jamersongoated

In this video you can see him playing a Yamaha. He also seems to be playing with a variation on the Jamerson hook. I think this is the only video of him playing bass, I'm wondering if he learnt partially from sitting in sessions with Joe Sample where he would have seen Jamerson and maybe he picked it up from him? Look closely at his fingers at 3:54. Video here

Most famously, however he’s played a jazz bass, aria and later in life Yamaha basses.

He never owned a P bass. I believe he played a jazz bass on Rock the Boat, Mamma Pearl is also a spurious one as it doesn’t sound like a tele bass but I have the multitrack for that one so I’ll post his isolated bass soon.

I can get that kind of ponk sound on my jazz bass though, I think its also high action as well as playing fairly old flats but not Jamerson old and playing fairly hard?

Someone on talkbass (I think) emailed the crusaders management before he died, where he replied 'Always fingers, never a pick'. He's playing by the bridge (maybe with longer nails than most players would have) going straight into a DI with little to no EQ. The singe coil pickup of the tele bass would also help towards that I guess. Can't wait to receive the 51 p from you though and recreate this.

Although he is playing it at the bridge.

If you listen carefully… he’s playing the funk machine on Let’s Get It On. Jamerson was present at that session but Felder’s take was used over Jamerson for that track.

I think Wilton Felder is an underrated bassist and deserves more credit with his work from the late 60s when he was given his Fender Telecaster Bass by a club owner in 1968 (which is when he began to learn bass) to playing I Want You Back in 1969 and the amount of musical understanding that he shows throughout everything he played shows that he truly deserves to be credited amongst the session greats such as Chuck Rainey, Carol Kaye, Abe Laboriel, Nathan East etc.