Lets take a look at the b flat blues in a common meter (4/4) Play in all quarter notes (count in time - 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, ect.) and try using this progression...
B flat7 | E flat7 | B flat7 | B flat7 | E flat7 | E flat7 | B flat7 | B flat7 | F7 | E flat7 | B flat7 | B flat7 :||
Thats a basic form of a B flat blues. I know several variations of the styles, but if you take a look at a majority of fake books out there (the real book) there are a lot of famous jazz tunes that utalize this progression. (or a variation of)
Get your hands on a miles davis CD for starters. Very simple progressions and very talented performers involved. "Kind of Blue" is a very good starters CD, and I think is overused in the educational system for those reasons. Try to imitate the bassist from those tracks, and start using the notes in the scales above to create your own bass line.
Theres a lot more theory about this that I could go over that would drasticly improve your lines, but I dont have much time to talk about all of that at this point. Just give it a go and get yourself comfortable with the concept of that style. I have been playing for about 7-8 years in several groups and combos, and from my experiance, its a never ending learning process.
As for a good book, I would recommend getting your hands on "the essential styles" book for playing bass and drums. I cant remember the exact name, but go look up www.ejazzlines.com and look for "the essential styles". That should get you somewhere. As for a good fakebook (a book with tons of songs progressions and melodys) go look up "the real book". Older versions of this book were actually illegal to sell because they took the rights of authors songs without their permissions, and put them in their book, but the newer versions are now available legaly for the public.
