The Victor Bailey Jazz Bass is an Artist Signature bass guitar made by Fender for former Weather Report bassist Victor Bailey. It was introduced in 2001, followed by fretless and 5-string versions in 2006. Discontinued in 2010.
This bass features a sleek, exotic-looking solid body made from rosewood, koa and mahogany, a maple neck featuring a 22-fret rosewood fingerboard (pao ferro on the 5-string version), Posiflex graphite neck support rods, abalone dot position inlays, rolled fingerboard edges, highly detailed nut and fret work.
For electronics, the Victor Bailey Signature model boasts two Samarium Cobalt Noiseless Jazz Bass pickups which add warmth and low end (complementing the hardwood body’s natural clarity and brightness and producing an extremely dynamic tonal range) and a 3-band active preamp tweaked at the input stage (pre-shape, boost and EQ settings) for enhancing the unique sonic nature of the woods. Bass EQ is centered at 40 Hz ± 12dB with a 4dB per-octave slope; treble is centered at 8 kHz ± 10dB with a 2dB per-octave slope (treble cut serves more as a passive control for warm organic tones); mid-control is centered at 500 Hz and +10dB and -15dB with a wide-band slope creating a distinctive voice.
For maximum headroom, the circuit is governed by an 18V power supply.
Other features include gold-plated hardware, Fender/Schaller Lite-Bass tuning machines and Bailey's caricature graphic on the headstock.
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“And in the next instant, immediately behind them, Victor saw his former wife.
At once he lowered his gaze, automatically tapping his cigarette to dislodge the ash that had not yet had time to form. From somewhere low down his heart rose like a fist to deliver an uppercut, drew back, struck again, then went into a fast disorderly throb, contradicting the music and drowning it.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“I never cared for fashion much, amusing little seams and witty little pleats: it was the girls I liked.”
—David Bailey (b. 1938)
“The further jazz moves away from the stark blue continuum and the collective realities of Afro-American and American life, the more it moves into academic concert-hall lifelessness, which can be replicated by any middle class showing off its music lessons.”
—Imamu Amiri Baraka (b. 1934)
“How are we to know that a Dracula is a key-pounding pianist who lifts his hands up to his face, or that a bass fiddle is the doghouse, or that shmaltz musicians are four-button suit guys and long underwear boys?”
—In New York City, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)