Smooth, Jazz Tone On a Solid Body Guitar

Hollow-body or semi-hollow electric guitars used to sounds more warm and open, than solid-body constructions. It's a big advantage for many blues and jazz players. However, having a solid-body axe is not a problem on the way to get a nice, warm, jazz tone.

I'm the one of those, who play jazz on solid body guitars. It's because I like the tone dynamic and comfort of this kind of constructions. I have really smooth, jazz tone with my SG (yes, I'm using SG to play jazz).

So, how to get that smooth, warm tone on a solid body guitar?

About Natural Tone, Benedetto Jazz Guitars and Guitar Wirings

I think, Benedetto Manhattan is a really cool jazz guitar. I didn't ever play on one :), but try to listen an audio sample on Benedetto website: benedettoguitars.com/guitars/flagship-series/manhattan .

This natural tone is awesome. I can really feel the wood. All electronics, which are taking part in the second part of the audio track (first is unplugged) are there just to show the wood on first place, not themselves.

As you can see on submitted site, Benedetto didn't put any complicated wiring to Manhattan. All potentiometers, capacitors and pickups in guitar wirings always have some impact on the sound, so if the wood is the most important, 'one pickup + one potentiometer' wiring is something that we should think about.

I also started to think about on-board buffers, which can save a guitar signal from some affects of potentiometers and capacitors. Using good quality active buffers on a signal line, just after the pickup, can allow to put some more tone controllers in the guitar wiring, with no affect on sound, which can't be controlled.

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Jim Hall - The Guitar Tone Legend

Jim Hall is a living jazz legend. He's influencing a lot of jazz guitarists. His tone is well balanced, warm and reeeaaally smooth. It is that kind of tone, that everybody connecting with jazz music, but it's also an original tone, typical for Jim Hall.
If you are interesting in guitar design or tonewoods, you should check out Hall's guitars. His hollow-bodies are always beautiful and high-grade.

Links:

jimhallmusic.com
ejn.it/mus/hall.htm
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Hall_(musician)

to listen:

Jim Hall Trio - Umbria Jazz Winter

Mike Stern - The Guitar Tone Legend

Mike Stern is a jazz / fusion guitarist with very interesting tone and gear. His music has got a lot of really groovy-bluesy-jazzy lines with a dynamic rhythm. I can hear in his work a mix of many techniques of guitar playing.

He's got his signature guitar, made by Yamaha. Stern is an often user of chorus, delay, distortion and few other types of effects. He like to play on solid state amps, Yamaha G100 (yeah, no tube).

Bob Berg / Mike Stern Band - Chromazone

Links:
Mike Stern's official site: mikestern.org
MySpace: myspace.com/mikesternjazz


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Having a Lot from Only One Pickup - Wiring Schematic

How to have a lot of tones, from just only one pickup and two potentiometers, like in some jazz, hollow-body guitars, Gibson Melody Maker or Fender Esquire?

It's easy when you mount in some push-pull potentiometers, instead of standard pots. With that stuff, you have two DPDT on-on switches. This schematic will show you what they can do:

The switch beside the tone pot, is used to be able to switch off all tone control (the potentiometer, caps and their grounding). It will give a guitar tone with less impact of these electronics.

The switch beside the volume pot, can be used to select one of two tone capacitors, which are parts of tone control circuit, so we can select a signal frequency cutoff level. It's good to use some typical and some lower value capacitors (for example: 0,022uF and 0,01uF).

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Charlie Christian - The Guitar Tone Legend

Charlie Christian was an awesome jazz guitarist. His music is still influencing a lot of jazz guitar players.

He has been playing in 30. but his tone is really timeless. It's really jazzy, with cool, dynamic, jumping notes. The rhythm is a big thing in his lines.

A famous thing, connected to Christian, is the Charlie Christian's guitar pickup. It's a really old school construction, with a big, ceramic magnet and a blade pole piece.

It's easy to find Charlie Christian's music on YouTube, Grooveshark and similar sites.

listen: Swing to Bop

Links:

classicjazzguitar.com
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Christian
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Christian_pickup (pickup)

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