically impressive but not one of them seems to have any sentiment to express with their music. It's just math. But that's a pretty big generalization, so add salt.

But then too, the environment where young players were mentored by the older guys is gone also. There's no Art Blakey and the Jazz messengers where you have the likes of a young Wayne Shorter, Chick Corea, Bobby Timmons, Lee Morgan etc coming up through the ranks, touring and performing. So I guess it's just the way it has to be for now. Michael League is impressive, but he mentored with Roy Hargrove, so there was a little of that going on.

 

[Pings Bass]

Yep. Just my opinion and observation, all the phenoms go to the same 3 or 4 schools, they all have the same instructors and they all sound the same. I think they are more into the formulaic approach rather than through the aural tradition. It's technically impressive but not one of them seems to have any sentiment to express with their music. It's just math. But that's a pretty big generalization, so add salt.

In other words, jazz, the only uniquely American art form, has been colonized.

(also just my opinion and observation)

 

[joelns]

In other words, jazz, the only uniquely American art form, has been colonized.

(also just my opinion and observation)

As soon as you could get a major in Jazz in college, it was all over.

 

[Wasnex]

@Spin Doctor and @Esteban Garcia this is my semi-ignorant take on the situation. IMHO and YMMV applies.

Maybe you should consider current limitations on the state of the art form a bit. My take is jazz evolved past its current form a long time ago. So what current jazz masters are doing is sort of pushing older versions of the art form around in circles. They don't have a whole lot of room to grow, because if there is too much evolution, the music will grow out of the constraints of the accepted art form.

The historic jazz greats on the other hand were allowed to push the music to new frontiers and had a wide open horizon with no limits. I would say a fair number of them pushed the music into different evolutionary paths. It was probably really exciting to follow some of these paths, but AFAIK many, if not most of theses paths eventually hit a dead end and died off.

So IMHO, the problem is not so much the educational establishment. Ultimately I think the role of the educational establishment is more preservation than anything else. They certainly aren't preparing most of their music grads for good paying jobs.

In my opinion the problem is essentially jazz is a dead art form, and the current state of affairs is simply the natural outcome of preserving jazz. It's totally different dynamic than what you would expect to get if the music was still evolving naturally.

Also, the culture that gave rise to jazz evolved into something else long ago and ceased to exist, so there's really no way to go back and tie in with that culture.

I am okay with preservation. As the saying goes: "It beats the alternative."

 

[Spin Doctor]

@Spin Doctor and @Esteban Garcia this is my semi-ignorant take on the situation. IMHO and YMMV applies.

Maybe you should consider current limitations on the state of the art form a bit. My take is jazz evolved past its current form a long time ago. So what current jazz masters are doing is sort of pushing older versions of the art form around in circles. They don't have a whole lot of room to grow, because if there is too much evolution, the music will grow out of the constraints of the accepted art form.

The historic jazz greats on the other hand were allowed to push the music to new frontiers and had a wide open horizon with no limits. I would say a fair number of them pushed the music into different evolutionary paths. It was probably really exciting to follow some of these paths, but AFAIK many, if not most of theses paths eventually hit a dead end and died off.

So IMHO, the problem is not so much the educational establishment. Ultimately I think the role of the educational establishment is more preservation than anything else. They certainly aren't preparing most of their music grads for good paying jobs.

In my opinion the problem is essentially jazz is a dead art form, and the current state of affairs is simply the natural outcome of preserving jazz. It's totally different dynamic than what you would expect to get if the music was still evolving naturally.

Also, the culture that gave rise to jazz evolved into something else long ago and ceased to exist, so there's really no way to go back and tie in with that culture.

I am okay with preservation. As the saying goes: "It beats the alternative."

Well it's an interesting discussion. And it's hard to say exactly what the direction of jazz actually took once it evolved past Bebop.

But my personal take is that first and foremost jazz was a music that was a reflection of the times. Miles Davis wasn't reworking 70 year old songs. Most of the stuff that he was playing at the time was either brand new, or were fairly recent. And the songs that he chose to cover were written by masters of the game. Because jazz for the most part is playing cover tunes. So in that regard, while it's not that improvisational anymore, I think that hip hop has pretty much takien over that role, since it's relevant to the times. To me jazz is about the role that it plays in life, not chord progressions.

And if you look at the jazz that comes out of the UK, which to me is Jazz's most recent incarnation, it's mostly instrumental, improvisationally based Hip Hop. Which is what I listen to mainly. I love all the old stuff but I've already heard it a billion times. To me, the jazz that's being "taught" really doesn't have anything new to say. I still study it because you still need to understand where everything comes from. But honestly does the world really need yet another version of Satin Doll? I don't think so.

 

[g-dude]

So a lot of good info on here, but the most important thing is this:

Whenever you see a minor chord, and in this case pretend you see a D minor chord, play this pattern:

For other minor chords, just transpose this up or down.

Do this, and you’ll be an absolute legend.

 

[Spin Doctor]

So a lot of good info on here, but the most important thing is this:

Whenever you see a minor chord, and in this case pretend you see a D minor chord, play this pattern:

View attachment 4220937

For other minor chords, just transpose this up or down.

Do this, and you’ll be an absolute legend.

You're not all that far off the mark...

 

[Ed Fuqua]

THE CHICKEN is not a jazz standard...

 

[g-dude]

You're not all that far off the mark...

I’m working on Take Five this week. I’m torn between liberally quoting the lick and the melody to My Favorite Things whilst soloing.

 

[Papageno]

Ah OK, I was aware of that concept, but didn't realise it was called harmonizing a scale...

So in major we use the M,m,m,M,M,m,Dim, and in minor we use m,Dim,M,m,m,M,M right?

That's what you get when harmonizing in triads (not so frequent in jazz). Also, for minor, it is more frequent to harmonize using the harmonic minor scale (instead of natural minor, which lack the important leading tone).

In jazz, it is more frequent to harmonize with tetrads (root, 3rd, 5th, 7th or 6th), which gives you:

Major: IMaj7 (or I6), iim7, iiim7, IVMaj7 (or IV6), V7, vim7, viim7b5
harmonic minor : i6 (or imMaj7), iim7b5, bIIIAugMaj7, ivm7 (or ivm6), V7, bVIMaj7, viidim7

Edit: Oups, sorry, I had overlooked mambo4's earlier post with thew same content. Didn't mean to duplicate...

 

[WrapRough]

OK, so I figured out Moondance I just needed to spend more time on it! Lord knows how the walking line is done but I think i have the chords at least.

Man this stuff is gonna take time. Makes me wish I was retired

 

[LBS-bass]

but not one of them seems to have any sentiment to express with their music. It's just math.

I wouldn't go quite this far. You will occasionally find a unique pairing of refined technique/theory knowledge with a true heart and ear for the music. But, IMO, finding anyone, schooled or unschooled, with a true heart and ear for music is pretty difficult. There are lots of by-the-numbers players. It's the only way most people can do music.

 

[Spin Doctor]

I wouldn't go quite this far. You will occasionally find a unique pairing of refined technique/theory knowledge with a true heart and ear for the music. But, IMO, finding anyone, schooled or unschooled, with a true heart and ear for music is pretty difficult. There are lots of by-the-numbers players. It's the only way most people can do music.

If you know of any musicians who you think are unique in that way, I'd like to get some names from you. Somebody who has emerged in the last 10 or 15 years. It doesn't matter what instrument.