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Indeed!
..that record “After Hours” featured Ray Brown as well..
it was a fabulous album!
..and yes, he does have that JP-20 on the cover..great sound to be honest..
(incidentally, there was another release from Previn on Telarc that featured Ray Brown again but had Mundy on guitar..if anyone is interested)
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05-05-2021 04:01 AM
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I have that one on Telarc and was lucky enough to see that trio (Previn/Lowe/Brown) live @ the Philadelphia Academy of Music back in the day
Originally Posted by jasethebop
Very special night....
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I’ve been searching for 25+ years for this history. I have a JP20 that the owner claimed was given to her deceased husband by Joe himself and was good friends with. I have a letter from her stating that but as we all know anyone could’ve written the letter. (last name Pettington from Everett WA)
Reading this post gives me hope that someday I may find the truth behind it. I have seen hundreds of these guitars and all have typical humbucker in chrome or gold, mine is fit with a Bartolini!
Thoughts? Info? Much appreciated!!
Aloha
Guy
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What is the serial number (back of the headstock). If it's an early one, it might well be Joe's but if it's a later one, it more than likely isn't. Originally Posted by GuyDaKine
Although we don't know how many he went through.
He might haven given them away or left them around like candy. Or he might have had just one, which would make his a very early example. Likely the first!
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Serial #H700907
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That serial number reads H = Tereada (1986-1991) The year being the last digit (7) so your being a 1987 example. Originally Posted by GuyDaKine
It could be Joe Pass's but if we went on the idea that he had one example, then it's not.
If we go on the idea he had several over the years, then sure, it could be.
Whether you could convincingly sell it as such is another story.
Great guitar though.
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I bought mine recently online from a shop in Lyon France. I've now had it for about a month and it has slowly grown on me and I now love it. For the price I paid of €1800 I got a stunning guitar for the money.
I Identify with a few of the anecdotes as I actually know some of the people, but I want to talk about the guitar rather than the personalities. I will mention Barney K however, in the 60s I was introduced to him in Ronnie Scott's jazz club and when I told him I played his Gibson signature guitar he made a face and said "what? That piece of ****!".
In the 70s I had to sell that guitar to make key money for an apartment so I took it down to Selmer in Charing Cross Road. That beautiful guy let me trade the BK in for cash +1 of two choices; and L5 acoustic or an Epiphone Broadway from 1943 which is the year I was born. As the latter had pickups I chose that one and have cried for it ever since it was stolen from me in the 1980s.
Anyway to cut a long story short I recently bought a Godin 5th ave with two single coil pickups thinking it could make a cheap jazz guitar. I didn't get on with the sound so I took off the two pickups and made a bracket to float mount a Gibson 57 classic reissue which I had and from whichI snapped off the dogleg lugs. It sounded way much better with a pretty sound from the Cherrywood top but I said to myself that this was not going to do it.
Now that it's love at second or third sight, I'm really happy with the JP 20 which I'm currently playing through and SR acoustic amp. I used to play on an acoustic image 10 Two and wouldn't mind getting another of their amps because for just tone they take a lot of beating. Almost imperceptible distortion, amazing power and headroom and low weight.
Since I was 15 I have always been looking for my jazz tone and I guess I always will be looking. You have to make your tone and shape it through right and left hand techniques and also through the amplifier which is probably the most important town factor of all given the choice.
I always liked Joe pass and found him inspiring and instructive to watch and listen to, I honour all the great jazz guitar players and the great tunes as well as exploring my own creativity and discovering new tonal avenues. It's endless and I certainly don't have to complain about the instrument I have which is a beautifully made and efficient tool to produce great jazz sound.
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I had one back in 1986 and kept it for a year only.
Beautiful guitar but I'm not a fingerstylist like Joe hence the pickup placement was too central (and consequently the sound too thin) and I kept stumbling on the pickup with my plectrum which then fell on the floor, again and again. Another problem (for me) was the 25.5" scale length.
If the JP20 had a 24.75" scale length and the pickup close to the neck I'd still own it and it would be my dream guitar. I loved everything else about it, especially the slim neck.
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My thoughts exactly Originally Posted by frabarmus;[URL="tel:1286637"
they really should make that guitar
i have an af2000 now which is close to that ….
the one jp20 i played in a shop
(I should have just bought it and butchered it to move the pickup …. but i didn’t)
had THE best neck I’ve ever played
in my life bar none
oh well
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I wonder if the JP20 would shine fingerstyle no fingerpicks with tone rolled off a bit.
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I'm waiting (since october 2022!!) for my AF2000 to arrive at my local music shop in town. Originally Posted by pingu
I'm pretty sure, when it finally comes along, it'll have been worth the wait!
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I think it would. Originally Posted by curbucci
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My JP 20 had half round strings on it when I opened the box and I thought "oh that looks silly" then I saw an online video were half wound strings were recommended where finger style technique is employed on an electric steel string instrument.
Joe used to alternate between figures style and pick, holding the pick in his mouth as I always used to do. Although I do have flat wound strings at the moment I wouldn't be averse to trying half rounds one day. I also make my own wooden guitar picks and I have them on an elasticated string that goes round my wrist and falls between the fingers. This allows me just to drop the pick when I change to finger style. I can imagine the finger style being improved by the half wound strings.
