You don't need a Fender jazz bass for a toppy sound.
LOTS of basses can give you a toppy tone if you set thigs up right. Man, I'd hate to have to go & get brand basses for each tone I like to use!
I mean, I have 3 basses - one that I use almost always, one that has room shaking boom that is cool for live dancey stuff and an acoustic 5 string that I haven't found a role for. NONE of them has a name you'd recognise but all have performed their roles admirably. Check out my Soundclick section for samples.
Back to the point:
Round wound strings are a good idea though;
Use a pick;
Back that up a DI - the cheap
Behringer BDI21 works a charm;
You can dial in the sound pretty close to what you want
&
In the box or whatever you're mixing with you'll probably have to do a little EQ'ing with a parametric ( I cut all below 50, cut 5db at 100 & add 4 db at 200 then a narrow peak @ 3khz or higher all with a Q of 3) but you won't know that until you have other instruments to work around. The sound he's after will have more cut than I use.
I've played bass through a guitar amp & it's not pretty nor does it offer much longevity for the guitar speaker.
If you REALLY want to get the max of the trebbly attack mic up the bass, not the amp whilst dooing the DI & record his pick attack &/OR use a fanged plectrum.
I'm not all that keen on that bass sound myself - though it may be the Utub compression - as there's precious little bottom end or low mid.
How the rest of the band sound when recorded will REALLY determine what you need to do to get the bass to cut through the mix.
