Jazz on a Gibson Les Paul?

[Herbie]

I always considered Les Paul to be more of a MOR (middle of the road) pop type player rather than way into the jazz vein. That performance in the video is typical Les Paul and then listen to him with Mary Ford. Excellent player, no doubt, but more MOR than jazz.
Tony

Well... I suppose that he played in the times that jazz was the MOR! Or at least still close to it.

Les didn´t invent the Les Paul guitar, it was Gibson CEO Ted McCarty and people at Gibson who had figured the guitar and then asked the biggest guitarist of that time, Les Paul to advertise it with his name.

A solid body guitar that was planned to be a jazz guitar is the Telecaster. Leo Fender planned it closely with the greats of West Coast western swing guitarists. Well, maybe some Country greats too.

[tbeltrans]

Well... I suppose that he played in the times that jazz was the MOR! Or at least still close to it.

Les didn´t invent the Les Paul guitar, it was Gibson CEO Ted McCarty and people at Gibson who had figured the guitar and then asked the biggest guitarist of that time, Les Paul to advertise it with his name.

A solid body guitar that was planned to be a jazz guitar is the Telecaster. Leo Fender planned it closely with the greats of West Coast western swing guitarists. Well, maybe some Country greats too.

The Telecaster does seem to work for jazz too as evidenced by Ted Greene, Ed Bickert, Tim Lerch, to name a few.

It would definitely have been an advantage to have grown up in those times when the tunes of the Great American Songbook and others that were adapted by jazz musicians were mainstream. A number of the tunes that have become standard fare in the jazz repertoire were actually rather "corny" pop tunes. Despite that, they had that certain "something" that made them suitable for jazz players to rework them.

As for me, I grew up on the Beatles and other pop groups of the time. I wasn't exposed to jazz and the tunes of that era until much later in life, so I have long felt that I was playing "catch up". In hindsight, I do feel as if my generation was short-changed musically. Bouncing around to "I Want To Hold Your Hand" doesn't hold a candle to the stuff folks were doing with big band music, for example, and those big band musicians were individually really good musicians who were skilled at their craft. When I was growing up, the primary dance shows I recall were American Bandstand, Shindig, and Thaxton's Hop. The kids just wiggled at each other rather than doing anything even remotely coherent. But, then, what else can you do with that stuff?

Tony

[mad dog]

Congrats and welcome to the LP Club!

Oh yes there is P90 powered blank LPs, thousands of them! It is called Les Paul Special and they come as cheapos from 500 to Custom Shop models for 2500 units. I have one from middle class, but this photo is from the net:
Attachment 91667

The Les Paul Special is a worthy instrument for sure. Not the same as the LP Studio faded in my post. The studio has a mahogany cap vs. the flat top body of the Special (so a deeper body with arched top), and it's heavily chambered. Both these things make for distinctive sound. It's that type of body and construction on which I'd be curious to hear P90s. Bet it would sound rather different from LP Specials.

[whiskey02]

Pat Martino played a LP for several years, until it was stolen outside a club so it wasn't entirely his decision to change guitars.
Fwiw, I get what people say about the difference of airiness between hollow & solid body (of course they're different, either one can't sound just like the other) but I find the increased sustain of a solid body lends itself to more easily emulate "horn like" lines and melodies.