Makes A Great, Thick Fretless Sound, With Plenty Of "mwah"!

The sound SINGS to you, the lows are deep and organic, and the upper range will touch your soul. To all you fretted bass players out there; if you want to improve your skills, play a fretless, you will be surprised to find out how much more there is to learn about your instrument!

On its early ’60s introduction, the Fender® Jazz Bass® guitar immediately endeared itself to the music world, quickly becoming another Fender® design classic and an indispensable element in the arsenal of many a bassist worldwide. The fretless version of the instrument also proved very popular and quickly found its own niche.

The fretless version of the lean-and-mean Standard Jazz Bass® incorporates many of the original model’s classic Fender® “firsts,” such as the offset waist and ultra-slim fast-action neck. It’s updated here with two bi-pole pickups, American Jazz Bass® knobs and side dot position markers are centered between fretlines, giving you the best of both worlds and eras—some vintage vibe and appointments with some modern refinements.

Fretless basses have a distinct sound: the absence of frets means that the string must be pressed down directly onto the wood of the fingerboard and can buzz against it as with the double bass, sometimes described as a "mwaah" sound by bassists.

The fretless bass allows players to use the expressive devices of glissando, vibrato and microtonal intonations such as quarter tones and just intonation. Some bassists use both fretted and fretless basses in performances, according to the type of material they are performing.

In “How The Fender® Bass Changed The World”, Jim Roberts states that Bill Wyman made the first known fretless electric bass guitar in 1961 by converting an inexpensive Japanese fretted bass. This fretless bass can be heard on The Rolling Stones songs such as "Paint it Black".

Fender® introduced a fretless version of the Precision Bass® in 1970. Fusion-jazz virtuoso Jaco Pastorius created his own fretless bass by pulling the frets out of a sunburst Fender® Jazz Bass®, filling up the holes with wood putty and coating the fretboard with epoxy resin.

Fretless basses are widely used in jazz and jazz fusion music. Nonetheless, many bassists from other genres use fretless basses.

This Sunburst finish Fretless Fender® Standard Jazz Bass® is pure tonal magic; from soaring fretless highs to growling lows, just like an upright!