- Alder body
- Maple neck
- Fender/Gotoh vintage-style tuning machines
- Rosewood fingerboard
- 21 vintage-style frets
- 2 special-design Vintage Jazzmaster single coils
- Lead circuit volume and tone
- Rhythm circuit volume and tone
- 3-position toggle
- Chrome hardware
- Vintage-style floating tremolo with lock button
The body is larger than that of other Fender guitars, necessitating a more spacious guitar case. The Jazzmaster had unique wide, white "soapbar" pickups that were unlike any other single coil. Jazzmaster pickups are often confused with Gibson's P90 pickups although their construction is similar but not identical. The coil is wound flat and wide, in contrast to Fender's usual tall and thin coils. This gives them a warmer tone that is without losing their single coil clarity. The Jazzmaster has a mellower, jazzier tone than the Strat, although it wasn't embraced by jazz musicians. (Joe Pass, however, used one during his stay at Synanon.) Instead, rock guitarists used the instrument, especially for surf rock. The Ventures and The Fireballs were prominent Jazzmaster users. The Jazzmaster also played a part in the Indorock scene, with guitarist Andy Tielman creating a 10-string Jazzmaster using a red-hot nail to burn holes for the extra tuning machines in his Jazzmaster's headstock.[1]. This marked the beginning of a long tradition of often-unusual DIY Jazzmaster modifications throughout the next decades.
Fender recognized the need for a purpose-designed surf-guitar, and introduced the 24" scale Fender Jaguar, with a shorter scale, built-in mute, chrome decorations and more Strat-like pickups. The main aspect that deterred jazz players was the Jazzmaster's tendency to produce feedback, especially if the body cavity were left without magnetic shielding. More experimentally-minded rock artists like Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine later embraced this as a new way to color their music. The Jazzmaster was also the first Fender guitar carrying a separate rosewood fingerboard with clay dot position inlays glued into a 2-piece maple neck and a 4-ply brown tortoise shell pickguard, although from 1958 to mid 1959 they came with a 1-ply gold anodized pickguard.
Some early pre-production/prototype examples came with a 1-piece maple neck, a rubber fingerboard and/or a black painted aluminum pickguard. Rosewood became a standard fretboard material on other Fender models around 1959. Binding was added to the Jazzmaster fretboard in 1965, and in 1966 the dot markings were replaced by pearloid blocks. An optional maple fingerboard with black binding and block inlays (black and painted, unlike the pearl inlays previously used) was briefly offered in the mid-1970s.
The Jazzmaster was officially discontinued in 1980, although some reports suggest no guitars were actually made after 1977 and guitars sold from 1977-1980 were old stock. The Jazzmaster was re-introduced in 1986 as a 1962 reissue model from Fender's Japanese factory. The American Vintage Series version was introduced in 1999. In 2008 Fender announced plans for a 'thin skin' Jazzmaster reissue with vintage nitrocellulose finish. The finish on the AVRI series is also nitro, but sprayed over a modern polyurethane undercoat.
Jazzmasters, along with Jaguars and their imitators, fell out of fashion among players during the 1970s largely due to their "old-fashioned" appearance and sonic characteristics. The 70s rock sound meant "fat" humbucker tone and lots of sustain, so guitarists gravitated toward the Gibson Les Paul and its copies. The Jazzmaster's short sustain and warm piano-like tone was not favored. Fender continued to offer the Jazzmaster as part of its product line until 1980, however many collectors believe actual production ceased around 1976, with guitars sold after that period representing unsold inventory. Due to the unwanted, pawn-shop status of the guitars, young musicians were able to purchase the instruments very cheaply, obtaining the high quality guitars for little money. Just as Fender discontinued the Jazzmaster Tom Verlaine of Television, and Elvis Costello started giving the guitar a cult following. Thus, they were later embraced by the American grunge and indie rock scene. Sonic Youth are notorious for the hoard of Jazzmasters they acquired while the guitars were still affordable starting around 1988, and for their unique customization jobs (e.g. Lee Ranaldo's "Jazzblaster" with Fender Wide Range pickups). S.Y. were also famous for playing on the strings below the bridge (near the tailpiece) to get church-bell-like tones; this is sometimes referred to as 3rd Bridge technique. Other bands, such as Yes picked behind the nut to achieve similar sounds (on other guitar models), but in a Guitar World interview, Sonic Youth rejected this practice as "art rock". Ranaldo even has a pickup mounted behind the bridge on one of his guitars. With the increasing popularity of old Jazzmasters, and the prices of old Telecasters and Stratocasters soaring out of sight in the 1990s, Jazzmasters became highly valuable. Thefts of vintage Jazzmasters from Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr, and The Raveonettes in recent years illustrate this. Sonic Youth had nine Jazzmasters stolen from them in July 1999, along with dozens of other items.
Robert Smith of The Cure used two Jazzmasters (which he creatively named Black Torty & White Torty) for the majority of his band's early work. J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr is a noted Jazzmaster devotee, and as of 2007 Fender produces a signature J Mascis Jazzmaster model. Mascis uses a Tune-o-matic bridge, however. The stock Jazzmaster continues to have a cultlike following in the "shoegaze"/ "dream pop" community, which values the buzzing, otherworldly sounds made possible by Leo's bridge design. Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine uses them as his main guitars, and bandmate Bilinda Butcher used them in addition to her Jaguars. A closeup picture of a Jazzmaster is featured as the cover of their critically-acclaimed album, Loveless (1991). One is also depicted on the cover of Band of Susans' Blessing And Curse EP (1987), although the band is more noted for their use of G&L guitars. Sean Eden of Luna used a Jazzmaster during his time with the band. Steven Page of Barenaked Ladies used a reissued Jazzmaster during the period of the band's second album, Maybe You Should Drive, and still occasionally uses it in studio.
Ira Kaplan of Yo La Tengo favors a Jazzmaster as well as other vintage Fender guitars, often playing behind-the-back solos in concert. Nels Cline, solo artist and current (2007) lead guitarist of Wilco, has also used the Jazzmaster as his main guitar for decades. Jazzmasters are popular with many other alternative and indie rock bands - Adam Franklin of Swervedriver, Emma Anderson of Lush, Wayne Coyne and Steven Drozd of The Flaming Lips, Tim Gane and Mary Hansen of Stereolab, Thom Yorke of Radiohead, Aaron North of Nine Inch Nails and Mike Einziger of Incubus all have used Jazzmasters.
Ric Ocasek of The Cars played a distinctive pink 1974 model. Jimi Hendrix regularly played a Jazzmaster in blues bands before becoming famous, and on his hit "Fire"; this guitar is now owned by actor Steven Seagal.
In 1958 or 1959 Leo Fender sent a white Jazzmaster to Luther Perkins (Johnny Cash's lead guitar player) who used it for a few years.
Ex-Babyshambles guitarist Patrick Walden usually performed using an Olympic White 1960 Fender Jazzmaster, with a 1985 Jazzmaster as backup
.
No comments:
Post a Comment