Joseph H. Wallace, an accomplished jazz bassist who was a member of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra for 45 years, died Friday. He was 93.

Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette Joseph Wallace in 2003 Click photo for larger image.

For the past four years, Mr. Wallace lived at Canterbury Place, an assisted-living facility in Lawrenceville. He moved into the facility after successfully undergoing surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from his lung.

For eight decades, Mr. Wallace toted a bass around.

He performed his first job as a young child, playing violin during a Methodist church picnic in Wilmerding.

Later, he performed with Eddie Peyton, Deuces Wild, Jimmy Zummo, Jack Purcell and Nick Lomakin and his Dixie Flyers.

In 1950, Mr. Wallace joined the "Fort Pitt Supper Time" television show at Dumont's WDTV, forerunner to KDKA. The band was led by Maurice Spitalny and featured Mr. Wallace on bass.

"Of all the musicians I played with, Joe was the greatest," said local drummer William Condeluci, who is the last surviving member of the "Fort Pitt Supper Time" band. "He was a little quirky on the bandstand."

One night, Condeluci said, he was performing a concert with Mr. Wallace and the band leader became upset because Mr. Wallace's amplifier was turned up too high.

"Joe was playing electric bass that night, so the band leader kept yelling for him to turn the amp down. So Joe didn't turn it down. He turned it off."

If not for an illness when he was 7, Mr. Wallace might never have played an instrument. After a week of lying in bed, he asked his mother, Willa, if he could play his father's violin. Lester Wallace, a schoolteacher who later worked in the publicity department at Westinghouse Air Brake, played violin, guitar, trombone and piano.

The elder Wallace, who didn't think music offered much security, was adamantly opposed to his son becoming a musician, so the young Wallace practiced in secret, eventually taking a few correspondence courses.

After a few weeks, he began performing during services at his mother's Methodist church. His father, a Lutheran, attended a different church.

One Sunday, his mother invited his father to a special service during which Mr. Wallace performed for the congregation.

"My dad nearly flipped out, and I just knew I was going to get it when we got home," Mr. Wallaced told the Post-Gazette in a 2003 interview. "My father didn't say anything. After lunch, he invited me into the living room, sat at the piano and told me to get the violin, and we played for several hours. He was so happy. That was the day I became a musician."

Later, Mr. Wallace began taking lessons with a music professor who taught at Carnegie Tech, now Carnegie Mellon University, and with instructors at the Beaver Conservatory of Music.

Mr. Wallace continued to practice violin, eventually switching to bass at the request of his teacher at Union High School in Turtle Creek.

Within weeks, he was performing in accompaniment to travelogues at a club in Edgewood, earning $6 a performance. At 14, he joined Zummo's band, one of the busiest groups in the city, performing on bass and tuba.

He learned to play the slap bass technique, and everyone started calling him "Jazz Wallace." The walking bass lines and the slap technique were characterized in the playing of Wellman Braud, a member of Duke Ellington's band.

"Braud could play it all," Mr. Wallace said. "Contrary and parallel motion. All those things were happening in Braud's playing, and no one had ever heard that before in jazz. I went to hear him play one night, and back then there weren't any amplifiers. He just blew me away. I really like the way Ellington used him."

In 1932, Mr. Wallace married Edna Mae Hansen, a dancer from Millvale. The couple, who have two musically inclined children, Bruce and Alison, met aboard the Showboat, which was docked on the Allegheny River. Hansen was a member of the chorus line and Mr. Wallace was performing with the Red Fluke Band. The couple, who eloped to West Virginia, were married 58 years before her death in 1990 at 78.

In 1935, Pittsburgh Symphony conductor Antonio Modarelli auditioned Mr. Wallace and gave him a job with the symphony on a one-year trial basis.

"I had no experience playing classical music at the time," recalled Mr. Wallace. "I was the youngest guy in the bass section."

Otto Klemperer replaced Modarelli, reorganized the orchestra, and all of the musicians had to audition again.

In 1938, Fritz Reiner succeeded Klemperer and all the musicians again had to undergo auditions. Mr. Wallace was the only bass player Reiner retained -- and he held his position until retirement in 1979.

When Mr. Wallace wasn't performing with the symphony, he could be found on a jazz bandstand.

He was the local bassist of choice for some of the greatest performers in jazz. When Coleman Hawkins, Pittsburgh-born trumpeter Roy Eldridge and others came to town, Mr. Wallace was often their pick.

"He was a no-nonsense musician," said local trumpeter Danny Cohn. "He was my musical father. He knew all the songs, standards and show tunes. He lived through all the generations of music and musicians."

Mr. Wallace is survived by his son, Bruce Wallace of Brighton Heights, and his daughter, Alison Kuhn of Zelienople.

A memorial service will be held at 1:30 p.m. Thursday at Canterbury Place, 301 Fisk St., Lawrenceville.