Jazz bass

Jazz bass is the use of the double bass or electric bass guitar to improvise accompaniment ("comping") basslines and solos in a jazz or jazz fusion style. Players began using the double bass in jazz in the 1890s to supply the low-pitched walking basslines that outlined the chord progressions of the songs. From the 1920s and 1930s swing and big band era, through 1940s bebop and 1950s hard bop, to the 1960s-era free jazz movement, the double bass has been used as a rhythmic and harmonic anchor in all forms of jazz ensembles.

Beginning in the early 1950s, jazz bass players began to use the electric bass guitar to replace the double bass. The electric bass guitar, which was easier to amplify to loud volumes onstage, gained particular prominence in the late 1960s and early 1970s jazz subgenre which blended jazz with the powerfully amplified electric instruments of rock music, creating jazz fusion. Jaco Pastorius is considered to be one of the most well known exponents of jazz on the electric bass, through his work with Weather Report, Joni Mitchell, and Pat Metheny among others.