Jimmie Blanton was an influential American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 double bass

Double bass

The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...

ist. Blanton is credited with being the originator of pizzicato

Pizzicato

Pizzicato is a playing technique that involves plucking the strings of a string instrument. The exact technique varies somewhat depending on the type of stringed instrument....

 and bowed bass solos.

Born in Chattanooga, Tennessee

Tennessee

Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...

, Blanton originally learned to play the violin

Violin

The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....

, but took up the bass while at Tennessee State University

Tennessee State University

Tennessee State University is a land-grant university located in Nashville, Tennessee. TSU is the only state-funded historically black university in Tennessee.-History:...

, performing with the Tennessee State Collegians from 1936 to 1937, and during the vacations with Fate Marable

Fate Marable

Fate Marable was a jazz pianist and bandleader.Marable was born in Paducah, Kentucky, and learned piano from his mother. At age 17, he began playing on the steam boats plying the Mississippi River...

. After leaving university to play full time in St Louis with the Jeter-Pillars Orchestra

Jeter-Pillars Orchestra

Jeter-Pillars Orchestra was a jazz troupe led by altoist James Jeter and tenor-saxophonist Hayes Pillars.Jeter and Pillars were previously members of Alphonso Trent's big band. After that outfit split in 1933 they formed the group, which subsequently became the house band at the Club Plantation in St...

 (with whom he made his first recordings), he joined Duke Ellington

Duke Ellington

Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...

's band in 1939.

Though he stayed with Ellington for only two years, Blanton made an incalculable contribution in changing the way the double bass was used in jazz. Previously the double bass was rarely used to play anything but quarter notes in ensemble or solos but by soloing on the bass more in a 'horn like' fashion, Blanton began sliding into eighth- and sixteenth-note runs, introducing melodic and harmonic ideas that were totally new to jazz bass playing. His virtuosity

Virtuoso

A virtuoso is an individual who possesses outstanding technical ability in the fine arts, at singing or playing a musical instrument. The plural form is either virtuosi or the Anglicisation, virtuosos, and the feminine form sometimes used is virtuosa...

 put him in a different class from his predecessors, making him the first true master of the jazz bass and demonstrating the instrument's unsuspected potential as a solo instrument. Such was his importance to Ellington's band at the time, together with the tenor saxophonist Ben Webster

Ben Webster

Benjamin Francis Webster , a.k.a. "The Brute" or "Frog," was an influential American jazz tenor saxophonist. Webster, born in Kansas City, Missouri, was considered one of the three most important "swing tenors" along with Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young...

, that it became known as the Blanton–Webster band

The Blanton–Webster Band

The Blanton–Webster Band combines the master takes of all the recordings by Duke Ellington's Orchestra during the years of 1940 to 1942, involving bassist Jimmy Blanton and tenor saxophonist Ben Webster. The recordings were originally made for RCA Victor during what many critics regard as the...

. Blanton also recorded a series of bass and piano duets with Ellington.

In 1941, Blanton was diagnosed with tuberculosis

Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...

, cutting short his tenure with Ellington. He died the following year after retiring to a sanatorium

Sanatorium

A sanatorium is a medical facility for long-term illness, most typically associated with treatment of tuberculosis before antibiotics...

 in California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

, aged 23.

Sources and external links

• Carr, Ian, Digby Fairweather, & Brian Priestley. Jazz: The Rough Guide. London: Rough Guides. ISBN 1-85828-528-3
• [ Jimmy Blanton] — by Richard S. Ginell, from Allmusic
• "Jimmy Blanton". African American Almanac. 9th ed. Gale, 2003. Student Resource Center. Thomson Gale. 11 April 2006