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Hello fellow guitarists. I am a huge fan of Grant Green and Kenny Burrell. I often face adversity achieving the incredible sound that they get. I own a Les Paul(I know, not the best jazz guitar) and a Fender 65 Deluxe Reverb. I have been experimenting for a long time and can't come close. Any suggestions???
Thanks,
Kevin
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02-12-2014 10:14 AM
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I think Burrell uses a very mild overdrive with the mids up.
My 2 cents.
An LP is just fine for jazz. Just use the neck pickup and roll the tone off a bit.
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I don't know what amp Grant Green used, but the guitar he uses was a ES-330, so that's a very distinct P90 sound you're hearing.
I play a 1961 Höfner with a small single coil element that somewhat resembles that sound.
As said, you can play jazz om most any guitar and certainly on a Les Paul! I know Les Paul himself could
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I've read recently that Grant Green set his amp with mids at 10, bass and treble at 0...
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That's interesting, I have also heard that. Sadly, my amp only has bass and treble and I can't really get that punchy tone without mids
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maybe try a duncan p-rails and triple shot ring in the neck?
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I read the same.
Originally Posted by Barcia
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But whether that yields the same effect depends on your amp of course.
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Green's tone is a more trebly and 'crisper' to my ear. Burrell has more of that dull woody jazz tone. You're never going to completely nail it with a solid body guitar, and bigger amps give more girth to the tone. But you can still get a good jazz tone that's pretty close. I'd try an EQ pedal before doing anything more invasive like changing pickups.
Here's a clip of Ulf Wakenius coming close to the sound with a Les Paul.
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"Green's tone is a more trebly and 'crisper' to my ear. Burrell has more of that dull woody jazz tone"
also keep in mind that Green used a thinline and Burrell a full depth archtop
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You'll get close with a les paul on the neck pickup, but what you're hearing with both those guys is a hollow body sound.
It has a certain quality that goes great with their laid back bluesy styles.
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Especially on Grant Green's earlier recordings you also hear a small/medium sized tube amp being pushed a little. In Grant's case I assume it's the Fender Deluxe (5e3) amp that was in Rudy van Gelder's studio. And yes, Grant's hollow ES-330 with P90s is a different beast than a Les Paul.
Also in Kenny's sound I hear some hair of tubes-being-pushed. Earlier Kenny used and an Epiphone archtop with a floating PU, a Rhythm Chief maybe?
[img]http://www.southernfm.com.au/wp-cont...yBurrell01.jpg[/img]
Later Kenny used a 175 with a P90:
[img]http://www.bluenote.com/cdn/mceuploa...ny-burrell.jpg[/img]
After that he switched to big archtops with humbuckers.
Maybe a switch to a hollowbody with P90s would give you the sound you like, although the Les Paul should be able to take you in the right direction (don't get rid of it yet, it's a great instrument).
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Two great, but very different sounding, players, IMO.
I like P-90s with jazz, and you can try the "humbucker-sized" P-90s in your LP, if you want to have fun -- several makers out there, including Lollar, Roadhouse, etc.
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I'm with you. To me, single coils and jazz just go together perfectly.
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I agree with the above. Single coil pups for me!
As for the Deluxe in van Gelder's studio, it is reportedly the one that Burrell used on the Midnight Blue album and possibly other recordings as well.
Early in his career, Burrell played guitars with either a P-90 or a Rhythm Chief, and also one with a CC pickup if I recall correctly.
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Grant didn't always use a thinline. However I've never seen a pic or video of him with humbuckers. And I don't hear or have ever seen any kind of overdrive pedal in Kenny Burrell's sound. I don't know where people get these ideas. No one has any idea whatsoever how much copression or mixing board clipping is happening in a recording. There's a live Jimmy Smith record out there called Fourmost. There's no sign of any breakup in Kenny's sound on that record and he picks quite hard on a lot of passages. I'm thinking the slight breakup people hear comes from the studio and even tape saturation.
Jimmy Smith's Organ Grinder Swing was recorded so hot that even on the CD you can hear the print through on the tape as a pre echo. Anything recorded that hot is going to respond to a guitar's dynamics.
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Thanks you guys so much for all the suggestions. You have been incredibly helpful and I really appreciate it.
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I posted a thread a quite a few months ago (summer 2013?) about KBs tone on At the Five Spot Café.
really reminded me of earlier GG
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Surprised anything can be heard over those drums and that piano being played with hammers ! :/ Originally Posted by teok
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The tone of Grant Green and Kenny Burrell has become my favorite jazz tone. It's funny how my favorite jazz tone has changed over the years.
A hollowbody will certainly get you closer to this tone. However, you can definitely get a good jazz tone with a Les Paul! For some reason most seem to prefer a telecaster for a solidbody jazz guitar, but I personally prefer a Les Paul. Partially because of it feels more comfortable for me to play and more similar to my archtop in size and feel (24.75 scale length, humbuckers, closer body shape).
So, do this... Lower both the bass and treble down significantly and you are essentially accenting the mids that way. I do the same on my Fender amps and set the treble down around 2-3 and the bass around 3-4. Try that with your Deluxe Reverb and adjust as you hear fit and to the room of course. I believe (so I've read) most Fender amps in this style have a fixed resistor which equates to around 8-9 on the knob for the mids. Originally Posted by KevinMiller124
Last edited by monkmiles; 02-15-2014 at 10:39 AM.
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Will definitely try that! Thanks so much hallpass.
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I think a big part of the sound we like from those guys is some hollowness and a tweed Deluxe. I played a Les Paul for a long time and a tweed got a great milkshake-thick distortion, but did not match well for anything else. The Les Paul just has a famous midrange girth that pulverized the front end of the amp. A tweed will not have the scooped mids of a blackface and is just too much. I just read a similar opinion by Jason Lollar.
Your combo sounds great. However, if you really want a GG/KB tone, I think you need to explore a low powered tweed amp. For that, you need some type of hollowness, which will scoop the mids enough to articulate.
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I use an Ampeg GVT 15 with the mid control (boost) set at 0 with bass and treble slightly boosted, with this and the gain full up with volume set to the room I find that pick attack on the heavy side slightly overdrives the amp for that Burrell tone. Listening to 'Midnight Blue' I can hear the click of the pick on the strings during the quieter passages when KB is vamping under the sax solo's.
Looking at the 'Blue Mist' video posted earlier it looks to me that KB is using his right thumb as well as his wrist and forearm on down strokes, to me that would leave the grip on the pick as lighter and less ham fisted.
With a harder downstroke accent with a mildly O/Driven amp and a light clicky pick sound on softer passages-this will get you closer to KB.
GG however is all mids with blusey box shapes and repeated lines, genius!
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