Who plays fretless bass?

Fretless bass is popular with Jazz and Fusion players. Jaco Pastorius is probably the most famous fretless bassist. He pioneered the technique on a Fender Jazz bass that he modified to be fretless. Other players who have dabbled in fretless bass include Tony Levin, Sting and Pino Palladino. You can also hear it all over Paul Simon's "Graceland" and Kate Bush's "Hounds of Love".

Are fretless basses easy to play?

To be honest, fretless bass is a relatively tricky discipline to get to grips with, at least at first. Having no frets means that you must get the note correct or you will sound wobbly and out of tune. Frets do away with things like microtones (musical intervals that are less than a semi tone and which Western music tends to ignore) but fretless instruments bring that back into focus and intonation is everything! Don't be put off though. Practice makes perfect and playing fretless bass will almost certainly up your game as a bassist in general.