What impresses me is watching footage of old time players like John Paul Jones or Ian Hill handling their 60s or 70s Jazz basses like they’re made of paper.
Chris Squire on his Rick not so much, he’s a big dude
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I never thought I’d play a jazz bass but I love mine. I may get a P at some point too just to have one and the best of both worlds.
God I sound like a Fender fan-boi
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Haha! I (and others, I am sure) can certainly cue you in to awesome non-Fender Jazz basses, if you wanted to explore that part of your bass persona some more, Mac 
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Jazz bass rocks! 
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I really shouldn’t
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Good video.
I started on an ibanez jazz, and then moved to a p bass. I love the p bass, but for the music I like, and especially in the band, it doesn’t sit in the mix as well as a jazz. But that’s not the instrument’s fault, it’s just the music we’re playing.
What I normally do is decide on what music I want to play. Solid rock or mellow blues? P bass. Funky riffs and grooves that cut through more? Jazz.
Basically, everyone should have one of each. It should be law to be honest.
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Seems entirely reasonable.
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I mean, you’re only really getting half a bass if you have one of them. To cover the tonal ranges, you have to buy the other half. Thus, you now have ‘one’ bass 
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Also seems entirely reasonable.
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Put on bright rounds, play it with a pick, consider adding chorus, and EQ up the mids. It might do better than a jazz then.
I mean, it works for Hooky - he rocked a Yamaha BB1200S (an active P) as his main bass for 40 years 
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I’ve been on the P GAS train lately, primarily because I don’t have one. If it were indeed mandated by law to own one or lose my bass player card, I’d be in trouble.
I don’t own a shitload of basses, not due to a lack of finances, but because I get the tonal qualities I want from the select few I own. And there is some tonal overlap between them.
My Sire U5 short scale is a PJ and it is modern-sounding and pretty damn versatile.
My SBMM short scale is pure MM-sounding. ‘Nuff said.
My Sire M5 is insanely tonally versatile. With its ability to individually dial in series, parallel, and single coil tones on one or both pickups - whether blending or soloing either - the tonal variety and range it can generate is dizzying. And a very deep rabbit hole.
And, finally, my Mayones Jabba Mala Custom creates tones, clarity and sustain like nothing else. It is an uber-refined, next-gen humbucker-rocking Jazz bass on creative steroids that can growl, solo lyrically, thump like a mother, and slap like nothing else I’ve ever played or heard before. It’s not a Fender Jazz clone. Its sound is warmer, bigger, rounder, punchier. The Aguilar humbuckers see to that. Frankly, if someone put a gun to my head and told me I could have one and only one bass for the rest of my life, I’d pick my Mayones without a second of hesitation. It is the whole package.
So, a P bass.
Yeah, I’d like to have one because…it’s the law?
Honestly, I have been experimenting with my basses, and I’ve been able to coax a pretty damn good P tone from both my M5 and Mayones.
Is what I’m generating a true, authentic vintage Fender P tone? Would Jamerson or Duck Dunn approve?
Hell if I know.
But it sounds good to me.
So, would I still like to have a P? Most likely, yeah. But entirely due to want rather than need.
Because the struggle is real.
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Hang in there mate, you’ll figure it out.
There’s just something primal about one pickup, one volume, and one tone. Just you and the strings
Can’t solve this one.
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Yep, that is the P’s mystique, for sure: Less is more, more or less.
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They are also much more aggressive and punchy on the attack, and with the right pickup can be very strong in the low mids. It’s a great tone for punk, post-punk, and other genres that benefit more from punch than growl.
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I don’t doubt it. But those genres are outside of my musical taste and interests.
Nothing against them. Music is a language with myriad subjective variants, dialects and accents.
I do like the primal (as Wombat said) aspect of a P.
Its roots as a louder, more precise alternative to a double bass is a classic origin story that is appealing, not to mention its heralded place in history as a quintessential sound on so many great recordings.
I do appreciate all these things about it.
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Josh said “Nobody will ever be mad if you show up with. P Bass”
Who am I to question that logic 
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Yep.
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You know, I’ve got no complaints with my Squier P. Since I sanded down the neck. Get a used one, through in a Geezer pup, p away.
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I have two P basses - a Donner P clone of a '59 P with Steve Harris pups and Steve Harris flatwounds, as well as a Peavey Fury with its stock ceramic pups and TI flats. Two very different animals, but both can thump up a storm.
If I were to give a recco, I thought a P with a 1.5" nut (the Fury) would be a joy to play especially with its maple on maple neck. However, I think that a P bass needs a 1.65" nut. Don’t know why, because I have relatively small hands, but the wider neck is so much better. YMMV
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