Hi Mark,

I mess around with walking bass too. I haven't gotten good enough to want to do so in a performance situation but I do enjoy practicing LH bass/ RH chords and improve.

Here are a few things that have helped me:

1. Come up with some "stock/ go to" bass lines that you know cold and can play them in any key. 12 bar blues with turn arounds, ii V 1, I vi ii V. rhythm changes.... Have some walking lines that you can do on "auto pilot"


One you have some walking bass lines following effortlessly, start throughing in RH chords. Rootless chords work great for this since your LH is providing roots already.

Once you feel comfortable playing LH walking bass lines with RH chord comping you can go move on to RH melodic improve over LH bass lines.

Start very, very simple! For example is your playing blues, limit your RH to just maybe two notes from the blues scale. Just mess around with different rhythmic phases with those limited note choice in the RH, but make sure your bass is steady on 'auto pilot"

Also try outlining the chords tones in the RH while your LH is walking. Try experimenting and make RH improvisations that only use certain chord tunes such as the 3rd and 7th. I saw a great jazz pianist/educator named Andy LeVerne demonstrate soloing using very limited note choices and he could make his solos swing real nicely.

Don't get frustrated! Take baby steps. Even the greats like Oscar Peterson had to put in some serious practice before they became great!