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Think Fender Jazz Bass, and what comes to mind? Jaco Pastorius’s fretless canvas? Larry Graham or Marcus Miller’s thumb thunder? John Paul Jones or Geddy Lee’s progressive punch?
While Leo Fender’s Precision Bass stands as an iconic symbol of the first mass-produced electric bass guitar, his Jazz Bass, an arguably perfected upgrade introduced nine years later, in 1960, is better defined by the musicians who manned it.
Richard Smith, Fender historian, author, and curator of the Leo Fender Gallery at the Fullerton Museum, observes,
“What’s interesting is how an instrument named for and targeted toward jazz musicians instead became the choice of rock & rollers, and made its mark very quickly. Timing-wise, the electric bass was making the huge transition from ’50s-style music to ’60s-style music, so the Jazz Bass not only helped define this new music, it was defined by the music itself”
Bob Willocks, Fender’s Manager of Consumer Relations, concurs: “To me, the Jazz Bass is the instrument that changed the whole bass world. The Precision Bass was the defining instrument in the transition from double bass to electric bass. But so many players found their voices on the Jazz Bass; a great deal of music was developed on it that was unique to the player playing it.”
In tribute to the mighty J, we reached out to a cross section of players for their impressions, as well as tracked down the instrument’s technological evolution over the past halfdecade. Among the more compelling testaments to the J-Bass’s endurance are how many other builders have copied it, and that an estimated 90 percent of bassists own or have owned a version of the instrument.
As the B-52s’ Tracy Wormworth notes, “Playing a Jazz Bass is like going home. Every player leaves home to ‘see the world’ and try other instruments—but when you pick up a J-Bass again that comforting feeling comes over you, like, Yeah, I’m home.”
As if proving Tracy’s point, Oteil Burbridge, who started on a J-Bass and has come full circle playing one almost exclusively with the Allman Brothers, affirms, “The Fender Jazz is bass.”
1960s: Pre-Teen Machine
The Fender Jazz Bass was conceived in 1959 as a deluxe-model bass to go with the Jazzmaster guitar line introduced two years earlier. After considering the name “Deluxe Model,” it was renamed Jazz Bass to appeal to jazz bassists; unexpectedly, though understandably, converted upright players preferred the wider neck of the P-Bass.
In addition to being narrower at the nut (1w” to the P-Bass’s 1e”) and having a rounder neck shape, the 34″-scale bass featured an “offset waist-contoured body” that was sleeker though heavier and longer than the P-Bass, and two separate single-coil eight-polepiece pickups that hum-cancelled with both on full. The phase cancellation of certain frequencies in this setting provided the instrument’s signature mid-scooped, punchy sound.
From top to bottom, the original J-Bass sported a fourbolt/ 21-fret maple neck and headstock (with a strap button), clover-shaped tuning keys, bone nut, rosewood fingerboard, Fender flatwound strings, clay dot position markers, an alder (or on occasion, ash) body, white or tortoise-shell laminated plastic pickguard, G-string-side finger rest (for pick-playing or thumb-plucking), two stacked pots with volume and tone control for each pickup, chrome bridge and pickup covers (the former adorned with a large “F”), top-loaded bridge with adjustable string mutes, and a bottom strap button. In addition to sunburst or blond, there were 14 custom color options, which included a matching headstock.
Richard Smith postulates, “There were two factors going on at the dawn of the J-Bass: Leo Fender wanted to improve the notion of what the electric bass was, and Don Randall in marketing wanted something new to sell, as he always did.
There really wasn’t much to compete against except the Danelectro Bass in Nashville— which led Fender to make their 5- and 6-string basses—and the late-’50s Rickenbacker bass, which really didn’t get popular until Paul McCartney used one with the Beatles.
Leo was also very concerned about the P-Bass blowing up speakers in his amps, as a result of the percussive spike you get when plugging in the magnetic Alnico pickups. For him, it was about the evolution of guitars and amps, so he’d go back and forth between them all, making refinements. In the case of the J-Bass, for which he likely he felt he needed to introduce something new, improve on the P-Bass, and appeal to a wider audience.”