In the case of plectrum use there is something really important that came to my attention a few years ago and which I have practised – or tried to – ever since. It concerns the tendency always to hit the striving to hard which does not lead to good tone. Good tone comes from a gentle hit on the string, just enough to make it vibrate adequately and use the amplification for volume.
The difference is remarkable but I find I need to constantly bear it in mind is the old habit dies hard.
I try to hold my pick as lightly as possible and I've been surprised by how little pressure is necessary and how a subtle tone is released by doing so.
I don't think for one minute that the pickup needs to be moved on the guitar but that it's up to me to adapt. I find that I can finger or plectrum pick in any position including over the pickup in itself as my picking depth is shallow, just as deep as needed. When I pick near the neck the sound is thicker but it could be made thicker by different means. I'm thinking of the wonderful Jeff Beck playing his Stratocaster almost on the bridge and getting thick creamy tone.
I don't have a particularly big hand but I don't seem to notice the scale length as much as I did on the Godin 5th Ave Kingpin I mentioned in an earlier post and which now sits in its case. Guitar love is a strange thing is it not, rather like love for a woman it can be blind and yet all seeing.
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I usually pick just below the neck pickup which is where the JP20 PU happens to be and I used, and still use, 358 size/shape plectrums which is the smallest size and leaves just the tip striking the string and picking is very close to the string (and I'm quite light handed)... perhaps the pickup on my JP20 was set too up close to the strings (that was long ago, I don't quite remember).
Anyway, fair enough, it's such a beautiful, one of a kind guitar requiring the effort (for me at least) of adapting to it. I guess I wasn't that flexible at the time. Glad you've found your twin-soul guitar. They seem to be quite rare, these days, and I'm curious about how I might relate to one now, if I were to come across one.
Enjoy!
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that’s too long a wait man …. Originally Posted by frabarmus;[URL="tel:1286712"
that’s crazy ….
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Very accurate manufacturing, I suppose... Originally Posted by pingu
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Notable musician,
I am happy for you. The JP20 was a guitar I wanted to love so much. The neck on the guitar would please 99/100 players and I just so happen to be that 1..
It is built like a tank. I said it was a cross between a Strat and an L5. Which makes it unique and a copy of nothing.
It’s a wonderful guitar and I hope you love it for life. You said it so right, use your right and left hands to build a sound that appeals to you. Enjoy!
Joe D
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I don't understand the space issue. The Gibson ES 175 has a significant space between the end of the fingerboard and the pickup compared to the L4CES. Doesn't seem to be a problem there. Why is there such a difference between the two? Both the same scale length, both the same basic body. What gives?
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Me too, I'd like more information. There do seem to be resonance charteristics at different places based on harmonics for one thing.
My first pickup was a deArmond which slid on a rod so you could choose any position you wanted. It's 65 years ago so my memory is hazy but I seem to recall favouring near to the end of the fingerboard but not against it. But my professional work at that time meant searching for tone other than jazz.
Going back to my JP20 and people calling the sound thin. Well it is compared to a full size carved top archtop with a floating pickup. That's fine for studio or small club gigs but what about larger venues where volume is needed. You've got feedback issues straight away.
The Jp20 is a 16" with a thick epoxy finish and pickup placed away from the fingerboard so it's a really reliable giging instrument. I personally find I can get a loto of tones, I alternate fingerstyle with pick; I make my own with wood.
Then for jazz the amp is vital. I'm sorry I sold my Acoustic Image Ten2 and will consider one of their new Claus based combos. They are copetitive and lighter than ever. They also have a brilliant anti-feedback sweep filter.
Like you I'd live some technical explanation of PU positioning.
Have a great day
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Some fretboards have 20 frets while some have 22. Is the neck pickup usually placed just below where the 22nd fret is (or "would be" if the neck has 20 frets)? If so the larger gap between pickup and end of fretboard on the ES 175 vs the L4 would make sense. However (if I remember correctly) both ES175 and L4 have 20 frets? If so, their respective pickup placement is not the same. The JP 20 has a slightly larger gap (than ES 175's) between end of fretboard and pickup and yet the neck has 22 frets.
Anyway, I have found some discussion on pickup placement on this thread:
Eastman John Pisano AR380CE - pickup placement question
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I didn't notice or know that the standard ES175 PU was away from the end of the fingerboard.
I was interested to see a video of Joe Pass doing a seminar q and a and concert at a music school. He also jammed with some students.
He had his ES175 with a single PU and I remeber that he said that Gibson made it specially at his request - with a single pickup about 2" away from the end of the fingerboard.
This was prior to the Ibanez JP 20 coming out and about the same time as DaQuisto built his one-off for Joe with the PU away from the end of the fingerboard. When the Ibanez came out I believe that D'aQuisto eventually sued Ibanez and they had to stop production in 1990.
It seems the placement was originally decided by Joe who wanted to finger-pick near the end of the neck for fuller sound.
