Jazz bass is the use of the double bass or electric bass guitar to improvise accompaniment ("comping") basslines and solos in a jazz or jazz fusion style. Players began using the double bass in jazz in the 1890s to supply the low-pitched walking basslines that outlined the chord progressions of the songs. From the 1920s and 1930s Swing and big band era, through 1940s Bebop and 1950s Hard Bop, to the 1960s-era "free jazz" movement, the resonant, woody sound of the double bass anchored everything from small jazz combos to large jazz big bands. Beginning in the early 1950s, some jazz bass players began to use the electric bass guitar to replace the double bass. The electric bass guitar, which was easier to amplify to loud volumes onstage, gained particular prominence in the late 1960s and early 1970s jazz subgenre which blended jazz with the powerfully amplified electric instruments of rock music, creating jazz fusion. Most jazz bassists specialize in either the double bass or the bass guitar, although the ability to "double" (play both instruments) is common. A small number of players, such as Stanley Clarke and John Patitucci, have achieved virtuoso skill on both instruments. Whether a jazz bassist is comping (accompanying) with a walking bassline or soloing, or playing on a double bass or a bass guitar, they usually aim to create a rhythmic drive and timefeel that creates a sense of swing and groove. Double bass Beginning around 1890, the African-American communities in early New Orleans used a jazz ensemble which played a mixture of marches, ragtime, and dixieland music. This ensemble was initially a marching band with sousaphone (or occasionally bass saxophone) supplying the bass line. As the music moved from playing for funerals on the street and into bars and brothels, the double 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 basslines—scale-based lines that outlined the harmony and provided a foundation for the tunes. Because an unamplified double bass is generally the quietest instrument in a jazz band, many players of the 1920s and 1930s used the slap style, slapping and pulling the strings to make a rhythmic slap sound against the fingerboard. The slap style cuts through the sound of a band better than simply plucking the strings, and make the bass