Legendárna basgitara Fender Jazz Bass oslavuje 50tiny. Jaco Pastorius, Lary Graham, Marcus Miller, John Paul Jones alebo Geddy Lee. Všetci sú spojení s touto gitarou. Fender - BRAVO. www.fender.com Koncom 50tych rokov, keď Fender predstavil inovatívne elktrické nástroje s dizajnom, ktorý ovplyvnil celú éru až do dnes. The Telecaster (1951) and the by-then perfected Stratocaster (1954) were well on their way to indispensability as 1960 loomed; the Jazzmaster (1958) took a longer but eventually successful route to cult stardom. The other instrument was the Precision Bass (1951). The world’s first commercially successful solid-body electric bass guitar, it too was destined for greatness. The Precision was designed with ingeniously efficient simplicity and utility to deliver three things—ease of use, precise intonation (hence the name) and a loud, booming sound that unwieldy acoustic basses simply weren’t capable of matching. Throughout most of the 1950s and in contrast to the development of multiple guitar models, Fender stuck with one bass—it opted to redesign the groundbreaking Precision rather than introduce a new bass guitar model. That thinking changed as the decade waned, however, and Leo Fender and his staff turned their attention to a new “deluxe” bass guitar design in 1959. The reasoning was clear enough—it was simply time for a new Fender bass. And just as the Stratocaster expanded on the Telecaster rather than supplanting it, this new bass would complement the Precision by offering great tonal versatility and a design that went beyond the utilitarian to the realm of the sleekly stylish. If the Precision was a Chevy, the new deluxe model would be a Ferrari. Leo Fender himself said so. In a Guitar Player magazine interview years later, he said, “Well, it’s like a car, you know—you come out with a standard model, then you have a deluxe model—a Cadillac version.” Once again, Leo built it and, once again, Fender Sales chief Don Randall named it. That model, the Fender Jazz Bass guitar, was introduced in 1960. The first production Jazz Bass was built in March 1960. In Fender’s summer price list that year, it was listed at $279.50 for a sunburst-finish model and $293.47 for a blonde or custom-color finish. “Jazz Bass” was an interesting name choice given that 1958’s Jazzmaster guitar, with which the new bass shared part of its name, did not win over the “serious” jazz musicians it was intended for. As with the Jazzmaster, the Jazz Bass was released and promptly ignored by jazz musicians—at first. In due time it would find favor with those players; spectacularly so in some cases. Next to its big brother, though, there was no doubt that the 1960 Jazz Bass really was a deluxe instrument. The most visible and audible evidence of this was that it had two pickups instead of one, giving it a tonal versatility not found in the Precision. The Precision made a great sound, but it made one great sound. A 1959 Jazz Bass prototype boasted large single-coil soapbar pickups similar to those on the Jazzmaster; a five-polepiece neck pickup and a four-polepiece bridge pickup. These became narrower eight-polepiece (two per string) pickups by the time production started.