Fender Jazz

The Fender Jazz is an electric bass often used by Prince and his band. He regularly used the bass in the early to mid 1980s, and then used it again from the 2000s onwards. It is popular with funk, disco and jazz artists, and is particularly suitable for playing in a slap style.

Andre Cymone first acquired a Fender Jazz bass, a natural jazz with a maple fretboard, around the release of For You and used this bass on the Prince tour. Prince acquired his Hohner Madcat from the same store around the same time. Prince used this same bass on his albums from the early 1980s, including Dirty Mind and albums by the Time. This was modified with a mirrored pickguard and later a zebra print finish. This bass still belongs to Cymone. [1]

When Brownmark joined the band, he used a black Jazz, also with a mirrored pickguard. He then moved to a purple Jazz for the 1999 tour and Purple Rain movie. The purple Jazz is in the collection at Paisley Park. There are reports of Prince using the Jazz in the studio for the Purple Rain sessions[2] and he used one on the song She's Always In My Hair[3] . It is likely that he used one on Controversy and 1999 as well.

For the Purple Rain tour, Brownmark switched to an Alembic Spoiler and it is likely that Prince stopped using a Jazz as well. It is not featured in his guitar collection in the Nude Tour tourbook and it is not mentioned in his 1999 Bass Player interview.

Prince started using a Jazz again at some point in the early 2000s. He was seen playing purple, red and black models with maple fretboards. These three basses are in the collection at Paisley Park and appear in the Prince - Guitar & Bass book. He also used similar ESP and Moon basses. 

Rhonda Smith also started to use a Fender Jazz American Deluxe in the early 2000 and Josh Dunham used Jazz basses, including the Marcus Miller signature bass.