Page "Double bass" Paragraph 92

Beginning around 1890, the early New Orleans jazz ensemble ( which played a mixture of marches, ragtime, and Dixieland ) was initially a marching band with a tuba or sousaphone ( or occasionally bass saxophone ) supplying the bass line.

As the music moved into bars and brothels, the upright bass gradually replaced these wind instruments.

Many early bassists doubled on both the brass bass and string bass, as the instruments were then often referred to.

Bassists played " walking " bass lines — scale-based lines that outlined the harmony.