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I think your recollection of these details may be off. The 175 that Joe had custom made was after the relationship with Ibanez ended. Its pickup was right at the end of the neck, not 2" away. I never heard that D'Aquisto sued Ibanez (and don't think he would have a basis for doing so because the elements they copied were not trademarks), but I have heard that it was a source of friction between Pass and D'Aquisto (as said in various threads here) because Joe supposedly told Ibanez to copy his D'Aquisto without asking Jimmy. What I've heard is that Joe specified to Ibanez that there be space between the neck and pickup, but didn't realize until the guitars were in production that the Ibanez had 22 frets (the D'Aquisto had 20), which shifted the pickup closer to the bridge. Originally Posted by notablemusician
if you look at Gibsons (which pretty much set the standards many other makers use to spec their guitars), most of their guitars have the neck pickup under they hypothetical 24th fret spot. On a 20-fret guitar (e.g., stock ES-175), that leaves space between the neck and the pickup. On a 22 fret guitar (e.g., 335) there's no space. There are exceptions -- for instance an L4 (20 frets) has it right against the neck, as does a Johnny Smith. An L5 has it spaced a little bit away from the point at the end of the fingerboard. SGs' have to be closer to the bridge because the way the neck is joined to the body doesn't allow for a pickup routing in the 24the fret spot. Obviously, on 24 fret guitars the pickup can't be at the 24th fret spot.
The closer to the bridge a pickup gets, the brighter it sounds; the closer to the neck, the warmer it gets. The JP20 is an example of that. Whether one likes the sound or not, I think it's beyond dispute that the JP20 has a different electric sound from most other archtops because of the pickup placement. I actually kind of like it in some people's hands. To my ears, the brightness adds a quasi-acoustic dimension that can be cool. Another guitar that has a bit of that is the Hofner Jazzica (which has 24 frets). But I prefer the more traditional/tone placement for myself (and for Joe P).Last edited by John A.; 09-24-2023 at 08:08 AM.
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I think it’s the 25’5 scale that brings out more fidelity than the shorter scale, so can contribute to a more ‘acoustic tone’ compared to the pickup placement. Originally Posted by John A.
All food for thought as they say.
I agree with your timeline and chain of eventsLast edited by Archie; 09-23-2023 at 05:29 PM.
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The reason the pickup sounds different is the physics of a vibrating string. Let's look about it from the perspective of the open string. Hit your E string and observe about how widely the string swings as it vibrates in different places along its length. The widest amplitude of vibration will be in the middle of the vibrating section (12th fret in this case). As you move closer towards either the nut or the bridge, the amplitude of the vibration gets smaller because the string effectively gets stiffer (the string is a vibrating spring; the stiffness or spring rate increases for a given diameter of wire the shorter that wire is. We can demonstrate this by mentally increasing size: a 5 mm rod of steel is extremely hard to flex if it's 5cm long, but easy to flex if it's 5 m long).
Also, and there are plenty of diagrams and demonstrations about this out on the Internet, when we pick a string on a guitar we don't only hear the fundamental pitch such as a high E but we also hear 2 to 3 octave harmonics above that, as well as partial harmonics such as the fourth, fifth, sixth, etc. If I remember correctly from high school physics an uncomfortable number of decades ago, the term for this was Fourier transformations or Fourier analysis or something like that. There is a harmonic node in the middle of the vibrating string, as well as halfway from the middle to the end points, halfway from that to the end points, etc. When we play a harmonic at the 12th fret on an open string, we take the fundamental frequency out of the equation by damping that, leaving the remaining harmonics to a ring out.
This is why the tone of the string changes as we fret closer to the nut: the string is getting shorter and therefore stiffer. Along with this, as the wire gets stiffer the fundamental frequency will be of lower amplitude and thus does not ring out as loudly, but the higher order harmonics still ring out because their amplitude is smaller to begin with and they preserve their volume. This is the reason that the tone changes as we fret higher up the neck. It is also why the tone changes if we pick the string at the 12th fret or pick it a centimeter in front of the bridge. We get the same tone if we pick a centimeter away from the nut, for that matter. In search of a warmer fatter tone, that's why we recommend people to pick around the end of the fretboard rather than over the bridge pickup location when playing jazz.
Why does the 25.5" scale sound brighter than the 24.75" scale, then? That seems to fly in the face of what I wrote above. I think the reason for this is that the longer scale requires higher tension on the string to achieve the same fundamental pitch, which tightens and therefore stiffens the spring rate. That reduces the amplitude of the fundamental and proportionally increases the amplitude of the higher order harmonic overtones.
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Wonderful to read you all, to be helped by corrections to my thinking which can be prejudiced or just plain wrong.
One thing I'm sure of is the sound I hear from other players as compared to to the "ideal" tone I have carried in my head for the last 65 years.
When I heard Joe playing his custom made 175 I found the sound shrill and I much prefer the the Ibanez JP20 tone when he plays it. From various readings here it seems explained by the different scale length among other things.
Whatever the reasoning behind all this, I seem to have identified my soul with the JP20, it was not immediate but after two months.
The Joe Pass Ibanez has advantages for a live performance and, at 80, I'm considering doing concerts again ant this guitar as a reliable tool is helping me to think positively !
Long live real music, especially jazz!
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