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I have American standard Telecaster and current bought ES-335. Tele sounds sweet but too thin.
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12-31-2014 12:56 AM
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I can get a really great jazz tone with my Villex equipped Strat. I prefer my hollow bodies but in a pinch the Strat works nicely.
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What you're really refering to is the Fender Jazzmaster. Joe briefly played one in the mid 60's or something but then he got a ES 175 and used it ever since. What Leo Fender was trying to do with the jazzmaster as well as the jazz bass was to replace the hollow bodies and double basses with his stuff. But jazz guitarist were or maybe still are a conservative bunch and it was a total flop kind of like Gibsons Flying V and Explorer...
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Look into a Law Suit-era, Greco EG-500 LP copy. They have a chambered body which adds a bit of breeziness or air to the tone and the stock Maxon U-1000 humbuckers are unpotted. Killer Jazz tones out of those guitars.
Last edited by wildschwein; 01-25-2015 at 02:54 AM.
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Recently got a Greco Les Paul custom, which I like at least as much as the real thing I had. I strung it with TI flats, damn nice jazz tone for a solidbody.
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Conservative jazz guitarists often opine that an archtop is needed to play jazz guitar properly. Many Gypsy jazz guitarists think that only a Selmer style guitar will do.
Bireli Lagrene, who IMO is the finest jazz guitarist alive thinks otherwise (Bireli plays it all, Gypsy jazz, straight ahead jazz, fusion etc.).
Here is a recent video of him at a European jazz festival with his trio. Bireli is plaing a Strat style guitar with a
P-90 through a Fender tube amp. It sounds great to me.
And I have much respect for an iconoclast. Always have, always will.
Enjoy!
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nothing beats a fender for those type of vintage steel guitar licks and bends he's throwin in..that's what leo fender worked off..
fabulous playing
cheers
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I love Bireli & I love strats too
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ps- freddie tavares..one of leo fenders right hand guys...along with bill carson they developed the strat
freddie also supposedly did the slide bit intro on the beginning of the wb bugs cartoons
cheers
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btw, the guitar in op vid is actually a yamaha pacifica...strat based however!
cheers
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I played solid and chambered bodied slab guitars for a lot of years. This is a Warmoth Partscaster and I thinnk it sounds great.
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Solid or hollow, they both sound good for jazz IMO. A lot of it comes down to the way you play the strings, and your amp settings. I slightly lean towards hollowbodies, just because I like to sling my right arm, over a nice, big guitar body. Oh yeah, and hollowbodies look cool!
Still, it wouldn't be the end of the world for me, if I was in a playing situation, where I could only jazz out on my Tele.
Last edited by EllenGtrGrl; 07-13-2016 at 10:30 PM.
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It really boils down to personal taste. I like listening to both Joe Pass and Ed Beckert but I prefer the sound of Pass' guitar. There's no right or wrong.
Jim, do you tune down to Db in order to use heavier strings, because you want to hit lower notes, or??
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As far as straight-ahead jazz goes, I still prefer archtops- especially those with P-90 or CC pickups. I have a Greco 175 that I recently purchase, I'm still warming to the humbuckers. I have a Telecaster and two Gibson L6-Ss that are great solid body guitars that also happen to make nice jazz guitar noises too.
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A les paul is a hell of a jazz guitar.
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I've been messing with lowered tuning for my entire adult life. I'm just drawn to the sound the guitar makes when you lower the pitch and even a single semi-tone makes a huge difference. I also play very lightly and I prefer to play with very little tension so tuning down is usually more comfortable for me.
Originally Posted by Naquat
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I've been playing a LOT of jazz this year on my Strat. (Gigging and at home) Through my Polytone MiniBrute IV it gets a heck of a jazz tone on the neck pickup.
In particular, if you want a 60s Wes tone with the thumb, a Strat will do it for you.
I have mine strung with TI Swing flat wound 11-47 strings. The strings sound great on the guitar. FWIW, you can bend, chicken pick, AND play jazz with these suckers.
