Fender Telecaster vs Gibson ES-335

[BlueGreen]

There are plenty of famous telecaster straight-ahead jazz players (not fusion, jazz-rock etc... but more traditional jazz, bebop style, hard-bob etc):

Telecaster jazz players

I cannot think of any famous 335 straight-head jazz player... what could this mean?

[DMgolf66]

There are plenty of famous telecaster straight-ahead jazz players (not fusion, jazz-rock etc... but more traditional jazz, bebop style, hard-bob etc):

Telecaster jazz players

I cannot think of any famous 335 straight-head jazz player... what could this mean?

Dave Stryker?

[John A.]

There are plenty of famous telecaster straight-ahead jazz players (not fusion, jazz-rock etc... but more traditional jazz, bebop style, hard-bob etc):

Telecaster jazz players

I cannot think of any famous 335 straight-head jazz player... what could this mean?

Depending on your definition of famous and straightahead …

Pete McCann
Adam Rogers
Dave Stryker
Bob DeVos
Steve Cardenas
John Hart

…to name a few

In my neck of the woods (NYC), semi-hollows are very common.

[rpjazzguitar]

Depending on your definition of famous and straightahead …

Pete McCann
Adam Rogers
Dave Stryker
Bob DeVos
Steve Cardenas
John Hart

…to name a few

In my neck of the woods (NYC), semi-hollows are very common.

Last couple of times I saw Jack Wilkins he was playing a Comins GCS-1, which is a semihollow, akin to a 335. Yotam Silberstein plays one. Vinicius Gomes plays a 335 or similar.

[bluejaybill]

Statutorily required interruption: "growing up in a musical house" and "played a banjo" is a contradiction in terms [ducks].

Had to comment on this...I liked the comment.

In fact, growing up in a musical household probably arrests development--in a sense, you probably don't grow up, but remain a kid at heart, with all that music going on. Especially in my case. My parents made a deal: for each song of "theirs" I learned, they would learn one of "mine." So, my parents knew Stones, Animals, Beatles, Ry Cooder, etc. Meanwhile, I knew how to play 20s, 30s, and 40s standards. Came in handy, later on.

(snip)

I love this story. Mine is similar but different.

In my household music was everywhere. My mother was a very gifted classical piano player who opted to be a house wife. She would open up a Rachmaninoff piano concerto, sight read through it, make a mistake on the 6th page, say "damn" and shut the piano for six months. I however practiced it diligently!

In my house my folks were always playing great jazz records: Basie, Mulligan, Brubeck, but they had a special place in their hearts for big band and especially Ellington. So all of that, in addition to great vocalists (they loved Tony Bennet) and of course classical were always in my ear.

Fast forward to the arrival of rock, and of course I was a goner and switched to guitar.

So no swapping of tunes, but a wonderful sharing of tunes, and the piano was a great foundation for theory and later, composing.

Oh, and yes, there was a banjo and old Maybelle and Gibson guitars hanging around, plus a piano, and my favorite- a Hammond organ!

Very thankful for those days, and fun to reminisce. Oh, love Telecasters and 335's, looking for a thin line, but mostly into archies now! A '60 ES345 was my main gigging guitar for many years though, so gotta go with the thin line.

[garybaldy]

Hm...Abercrombie is one of my favorite guitar players, if not the favorite, and I've seen him playing telecaster style guitar and LP style guitars (and some other crazy guitars), but I've never seen him playing a 335.

Is a tele style guitar a tele?

[KRosser]

335s are my favorite guitars for anything, so definitely for jazz gigs. I wasn't attracted to them because of any association with an iconic player, I just love the way those guitars feel and sound. I've been playing them since 1976 so they feel like home at this point.

I do like some Teles, but my favorite I ever owned was a blonde '72 thinline with the cunife humbuckers. That's almost as 335-ish as Fender got...almost...

[Bob_Ross]

In my neck of the woods (NYC), semi-hollows are very common.

Ironically, one of the first places I recall seeing the Tele vs. 335 debate was in a mid-1970s Guitar Player Magazine article about studio session musicians, which contained a quote something to the effect of "In Los Angeles the studio guitarists all bring an ES-335 as their primary instrument, whereas in NYC they all bring a Telecaster."

[JCat]

I've got them both and I think they are very different guitars.
There will always be some overlap regardless of make and model, but guitars in the same family will have more things in common, i.e a 335 is closer to a Les Paul. A Telecaster is closer to a Stratocaster.

This is the Jazzguitar forum, so -Which guitar would be more suitable for Jazz?

People got very different ideas of the meaning of Jazz, but let's make it clear; Most Jazz music was written, performed and recorded in a time when the electric guitar had not yet been invented, before Fender built the first Tele.
Gibson made guitars throughout the Jazz era and both the Les Paul and the 335 are offsprings from the archtop legacy. The introduction of the Fender Telecaster challenged the archtop legacy in every possible way and is partly responsible for the death of Jazz.

-Which is the most "versatile" guitar?

Wouldn't that depend on your individual idea of the meaning of "versatility" in this context? Clean or distorted, Blues Rock or Heavy metal, with the same setup or with a different setup, with factory or custom pickups? Acoustic or amplified...(remember that electric guitars, in particular solidbodies and semis, are supposed to be amplified.)

-Is it possible to play Jazz on a solid body guitar?

Of course! (which is not to say that solidbodies are better)

-Is the Telecaster a Jazz guitar in disguise, a well kept secret?

No! The Telecaster is totally demystified and very well understood more than 70 years after its introduction.

-The 335 got f-holes, so apparently it's an acoustic guitar suitable for Jazz?

It's an archtop offspring and looks like an archtop, but it's semi acoustic. Some 335s got a Trapeze tailpiece and gets closer in tone and feel.

-But the thinline Tele also got an f-hole and is also semi-acoustic, wouldn't this bring it very close to a 335?

A thinline Tele, even with humbuckers, is still much closer to the Fender legacy than any Gibson guitar, solid, semi or archtop.

-So what is the secret sauce in Jazz?

The music you play and how. Play whatever guitar you're most comfortable with. (Traditional Jazz tone is accomplished with a Trapeze tailpiece, a floating wooden bridge and heavy gauge strings. Put on some heavy strings on your 335 and you'll get closer to Jazz, but further from Country and Rock.
Put on some flatwound strings on your Tele and kill the twang...if you really think this is the best way to make use of the Telecaster)