Jess Oliver (born Oliver Jespersen) (January 20, 1926 - June 30, 2011) was a musician, an inventor,

electrician An electrician is a tradesperson specializing in electrical wiring of buildings, transmission lines, stationary machines, and related equipment. Electricians may be employed in the installation of new electrical components or the maintenance ...

and

Amplifier An amplifier, electronic amplifier or (informally) amp is an electronic device that can increase the magnitude of a signal (a time-varying voltage or current). It may increase the power significantly, or its main effect may be to boost t ...

repairman The technical meaning of maintenance involves functional checks, servicing, repairing or replacing of necessary devices, equipment, machinery, building infrastructure, and supporting utilities in industrial, business, and residential install ...

best known as the Vice-President of

Ampeg Ampeg is a manufacturer best known for its bass amplifiers. Originally established in 1946 in Linden, New Jersey by Everett Hull and Stanley Michaels as "Michael-Hull Electronic Labs," today Ampeg is part of the Yamaha Guitar Group. Although ...

and

patent holder A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...

for many of Ampeg's most successful products, most notably the Portaflex B-15.

Early Years

Oliver grew up with an interest in music and electronics, assembling crystal radio sets and playing guitar and bass in high school bands. In 1944, at the age of 18, he was drafted into the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

and assigned to an infantry radio unit, but a case of pneumonia rendered him medically unfit for combat, and he was re-assigned to play upright bass in the Army Band. After the war, Oliver took advantage of the

G.I. Bill The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, commonly known as the G.I. Bill, was a law that provided a range of benefits for some of the returning World War II veterans (commonly referred to as G.I.s). The original G.I. Bill expired in 1956, bu ...

to study electronics while continuing to work as a professional musician in

Queens Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...

Ampeg

Oliver visited The Ampeg Bassamp Company to buy one of Everett Hull's amplified pegs for his bass and impressed Hull so much that Hull offered him a job, but it wasn't until the summer of 1956 that Oliver left his work as an electrician to work full-time for Ampeg. Oliver's new employer paid for him to attend night classes at the RCA Institute, where he studied amplifier design and technology, and he applied that knowledge to developing new Ampeg products and improving the efficiencies of its manufacturing

production lines A production line is a set of sequential operations established in a factory where components are assembled to make a finished article or where materials are put through a refining process to produce an end-product that is suitable for onward c ...

. When Ampeg incorporated in 1959, Jess Oliver was designated Vice President. In 1960, Oliver invented and patented the B-15, a bass combo amp with closed-back reflex cabinet, double-baffle porting system, and an innovative flip-top function. The B-15 was the first in Ampeg's Portaflex series, and after becoming the preferred studio amp of session musicians like

James Jamerson James Lee Jamerson (January 29, 1936 – August 2, 1983) was an American bass player. He was the uncredited bassist on most of the Motown Records hits in the 1960s and early 1970s (Motown did not list session musician credits on their releases ...

and Chuck Rainey, went on to become the most-recorded bass amplifier in history. By 1963, the Portaflex series business had grown to 44% of Ampeg's amplifier sales. In 1961, with the introduction of the Ampeg Reverbrocket, Oliver was the first to integrate

Laurens Hammond Laurens Hammond (January 11, 1895 – July 1, 1973), was an American engineer and inventor. His inventions include the Hammond organ, the Hammond clock, and the world's first polyphonic musical synthesizer, the Novachord. Youth Lauren ...

's new

spring reverb A reverb effect, or reverb, is an audio effect applied to a sound signal to simulate reverberation. It may be created through physical means, such as echo chambers, or electronically through audio signal processing. Echo chambers The first re ...

into a guitar combo amplifier.

Oliver Sound Company

In 1966, amidst company struggles related to growth and manufacturing, as well as disagreements with Hull, Oliver resigned from Ampeg, forming Oliver Sound Company later that year. At Oliver Sound Company, he invented and manufactured a full line of amplifiers and sound equipment, including new Powerflex amplifiers with a motorized lift platform. Eventually he scaled down manufacturing and operated Oliver Sound as an amplifier service center out of his basement in Massapequa, New York.

Later Years

At the 2001

NAMM Show The NAMM Show is an annual event in the United States that is organized by the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM), who describe it as "the industry’s largest stage, uniting the global music, sound and entertainment technology commun ...

, Ampeg awarded Oliver with "Godfather of Bass Amplification." Oliver also served as technical advisor for the 1997 and 2010 versions of the B-15. Oliver Jespersen died on June 30, 2011.

Notes

References

* Jisi, Chris
"The Ampeg B-15 From Inception To Resurrection"
''

Bass Player A bassist (also known as a bass player or bass guitarist) is a musician who plays a bass instrument such as a double bass (upright bass, contrabass, wood bass), bass guitar (electric bass, acoustic bass), synthbass, keyboard bass or a low br ...

'' magazine *^ Justman, Paul. ''Standing in the Shadows of Motown''.

External links

Jess Oliver
NAMM Oral History Program Interview (2005) {{DEFAULTSORT:Oliver, Jess 2011 deaths 1926 births Guitar amplifier manufacturers People from Massapequa, New York 20th-century American inventors Audio equipment manufacturers of the United States