Jazz Bass

The bass is one of the pioneer string instrument jazz musicians started to use around the 1890’s to provide a low-pitched bass line that would outline the chord sequences of any song. Before jazz, the bass was mostly known for its use in grand orchestras. The double bass arose in Germany during the late 1650’s. It was mostly used in Orchestras for classical music, creating a low pitched base for the violins and violas while harmonizing with the cellos. As time evolved, around 1890, the African American communities in early New Orleans began jazz ensembles that played a mixture of marches, ragtimes or dixieland songs. These ensembles were primarily marching bands with sousaphone bass saxophones that would supply the bass line. As this genre …show more content…
Through these techniques of doubling on the instruments, they created and deep and low foundation for the other instruments and vocals, so that the music evolved into a new genre of Jazz famous for its collective improvisations mixed with its robust prominent sounds. Every instrument in the small combo had a role and each part had to support the ensemble's sound, and in order to do that they would need a strong bass foundation to support the melodies. Moreover, bassists played walking bass lines, or scale-based lines that outlined the harmony and provided a foundation for the tunes, but because an unamplified double bass is usually the quietest instrument in a jazz band, many players of the 1920s and 1930s created the slap style. This style consisted of slapping and pulling the strings to make a rhythmic "slap" sound against the fingerboard. For many, a technique so unique and so unusual to many other instruments that it makes up a big part in playing the bass, especially in Jazz as many famous bassists such as Milt Hinton. The slap style cuts through the sound of a band instead of just plucking the strings, and it makes the bass more easily heard on early sound