ABSTRACT
History of course tells us that by the early 1930s, the string bass had replaced the tuba as the preferred bass instrument. This chapter examines the circumstances behind that transition, and the part played by emerging technologies in it. It overviews the early bass players in order to establish what factors gave rise to the need for technological mediation in the first place. The Edison phonograph recording of 'Gully Low Blues' by Louis Armstrong and the Hot 7 on the Okeh label contains a typical tuba bass part, performed in this case by Pete Briggs. The ability of the string bass to produce a strong, fundamental-rich tone reflects another advantage it had over the tuba, namely superior textural integration within the ensemble. The more frequent appearance of four-to-the-bar passages in the bass part of jazz recordings from the mid-1920s reflects a rhythm section development that had an extremely important influence on the melodic vocabulary of the treble instruments above.