Session legend Jerry Jemmott was part of that audience. “I never wanted to depart from my jazz roots, so the name alone was a source of inspiration to me. The body and the neck of my first J-Bass were so comfortable and easy-playing it felt like the Grand Touring Coupe of basses. And the character of the sound—a raw, punchy, tight, cutting tone—was great for the syncopation, ghost-notes, and dynamics I was playing. In the hands of others, the flexibility of the J-Bass gave voice to the electric bass guitar’s potential in all styles and roles, helping to forge the unique history of our instrument.”
1970s: Sound Of A Revolution
With Larry Graham, John Paul Jones, Aston “Family Man” Barrett, Berry Oakley, and Anthony Jackson among the select group forming their distinct styles on J-Basses, and with Jaco on the horizon, the ’70s was the breakout era for the instrument musically. Sonically, the most noteworthy change in the J-Bass design was the movement of the bridge pickup closer to the bridge by a quarter-inch, in 1972, leading to a noticeable change in tone.
This would affect the sound of future J-Bass stars, and became a factor for bass builders deciding on pickup placement. The decade also saw the gradual acceptance of the J-Bass in the P-Bassdominated New York City studio realm, led largely by Neil Jason, who still plucks his beloved L-series ’65 J-Bass.
“When I arrived on the scene,” he relates, “there was a lot of big low end going on, but nobody was really putting a point on their sound. Coming in with a J-Bass, I got some weird looks early on, and I was asked if I had a P-Bass, but I knew I could favor the neck pickup and play up near the neck to get that tone, while both pickups full on or the back pickup favored gave me that bite. As for the L-series, I don’t know what it is about them, but every one I’ve ever tried is amazing. Fender used an L before serial numbers from 1963 to 1965, though no one has a definitive answer why. I really like the old-style bridge on it, which has the string grooves, because precut saddles are sometimes not exactly right; the ability to pull the string over that one millimeter can make a huge difference in the feel. When you have an instrument you love, it makes you play a lot better.”
Jason’s Gotham session peer, Will Lee, who switched to J-Basses in 1975 after losing his cherished P-Bass in an apartment fire, adds, “The two-pickup configuration of the J-Bass is the most practical design for bassists. Its sonic versatility enables players to seamlessly glide to and from different styles of music, while affording the choice between sounding fat and round or thin and nasally. Also, for most players, the thinner neck by the nut translates into better articulation in those rapidfire- note-playing situations.”
1980s: Get Back
Perhaps the most significant development to the J-Bass line in the ’80s, according to Willocks, was Fender’s vintage reissue basses, starting with the ’57 P-Bass and ’62 J-Bass, in 1982. Now called the American Vintage series, with ’62 and ’75 J-Basses, the instruments remain very popular.
Neil Stubenhaus, who grew up with J-Basses on the East Coast before making his mark in the L.A. studios just as the decade began, offers, “When I first moved from a P-Bass to a J-Bass in the late-’60s I was hooked. Like the P, it was light, perfectly balanced, and comfortable; the smaller neck was easier to play and felt more natural, plus the sound was rounder, smoother, and seemed richer and more balanced. By the time I had paid attention to specific basses on recordings, it was clear that P- and J-Basses dominated the studio world for a reason: clarity in the track (I personally chose to combine the two with a P/J configuration). The way the bass sits in a track is due to a combination of many factors, including mix, EQ, and the density of all the other instruments. A J-Bass always held the best odds of being heard clearly and having the definition and punch one craves in almost any rock, jazz, or R&B setting, regardless of those factors.”
One’s sound is a most personal matter, and many great players have found magnificent voices via alternatively styled electric basses. But it’s hard to argue the dominance of the brilliant J-Bass design and its utter simplicity, from inception to all current versions.”
just...BASS! 