Jazz Blog

The word Jazz often evokes a darkly light Smokey club with musicians expertly improvising against seemingly complex chord progressions. Featuring passionate tone – getting that jazz sound can be a complex process – in this article we’ll address what you’ll need to get a great jazz guitar sound.

A Jazz Guitar

Getting the right guitar for a jazz sound used to be expensive. Jazz masters such as Wes Montgomery and Joe Pass may have played expensive Gibson Semi’s but these days there are a variety of entry level guitars that are suitable for getting a jazz tone.

For an authentic jazz tone, you should have a semi-acoustic hollowbody electric guitar. Models such as the Gibson ES-175 or the Gretch Tennessean can run into thousands of dollars but there are also excellent entry models such as Ibanez Artcore line of guitars. Guitar manufacturers such as Yamaha or Guild also make entry level semi-acoustics similar to the more expensive Gibson 335. There are also numerous Epiphone hollowbody guitars that will also be suitable and come from the Gibson stable. Explore your local music store and try out what they look for something that is comfortable to play and can produce a tight clean tone with plenty of sustain.

Hollow body guitars will provide a suitable mellow tone and most will be fitted with two humbucker pickups allowing you to vary your sound accordingly. Most guitars will be fitted with tone controls. Practice rolling the treble off your tone and experimenting – Jazz guitarists often play with a less trebly sound as it produces a rich mellow resonance that is suitable for the style.

A Jazz Guitar Amplifier

Whilst it could be said that there is “no jazz amp” there are a number of considerations for the jazz guitarist when selecting an amplifier.
Firstly it is important to determine the playing style and sound that you wish to attain. Traditional jazz guitarists often choose amps that can produce a clean sound which compliment acoustic archtop guitars. For this sound solid state amps produce a nice clean tone. For a more distorted sound a tube amp may be more applicable. There are many popular amps that are used by Jazz guitarists for example – try experimenting with a Fender Pro or a Polytone
Another requirement may be on board effects this may range from simple reverb to an overdrive channel – again this will depend on the style your trying to achieve.

Effects

Traditional Jazz may only require a hint of reverb but many modern jazz guitarists apply a range of effects from Chorus, Overdrive through to delay. There are many effects units available from single stomp boxes to complex digital “modeling” devices such as the Line 6 Pod. When choosing effects ensure they compliment your playing style and that you retain that “clarity” in your tone. Too many effects often muddy the sound and do not produce a quality sound.

Conclusion

In summary there are primarily 3 things that you should investigate when trying to get a jazz tone. Ultimately you should also listen to a wide range of jazz greats – listen closely to their sounds and try to emulate them. Ultimately when you have done this a few times they will begin to merge and you will begin to develop your own tone that will sound equally brilliant!

By: Adrian Martin