tinyd

Some of the best recordings I can think of are the Miles Davis ones from the late 50s, Cookin', Relaxin', Steamin' and Workin' (you can get them all on one compilation called "The Prestige Sessions" I think). They were all recorded at the same couple of sessions and they're mostly standards with the incomparable Paul Chambers on bass. For learning walking bass I'd say they're better than Kind Of Blue because the tunes are more typical of what you'll play at a jazz jam. Somethin' Else by Cannonball Adderly is also a lovely album with the definitive version of Autumn Leaves. There are hundreds more but these are great to start with.

It's worth checking out to see if it works for you. Scott has a lesson where he talks about it:

It could be worth trying Simandl (1-2-4) fingering where the little finger is always supported by the third. It'll require some adjustment in your playing but it's a well tested technique and it'll work on any bass guitar since it's designed for double bass.

I think the 'cultural appropriation" argument is a bit of a strawman - most examples of this are usually drummed up by certain papers trying to get everyone angry about "PC gone mad" etc, whereas in reality I can't see anyone objecting on these grounds. I think what's more relevant is whether you feel that your band call pull off a song like this, given its very dark subject matter. Maybe have a listen to some of the other versions and see what kind of arrangements they've done, and see if one of them feels more comfortable to play?

As an aside, you can make a BG sound more like an organist's left hand by using an octave pedal

The upper chord extensions also give you a guide as to what scales will work over the chords. So for example, a #11 means that it'll be one of the Lydian scales, whereas a 7b9 chord means that a half/whole diminished scale will work. I'm not saying that you should just run up and down the scales for your bass line, but I find that it helps me to have the scale 'under my fingers' when I'm playing a walking line.

I think it's worth listening to what he wants from the bassline, but then explaining that the detail is down to you, plus you reserve the right to try things that are completely different.

The Vox Amplug is not a high-end piece of bass gear, but if you just want to noodle around on your bass when you can't be arsed to plug in a proper amp it's fine.

Regarding funk, I like long sections that stay on one vamp, but the art is in keeping the music developing at the same time. It's the same as the montuno section in Latin music. If the band don't know how to change things during the section then it does indeed become boring. It's funny, I've often tried to figure out why I like jazz and funk, but never really got on with prog. I think it's the opposite problem. To me, prog tends to change feel/tempo too often and doesn't stay on one groove long enough. Maybe there's a gene that controls one's groove Vs boredom tolerance...

I've always loved anything with Sly and Robbie, I learned a lot about bass playing from playing along to their stuff It's not strictly reggae, but I discovered this recently:

In terms of recommendation, there's some great Brazilian jazz from the 60s that has some lovely DB playing. The Sambalanço Trio are worth listening to. I'd agree with the comments above about playing DB though - latin bands tend to be less picky about DB vs BG so it makes sense to use the BG at first in the new band until you're up to speed on the upright.

This video is good: There's a lot of discussion about the difference between authentic Brazilian bass and the bossa styles that have been incorporated into mainstream jazz.

Interesting. I'd always had it as Ron Carter because he's officially credited on the album sleeve, but it looks like there's disagreement... http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php?/topic/35065-albums-with-ron-carter-on-electric-bass/&page=2

I'm pretty sure it's Ron - Wikipedia says so as well, but both Wikipedia and my memory are not flawless so I'm prepared to be corrected....

Excellent choice, with the added bonus of the great Ron Carter on bass.

I recently came across a great Android app that seems to work pretty well - "Complete Rhythm Trainer". It has exercises where you tap along to rhythms and it scores you accordingly. I'm sure there are other out there but this one works well for me.

Pedant alert - LA Woman (album) has bass guitar and I think that quite a few of their other tracks have bass as well (you can't get rid of us that easily )

That's the thing - no one cares once they've seen you play - the Elbow wikipedia page says that they chose the name because it was described as a "lovely word". So to straddle that tricky line between pretentious and wacky, I reckon it's best to pick a random word that you like the sound of, but otherwise has no special meaning.

I'm really old-school - I'm a bit suspicious of any bass with more than 4 strings and big slabby natural wood custom basses with loads of strings and funny horns really make me uncomfortable. They sound great, mind, so I know I'm being very shallow

Thanks @TheRev - I might get one, but I'd heard that the mounting was a bit flaky alright. Cheers!

While it's never going to do any harm to be in good physical shape, if your technique is good you shouldn't need anything more than normal strength / fitness to play the bass, so I'd take @Duckyincarnate's advice and get a teacher, even for a couple of lessons. I know you say that you've tried different endpin heights and it hasn't made any difference but I think it's worth persevering with this. I had mine a few centimetres too low and I was stooping ever so slightly and ended up in pain. A small adjustment and it went away. In general I've found that the endpin needs to be higher than you might think, especially if you lean the bass into yourself a bit as you play. If you feel that turning your neck is partially responsible, it might be because you're holding the bass too much to your side, rather than angled in a bit towards your body, which means that you're twisting your neck more than you need to. If you haven't seen this video then it's well worth a watch - @geoffbassist does a much better job of explaining it than I could:

Does anyone here have experience with the t.bone Ovid CC 100 ? Obviously I wouldn't expect it to perform as well as some of the more expensive mics out there, but on paper it looks like it could be worth trying, especially for cheapskates like me.

I know it's a joke, that's why I posted it 😀 The bass is "wrong", just not as obviously wrong as the horns. The bassline has a lot of subtle errors that are exactly the kind made by players who are either learning or faking it (myself included)

I think the most important thing with walking is to set things up so that you 'land' correctly on the first beat of the next chord - in my experience, getting this right is probably the most important because if you don't, it can throw the rest of the band because it obscures the chord changes. The bass playing on this shred video is a great example of 'wrong' walking - it's really well done and it sounds like the bass player knew exactly what they were doing: