Would you work a Jazz Gig with a Fender Telecaster or Stratocaster?

[ChrisDowning]

Mmm. I seem to have stirred things up with that!. Let me explain my thinking. Leo felt the Strat was the upgraded design to the Telecaster. I think the Tele has a look that we've become used to in Jazz, but the number of Telecasters with HBs in the neck suggest it's not all good news in its orginal format.

On the Es175 issue - The SG and the ES175 can oretty much have the same electrics. However, the ES175 obviously leaks some of the 'dead' ply top sound into how it sounds plugged in - on the other hand it can also sound very rock sounding with different settings. We all know that the basic two guitars have signature sound - but which can be altered quite a bit with EQ and the amps signature sound as well.

I wouldn't disagree with your list Jorge - but you'll probably never know how some players got those guitars - some may well be on loan from the actual owner as they widely do in the classical instrument players. (Most Famous Stradivarius instruments have rich owners who loan them to the star players.)

The point of the original post was would you use a Tele or Strat? What I have been talking about is the huge influence marketing has on what we might think is a factual, logical, and reasoned decision.

[D.G.]

I actually picked up my Modern Player Tele (2 p90s) yesterday and while it's the darkest toned guitar I own, I actually struggled a bit playing on it due to the amount of sustain it has compared to either my Eastman 403 or Kingpin! There's actually too much sustain for my style. While I haven't done a swing gig with it, I'm sure I could -- though I'd need to alter my playing style to accomodate the different ASDR profile and I'd need to use a significantly lighter touch to keep from pulling the "twang" out of the guitar (solid body guitars "twang" or "clank" when punched really hard whereas archtops "chunk" when smacked.)

[Franz 1997]

Mmm. I seem to have stirred things up with that!. Let me explain my thinking. Leo felt the Strat was the upgraded design to the Telecaster. I think the Tele has a look that we've become used to in Jazz, but the number of Telecasters with HBs in the neck suggest it's not all good news in its orginal format.

On the Es175 issue - The SG and the ES175 can oretty much have the same electrics. However, the ES175 obviously leaks some of the 'dead' ply top sound into how it sounds plugged in - on the other hand it can also sound very rock sounding with different settings. We all know that the basic two guitars have signature sound - but which can be altered quite a bit with EQ and the amps signature sound as well.

I wouldn't disagree with your list Jorge - but you'll probably never know how some players got those guitars - some may well be on loan from the actual owner as they widely do in the classical instrument players. (Most Famous Stradivarius instruments have rich owners who loan them to the star players.)

The point of the original post was would you use a Tele or Strat? What I have been talking about is the huge influence marketing has on what we might think is a factual, logical, and reasoned decision.

Just dropped into this thread, so many apologies if this point has already been made…to my ears, strats and teles sound quite different. I'd call the strat a one-sound guitar, albeit a great sound, and the sound is "hollow" & lacks fundamental.
By contrast, the stock tele neck pup ( with different wire and coil depth from a strat) has both a softened treble ( the cover) and a greater amount of note fundamental. Try getting an Ed Bickert sound with a strat…So if the question is which instrument is more suitable, I'd say the tele is, for this reason. It's a three-sound guitar, and one of those sounds really works for jazz.

My understanding is that the tele neck pickup was originally designed by leo fender to appeal to the jazz players of the day. Dunno if that's true, but if it is, IMO he succeeded. I can't see what marketing's got to do with it at all, unless you mean fender trying to market the tele to jazzers in the 50's.

[Keira Witherkay]

as for that new "chinese" fender yep they outsourcing to china now too.... the modern player thinline tele with theP90's.... it's particularly well suited to jazz as it's a thinline design so semi hollow...probably the lightest weight electric guitar i have picked up for ages ....and the P90's give a more jazzy tone as lets be honest before the paf came out in 57 ish P 90 was the pickup in most gibson ES range guitars which were all jazz players choice .......
and yes i have played one and almost bought it , and i would gig one anyday ...very 'voiced' for jazz even more so than a standard tele ... now if fender just make the same guitar as a USA made one, with same specs and weight ...just better build and descent P 90’s pickups


on a 2nd point ....... strange that this discussion came up .... I’m currently performing solo jazz guitar at a casino resort as a resident musician.... andthe 2 guitars i have with me are my mid 50's hofner 456 archtop and my tele with a an old (unknown) fat single coil in neck from an old jazz guitar ... and i been gigging the archtop daily at my shows , and last night decided to give the tele a wirl .... (boredom i guess not necessity) but took both guitars ,

sound check was with the tele ... set it up and happy with the sound....

btw i am a huge tele fan(since seeing jim campilongo and what he does with histele )so it takes very little if no convincing to get me to whip out the tele ....

so sound check done i , i return at gig time but now i suddenly decide lets do a comparison ...motivated by this thread, so even tho i sound checked with the tele i plugged the archtop in and did about 4 tunes all fingerstyle multipart jazz...no backtracks ...then mid set i swopped to the tele ( i marked the previous amp settings) and below is the result of the experiment

so vintage archtop vs tele (with fat single coil in neck not a charlie christen pickup but something not too dissimilar)

playability ........ tele won that hands down.... lower action and better upper fret access .... the archtop has a very playable action but definitely i work harder at playing it

feedback ........ need i say the tele wins again hands down ... i have taped up the f holes on the archtop but if i get careless and lean in the wrong angle i get that "resonant frequency boom on certain notes" more a case of the lower frequencies getting out of control ... a common and totally manageable archtop performance issue (i usually gig the archtop ) but when compared back to back one is directly confronted with how easy the tele is compared to the careful preparation (amp placement ) for the archtop ...tele is plug and play ..whocares where the amp or PA speakers are ...

tone .... this is where the archtop came out tops....... and by a mile.... if you don't do theA/B test like this the tele sounds great and totally usable for my jazz needs...at my sound check with only tele i walked away happy i had a great sound for a pro gig .... but when A/B'd the archtop’s complex tones wins through....and idid not just leave it like that i spent a few min between songs tweaking the tele to try get the archtops tone (which btw also has a single coil and NOT a paf ) the eq'ing did help a lot and backing off the tele volume a tad did also help .........

but i guess i could of eq'd even more ...but after the set i swopped back the archtop and played it for the rest of the gig.... happy player ,happy audience

so there you go ....... take from this what you will

and yes i am a huge tele fan and in answer to the question ...... YES will still gig my tele especially at loud gigs
but when it comes to playing traditional jazz(standards) and wanting an "old" sound the archtop just can't be beat tonally ...everything else the tele totally beats the archtop


my conclusion ... i will still tour with both ... options ,options ,options

[ChrisDowning]

Those old Hofners are quite interesting. I had one in 1962, my first decentish guitar. I say that because the neck stsrted to come away from the body after a couple of years and in thise days I didn't know this sort of thing was fixable. Does yours have ply top or spruce one? And are those PUs the little black ones without any pole pieces showing through? Senitor or President or Committee?

You may notice that some didn't agree with my take on pros using less expensive guitars - you seem to be supporting my observations that pros try to do things on a budget rather than playing an iconic $4000+ box. What's your take on that?

[Keira Witherkay]

absolutely agree with you Chris ... BUT let me say .... don't mistake pro muso for "famous" muso ..... i may be a pro muso and have been all my life ..BUT i'm NOT a famous muso , so i work consistantly but doing the "bread and butter " gigs like hotel residency's where theres a good living to be made if you do it full time.... but a middle class one .....so if i have $4000 lying around i think of putting it into the house rather than a guitar ... heheheh the reality i guess... however if i suddenly had the budget i would buy boutique guitars.....

but i think the point you making is that boutique guitars or custom builds are not essential to good sound or pro gigs, a salesman in a guitar shop i know says he sells most of his boutique instruments $4000 plus to bussinessmen who play but as a hobby or part time NOT the local pro's ....


and yes i do personally agree ...and to me the prerequisite to a successful pro gig is a good player ....

at a push/emergency i can do a pro jazz gig and sound good .... with almost any guitar with a neck pickup if it can stay in tune and i have an eq pedal to tweak the tone ... but of course we are artists and we have our preferences....

but i doubt the audience will notice (apart from a few gearheads) if i perform my show with my vintage hofner archtop that sounds sweet and very vintage jazz or some custom build i paid 10 times the price for...

BUT OF COURSE , in a perfect world .....we(jazz guitarists) all would love a roomful of boutique/custom/vintage/rare jazz guitars if we could .... as i said above ...there's fantasy and the reality of being a workin gigging pro muso

and chris your question re my Hofner........ yes it's a mid 50's 456 , non adjustable trussrod, the old one with the small round control plate and the single coil pickup that looks a bit fenderish but the early one encased in a rosewood cover which dates this as before '58 when the same pickup came in a black plastic cover ... it's laminate maple (all 456's are the 457 is the same guitar but with spruce) great guitar fat 50's neck (extra fat i guess cos of the non adjustable truss rod to add more strength) it's stock in mint condition only tuners and bridge are changed ........ it has a very 'organic sound' like you heard on old records ... and it has lots of mojo close to +/- 60yrs old ... sound is perfect for what i do ....

[ChrisDowning]

Thanks for the update Keira. I agree with the sales guy - when out in Tennessee I met up with a lot of retired guys who had unbelievable collections of guitars and none of them had been full time pros. It seemed when the pension kicked in they could follow the hobby full-on! $40,000 spent on guitars didn't seem unusual for these guys!

[Boston Joe]

I've been playing my (mostly) bone stock Strat through my new Blues Jr. and I'm loving the jazz sound of it. I'm using the second position on the pup selector (neck and middle), and keeping the tone knobs rolled down to 2 or 3. I use heavy (.011) round wound strings. By no means does it sound like an archtop, but it has a good mellow tone that comes through. Someone upthread mentioned the strat having a "springy" sound. I agree, but I actually like that sound. I block my bridge, but I leave the springs in.

I haven't decided yet if I'm going to leave the stock pickups in or swap them, but I won't be putting a mini bucker in the neck or anything like that.

I tend to think of the strat as the swiss army knife of guitars.

[ChrisDowning]

I think you have given me confidence to stick with the 'Strat'. I have a Tele that looks the business (for Tele jazz anyway) but somehow the Tele doesn't have the jump out at you tone my Tokai 'Strat' has. I was about to ditch the Tokai a few yeas ago as it somehow alway fell short of what I wanted. Then I ran into someone who showed me their Tokai with a PU change - whoa! What a wake up call! So anyway, I couldn't shell out for the Antiquity PUs this guy had, but I could for three Alnico II SDs. Wow what a change - this whole guitar came alive - its Buddy Holly meets SRV! This is a Strat that just has attention grabbing tone. And being about 30 years old, its super low action is going to be solid for the long term. So I think the against the grain decision is sell the 92 Anniversary Tele and keep the Tokai.

Anyone want a Telecaster. (BTW anyone who knows me knows I'm downsizing because I've retired from full time guitar teaching - so its not an idle offer! You'll need a black plate to replace the toilet seat grey one to make it look uber cool - its two tone tobacco SB)

[Tele295]

With a Tele, sure