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Bigsby practically never gets used, but I'm leaving it on mainly because for reasons unknown even to myself, I can't stand stop bar tailpieces. Originally Posted by BigDaddyLoveHandles
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Bigsby, any tremolo... If you know the tuning secret it can an instant reset. Hit it and right back in tune. Used to play in a GB band and we'd do 3-4 hour shows, lots of bending, didn't have to tune more than once. Just hit the tremolo and back in tune. Trying to get my 3 week old to go to sleep. So I'll explain later unless anyone else knows the trick and can chime in.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Now this is interesting! My tuning trick on those some five years of struggling with Bigsby in Les Paul was 'one hit and all the strings were out of tune'! Originally Posted by Generalmojo
Congrats for the three-weeker! I hope she/he is a good sleeper!
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Okay. So here it is. Very simple. You can find some good videos explaining it and proving it on YouTube. And it works. Originally Posted by Herbie
Get your guitar roughly in tune. Then hit the tremolo arm. Don't be shy. Check your low E String. Tune it. Hit the arm. Check it. Tune it again if need be. Go through and do the same for all six strings. Tune. Hit. Tune. Hit. It doesn't take as long as you think.
You end up creating a careful balance between the tuning and the tremolo action. Now play a little. Bend a note here and there. Play a chord. Or of tune? Hit the tremolo. Back in tune.
When playing a set bridge I'd bend a note, go out of tune, and go to hit me tremolo only to realize that there's nothing there to save me! You become addicted to it.
So there you go. Believe it or not. But it works. A little better on strat tremolos. But it works. I'll search for the video that really shows the crazy accuracy you can get as post it later.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Even Van Halen used this trick on his trems before he got his Frankenstein fitted for a Floyd. As a longtime Strat fan (I've owned three over the years) it works for me -- though I never work the bar too hard, and keep it decked (dropping only, no raising the putch for me). Originally Posted by Generalmojo
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I recently bought a Jazz Solid guitar made by Roger Borys, because I was sick of not being able to play loud enough on gigs with archtops.
Friday night, I had an outdoors gig where I had to play 'Send in the Clowns' unaccompanied with a Sinatra-style singer.
I've had to do this before, and always had problems with getting a loud enough sound on my archtop without getting feedback, even going through an AI Coda, because we're playing outdoors, and there's a huge area to project the sound into.
This time I used the Jazz Solid through a Peavey amp that I've had in my car for a rock-oriented musical I've been playing since June, and I was able to get a good, loud sound out of it.
A trumpet player friend of mine who was on the gig told me afterwards that he was listening from way back in the crowd, and he thought it sounded fine. This was coming from a musician who is very critical about sound quality and projection.
I've used the Jazz Solid on big band gigs, musicals, jazz quartet situations, and it's come through much better than my Fender Strat, and my Parker P-44, which were loud enough, but didn't get a good jazz tone.
I still practice acoustically every day on my archtop, but the Jazz Solid is my main gigging guitar. I've done so many gigs with it this summer, that I've almost made as much as the guitar cost me.
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Originally Posted by jazzbow
agree absolutely..leo was really going for a solidbody answer to a jazz archtop guitar...the fender tweaked/ p-90 type pickups..the rhythm circuit which gives you 2 great neck pup tones at the flick of a switch..and the bridge pup which gives you all those lap steel/western swing brassy cold steel tones..it was fenders top of the line guitar!!
ventures cut their classic version of johnny smiths walk dont run- with jazzmaster!!
roy lanham..who was like the johnny smith of the country swing sound, used jazzmasters heavily
mickey baker too..
and if you want to play postmodern out stuff ala players like tom verlaine, thurston moore and nels cline--nothing better
i love jazzmasters!!
cheers
ps- to sgcim..try a nice jazzmaster..the bridge pickup (mixed in judiciously with the neck pup) gives that toppy piezo non sustainy tone..but better cause it reacts with the actual string material, in a way that piezos can't/don't..
try it, you'll like it!! haha
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Itching for a Fender, which one?
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