Fender Jazz Bass

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Jazz Bass
Fender Jazz Bass 1966
Manufacturer	Fender
Period	1960 — present
Construction
Body type	Solid
Neck joint	Bolt-on
Woods
Body	Ash, Alder or Poplar
Neck joint	Maple
Fretboard	Rosewood, Pao Ferro or Maple
Hardware
Fretboard	Fixed
Pickup(s)	Two bipole pickups connected in parallel.
Colors available
(Standard Series, as of 2007) Brown Sunburst, Black, Midnight Wine, Arctic White, Electron Blue, Chrome Red (Deluxe Series): Montego black, Sunburst, Amber and Candy Tangerine

The Jazz Bass (or J-Bass) was the second model of electric bass guitar created by Leo Fender. The Jazz Bass has a more articulate, defined sound than the Fender Precision Bass. The bass is distinct from the Precision Bass in that its tone is brighter and richer in the midrange with less emphasis on the fundamental harmonic. Because of this, many bass players who want to be more "forward" in the mix (including smaller bands such as power trios), prefer the Jazz Bass.

1 Background
2 Design Features
- 2.1 24-Fret Jazz Bass
- 2.2 Fender Jaguar Bass
3 External links
4 References

[edit] Background

The Fender Jazz Bass is a solid body bass guitar typically with two pickups, four strings, an adjustable bridge tailpiece, maple neck (sometimes with rosewood fingerboad), alder (sometimes ash) body built with a 34 inch scale length. In vintage models, it sometimes had a removable pickup cover for style.

First introduced in 1960 as the "Deluxe Model", it was marketed as a stablemate to the Jazzmaster guitar which was also marketed as a "Deluxe Model" in its own right; however, 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 single coil pickups with two pole pieces per string. This gave the bass a stronger midrange sound to compete with the Rickenbacker bass, which had been introduced in 1954 and which was famously "bright." 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 at the nut than that of the Fender Precision Bass. While the Precision Bass was originally styled similarly to the Telecaster guitar (and, after 1957, the Stratocaster), the Jazz Bass' styling was inspired more by the Jazzmaster guitar, with which the Jazz shared its offset body and sculpted edges that differentiate it from other slab-style guitar bodies.

The original intention was to encourage upright-bass players to switch to electric bass guitar. The original Jazz Bass had two stacked knob pots with volume and tone control for each pickup. Original instruments with this stacked configuration are highly valued in today's vintage guitar market. Today, it has three control knobs: two controlling the volume of each pickup and one the overall tone. A fourth push button control is available on American 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. The two pickups are built to be opposite from each other in both magnetic polarity and electrical phase, so that when heard together, hum is cancelled -- the humbucking effect.

Although the original Jazz Bass is made by Fender, 'boutique' bass manufacturers also make bass guitars with many of the same features and some of the design sensibilities of the Fender Jazz Bass. Examples of these include Sadowsky Basses,Fclef Basses Valenti Basses, Celinder, Modulus Vintage series, Pensa, Suhr, and even Lakland and the Elrick New Jazz Standard, which have slightly different body shapes often to avoid copyright infringement lawsuits.

[edit] Design Features

Some "Deluxe" Jazz Bass models are produced featuring active pickups rather than the traditional passive ones. In place of a single passive tone-rolloff control, these models have three separate equalizer controls: bass and treble responses are controlled by the base and top of a stacked double rheostat, while midrange is controlled by a second rheostat.

Image:Fender Jazz Bass 24.jpg

The Fender Jazz Bass 24, the first Fender's 24-fret bass

The Jazz Bass has a bright funky sound, with more high end than the Precision Bass. This makes it ideal for slap playing as well as finger-style players (bassists who pluck the strings with their fingers rather than using a pick or a thumb). 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, Herbie Flowers, John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin, Tim Commerford of Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave, Verdine White of Earth, Wind, & Fire, Larry Graham of Sly and the Family Stone and Graham Central Station, Noel Redding, John Entwistle of the Who (in the 1960s) and Geddy Lee of Rush, Michael Coyle of Elroy, Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Les Claypool of Primus, Wesley Hopkins of Global Shell, Matt Freeman of Rancid, Jay DeMarcus of Rascal Flatts, Klaus Flouride of the Dead Kennedys and Mark Hoppus of Blink-182, Chris Wolstenholme of Muse to name but a few. Vintage examples from the 1960s and 1970s are highly desirable. The new models remain a popular choice today of rock, jazz, and fusion musicians.

[edit] 24-Fret Jazz Bass

In July 2005, Fender introduced its first 24-fret instrument, the Fender Jazz Bass 24. The Jazz Bass 24 featured a 34” Scale Length, Maple, “C” Shaped Neck with 24 Medium Jumbo Frets. It is currently in the Fender Catalog, in the Deluxe Series.

[edit] Fender Jaguar Bass

In 2005, Fender introduced the Jaguar Bass. This is more or less a variation on the traditional jazz bass design - the difference being that it has additional switches to turn the jazz pickups on and off and it has a switch to turn it from an active to a passive bass. The Jaguar bass retains the Jazz neck, Jazz pickups, jazz body design and the basic jazz tone.