tinyd

For some recent-ish stuff I really liked this album - https://www.amazon.com/Havana-Cultura-Anthology-Gilles-Peterson/dp/B01M21BI70 On the other hand, this album is a lovely set of recordings from the 1950s from the great Cachao https://www.amazon.com/Havana-Sessions-Cachao/dp/B000UZ4H3Q They were recorded late at night after the musicians had finished playing in clubs etc.

This is a pretty good 1-page fundamental guide from Bert Ligon: http://nationaljazzworkshop.org/freematerials/ligon/Bert_Ligon_Fundamental_Bass_Lines.pdf There are more here: http://nationaljazzworkshop.org/freestuff.php

The Miles Davis Prestige albums (Cookin', Workin', Steamin', Relaxin') are a fantastic set of standards as well.

This thread contains some great music, but given the OP's specific request for foundations to learn walking bass, then I reckon Frank's list is the place to start before exploring some of the more recent music. I'd add that most of the albums on Blue Note from about 1951-1963 will have tunes that are in the same style, and the recordings themselves are very good with clear bass. Once you get into the mid-60s, Miles's 2nd Quintet and John Coltrane Quartet took a lot of jazz into the 'modern' era. These lineups produced my favourite music, but in terms of learning walking bass they're a bit further away from "entry level", especially albums like Miles Smiles and A Love Supreme. For history and lots of written snippets, John Goldsby's The Jazz Bass Book is well worth a read.

It's not programmable, but if you're looking for really good quality loops to jam along to, Drumgenius is great. You can adjust the tempo and pitch by a certain amount as well.

If the bass line is a "signature" of the tune then learn it pretty much note-for-note, since it's effectively part of the tune's melody. But for other lines it's fine to play your own variants over the changes. One caveat of this approach is that you need to avoid the temptation to overplay. I've caught myself doing this loads - play what I think is a similar groove from memory and realise that I'm playing a lot more notes than the original. Cissy Strut is a good example of this - a lot of people put in extra notes that aren't in the original.

I bought one recently (a Laka one) and I really like it. It's fretless as well - I find the intonation itself good (i.e. twelfth 'fret' corresponds to octave) but tuning and fingering is, like you say, a bit tricky. I usually play DB now, but I used to own an acoustic BG and I think that the ukulele bass is a lot closer in terms of sound. Weirdly enough (given the size difference), I also find it closer in terms of playability to DB - maybe because on a BG I tend to resort to the standard BG playing style, whereas DB and ukulele both take me in a different direction.

I think that learning triads/chord tones is more important than scales (initially at least). Jamming along to the radio / Spotify playlist and seeing what you can come up with using root, third and fifth will give you loads of scope, especially if also use inversions of the triads.

One thing that's worth doing is to keep an eye out on basschat for people selling strings secondhand. It saves money and is generally a good way of trying strings out to see what you like. As @TheRev says, Spirocores are a good place to start if you want a bright-ish "jazz" sound - I had some in the past and they're good, although I've moved to Evah Pirazzi Weichs now which I also got secondhand.

It does depend on genre, but playing without a drummer can be a nice change of pace and like @spongebob says, it gives you a chance as a bass player to change style and focus more on rhythm. It's maybe a bit unfair, but there's some truth in the Chet Baker quote: "It takes a pretty good drummer to be better than no drummer at all".

For upright basses, the string height is usually measured at the end of the fingerboard - it varies a lot, but typical values are around 10mm for the E string down to maybe 6-7mm for the G string.

Doesn't answer your question but I bought a Tascam dr-05 a few years ago and it's great for recording rehearsals and gigs - problem with a phone is that no matter how good the software, the mics aren't much good for music. If you can scrape together £80 for the Tascam (or a Zoom H1) you'll get a lot of use from it.

There's a good book by Richard Williams on the influence of Kind Of Blue, you've probably seen if but if not it's well worth a read. My favourite nugget was the fact that James Brown's band lifted the horn stabs in Cold Sweat from So What.

Over the years I've increased my jazz listening and it's now about 80% of what I listen to. Of course, it's just another genre of music and it's not for everyone, but I think that unlike some genres, good jazz recordings can give you something new decades after you first hear them. I'm quite 'traditional' in that I think that the Coltrane Quartet (e.g. A Love Supreme) and Miles Quintet (Miles Smiles) recordings from the mid-60s haven't really been improved upon, but there's plenty of great contemporary stuff as well.

I have a j-tone which I really like. Might be worth getting one as they're very cheap and do deliver a usable sound.

The 'lost' Coltrane album, Both Directions At Once, is pretty nice. I treated myself to a vinyl copy as it's not often that you get to buy a new Coltrane album... It's a big step up from the usual 'undiscovered' recordings that surface from time to time, and it has much more of the feel of a proper studio release. The recording quality is good and the quartet are in their prime so the playing is great, I'm really enjoying Jimmy Garrison's bass playing in particular. The two new untitled tunes are very good and there are a few versions of Impressions which is interesting because I haven't heard any studio versions before.

Saw Amadou & Mariam at the Galway Arts Festival on Wednesday - they were really great, both in their 60s but still loads of energy. The band were excellent - not just great players, but loads of audience interaction and generally enjoying themselves.

Haha, fair enough, it does make a massive racket when being wheeled so there is a lot of movement going on that might affect a more delicate instrument.

+ 1 on the Westbury - I have the one with wheels and it's great as it's often a bit of a walk from the car / house to gig. I don't think the wheels have caused any damage to the bass but I couldn't be certain...as NickA says though, the Westbury's have loads of handles / pockets and are really well made.

In my very limited experience, it's not worth bothering with the feed from the pickup and you should always go with the mic(s). Pickups work live because they're easy to use and don't feedback. But in a recording situation a mic will always sound much better.

Yep, that's fair enough - they're often relegated alright. I think the reason for this is that rhythm itself is often treated as secondary in a lot of genres for some reason. I think as bass players we're always looking for some kind of groove, but a lot of people aren't that bothered.

Although instruments like claves are superficially easy to get a sound out of, to play them properly in context takes a load of skill, and in terms of supporting role it's not that far removed from bass in some ways. In a genre like Cuban rumba, the clave is essential as it is (as the name suggests) the key that keeps all the other rhythms together:

A couple of points to add to the above - a preamp is usually a good idea but some pickups / amps work well together without one (I have a GK MB150 combo and I haven't needed to use my preamp). So it might be worth waiting until after you get an amp before investing in a preamp. Another point is that you say that you need the amp for using around the house - if you have a DB (as opposed to an EUB) then there's probably no need for an amp at all to be honest. You'll get a much better feel for your sound / intonation etc playing acoustically. Unlike with bass guitars, the 'real' sound of a DB is the acoustic sound - most DB players are looking for the elusive "my bass, only louder" tone when they start amplifying so until you start playing gigs you might be better off avoiding the hassle.

I think that a lot of modern bands manage to be both great musicians plus great performers. I don't really keep up with contemporary pop / rock but whenever I see young bands on Jools / YouTube / whatever I'm often impressed by their overall ability compared to some of the bands of my youth. My theory is that it's a lot more competitive out there these days so to get anywhere at all bands really have to work at all aspects of their act, plus the sheer amount of material available online means that the bar is set higher (you can't get away with being sloppy because you have easy access to videos of great bands). This is not to say that older musicians aren't also great; I'm just saying that the days of cool-looking but musically-suspect young bands getting record deals are probably in the past.