Fender Jazz Bass
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| Jazz Bass | |
| Manufacturer | Fender |
| Period | 1960 — present |
| Construction | |
| Body type | Solid |
| Neck joint | Bolt-on |
| Woods | |
| Body | Ash, Alder or Poplar |
| Neck | Maple |
| Fretboard | Rosewood, Pao Ferro or Maple |
| Hardware | |
| Bridge | Fixed |
| Pickup(s) | Two dipole bickups connected in parallel. |
| Colors available | |
| (Standard Series, as of 2005) Sunburst, Sage Green, Black, Blue Agave, Midnight Wine, Arctic White. (Deluxe Series): Montego black, Sunburst, Amber and Candy Tangerine | |
The Jazz Bass was the second model of electric bass guitar created by Leo Fender.
Contents |
[edit] Background
First introduced in 1960 as the "Deluxe Model", it was renamed the Jazz Bass as Fender felt that its redesigned neck - narrower and more rounded than that of the Precision Bass - would appeal more to jazz musicians. The Jazz Bass has two bipolar "Jazz" pickups. As well as having a slightly different, less symmetrical and more contoured body shape (known in Fender advertising as the "offset waist contour" body), the Jazz Bass neck is noticeably narrower towards the nut than that of the more common Fender Precision Bass. Note that while the Precision Bass was styled similarly to the Stratocaster guitar, the Jazz Bass's styling was inspired more by another then-recently introduced series of Fender guitars, the Jazzmaster and Jaguar, with which the Jazz shared its offset body theme and other styling cues.
The original intention was to make it easier for upright-bass players to make the switch to electric bass guitar. The original jazz bass had two stacked knob pots with volume and tone control for each pickup. Today it has three control knobs (instead of the two of the Fender Precision Bass), two of them controlling the volume of the two pickups and one for the overall tone. A fourth, push button control is available on some models of Jazz Bass produced after mid-2003. Known as the "S-1 Switch" this feature allows the pickups to operate in standard, parallel wiring, or alternatively in series wiring when the switch is depressed. While in series, both pickups function as a single unit with one volume control, giving the Jazz Bass a sound more similar to the Precision Bass.
Although the original Jazz bass was made by Fender, 'boutique' bass manufacturers have since made custom copies considered by some bassists to be of better quality. Examples of these include Sadowsky Basses, Valenti Basses, Modulus Vintage series, Pensa, Suhr, and even Lakland and the Elrick New Jazz Standard, which have slightly different body shapes.
[edit] Design Features
Some "Deluxe" Jazz Bass models have been (and continue to be) produced which feature active pickups rather than the traditional passive ones. In place of the usual single passive tone-rolloff control, these models have three separate equalizer controls: bass and treble responses are controlled by the base and top, respectively, of a stacked double panpot, while midrange is controlled by a second panpot.
The Jazz Bass has a warm, fat, funky sound, with more high end than the Precision. This makes it ideal for pick playing as well as finger-style players (bassists who pluck the strings with their fingers rather than using a pick), and the sound of the fretless Jazz Bass became a classic of jazz fusion music thanks to famous bassist Jaco Pastorius. It also became a classic in the hands of bassists such as solo Bassist and Session Musician Marcus Miller, John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin, Tim Commerford of Rage Against The Machine & Audioslave , Verdine White of Earth, Wind, & Fire, Larry Graham of Sly and the Family Stone and Graham Central Station, Noel Redding, John Entwistle (in the 1960s) and Geddy Lee of Rush, Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Les Claypool of Primus, Matt Freeman of Rancid, and Jay DeMarcus of Rascal Flatts to name but a few. Vintage examples from the 1960s and 1970s are now highly coveted and fetch four and five-figure sums - when they can be located - and the new models remain a popular choice today of Rock, Jazz, and Fusion musicians.
[edit] External links
- BassPlaza.com - Bass resource website.
- Virtual Jazz Bass
- Fender
- BajoElectrico.com - El Club del Bajista.
[edit] References
- Bacon, Tony (2000). 50 Years of Fender: Half a Century of the Greatest Electric Guitars. London: Backbeat Books. ISBN 0-87930-621-1.cs:Fender Jazz Bass
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