Jazz On Your Tele?

How many of you play jazz on your Tele. What sound do you like and get? What do you do to get your sound?

I play everything on a Tele, just like I do with every other guitar. I'm pretty much a "clean" player, but I do dial back the treble on the amp a bit.

Much of the same here as Old Strummer, I play most everything on my Tele, but with about 20% less treble in the amp's settings. On mine, the bridge pickup is loaded with icepicks. Only use the bridge for overdrive stuff. Has audio pots [hate those] so guitar volume max. Tone rolled off about 10%. All neck pickup. Amp, a 30w 1x10 Marshall SS dx series, in clean channel, bass 10, treble 7~8. Lots of lush reverb with a short decay. Gives me a thick healthy tone for jazzy stuff.
Use the same thing above with a touch longer delay on reverb, played with fingers for classical.

Hope that helps in your studying for tone...:smile:

Thanks.

I'm more interested in clean tones, even without reverb. I don't expect anyone to find Wes Montgomery tones out of their Tele, but I like his clean approach.

Danny Gatton played jazz on a Tele. And played it darn well. Of course, he played EVERYTHING darn well, including chicken-pickin'. :electric:

I firmly believe, and will continue to say so that your "tone" is in your fingers and not your gear.

I'm playing the ultimate low budget Squire Tele with real low cost ceramic pickups and 9's and have great depth. True that's with the neck pickup, but my pick attack, light fretting, and gentle playing lend heaps of smooth to the sound. A .50 pick with a soft approach here would have made Joe Pass turn and smile.:smile: Just personal observation.

well said old Ranger:appl:

I agree about it being in the fingers--with a little help from EQ and other important variables. I don't see it as an either or.

I'm more interested in the range of jazz tones people go for. It's not unusual to see jazzers playing something other than a hollow or semi-hollow, but those are the usual. BTW, among my favorites are Kenny Burrell and Wes Montgomery--I'm not trying to get their sounds.

Of course, I can get jazzy tones from my Les Paul.

It just hit me that Walter Becker played a Tele on some of Steely Dan's jazzier pieces. He uses the Tele's top end to accentuate. Of course, he's no Larry Carlton.

With judicious use of the Telecaster's tone and volume controls, yes.
OTOH, it you're of the everything on full and hit pedal for lead boost ilk, jazz on a Tele can be a bit challenging for the audience. Or most music played on a Telecaster for that matter. Or is it a class A style amp or another? Is there a vocalist? A little Telecaster can go a long way.

It would also depend on the setting. If it's a trio you need to really aware of how much top end you're slapping the audience in the face with. With a horn section you can be lot more aggressive.

Plus - "jazz" is a pretty broad category to begin with, so one guy might be thinking Wes Montgomery backed-off unison style while another Danny Gatton - two wildly different players and styles of music.

All IMHO.

Chuck

Thanks, Chuck. I agree with you 100%. While I'm not totally disinterested in this for my own playing, I was just looking for how players here get their tones fo whatever kind of jazz they play. Again, just curious.

This below, is merely an observation and not an invitation to a riot within our group. Just an alternative way of looking at things, and perhaps, a little food for thought. I'm not being argumentative in the very least...

Jazz is a style or form of music. Tone is a word that is used to describe many aspects of guitarist these days. It is, however, not a style of music. Traditionally, fat bodied single pickup hollowbody and a tube amp were the thing. And it had to be since there wasn't anything else being made at the time. Simply by the equipment and instruments available in the time period was the "tone" set for jazz guitarists. If it were the solidbody multi-pickup guitars and solid state amps that emerged first, then traditional jazz players would have set "the tone" with Strats and Teles in a big Peavey SS amp.

Remember, I was a student of human behavior for decades and an analyst of said behaviors in criminal activities. The same analysis in music is easily applied to see trends and patterns developed by musicians who go out and set the pace so to speak. The traditional C&W guitar was the Tele. Today, its a Les Paul or a PRS. And the twang has been replaced with overdrive.
And I've seen Teles and Strats do quite well in shred metal, where tradition would call for a Jackson or similar with the thin neck, Floyd Rose, overwound HBs. Yet the standard solidbody does quite well.

Just an observation gents...:smile:

I have tried to get that tone -- even had a 52 Harmony Montclair for a bit -- with one of them jazz style pickups attached to the neck --

best jazz tone i get is an Epiphone SOLID no weight relief Les Paul custom with a Wilkinson P90 style humbucker through a CLEAN channel of a Peavey Bandit 112 silverstripe :dude

I was very fortunate when I assembled my Tele- it does a lot of things very well. It's a fat yet twangy guitar that doesn't shred ear drums with piercing highs- though that might be part of how I use the guitar- my guitar's volume and tone controls are seldom all the way up. Unlike a lot of players, I love a covered neck pickup on a Tele. It's nice and warm and contrasts well with the bridge pickup. The last thing I want it to sound like is a Strat neck pickup.

I intended to play my tele tonight -- but the Seymor Duncan 1/4 pound "P" bass pups came in -- and well------ its been a BOOM STICK sorta night :):dude

YES! ...one of my all time heroes is Bill Frisell. I saw his trio (everyone here minus the steel player) once before:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgsH2FiS4SU

I got my Squier CV 50s Tele for this very reason.

Bill F is exactly the thing I wanted to hear and see. He really adapts jazz to the Tele rather than the other way around. Really interesting.

Wish that aggravating slide player would shut the hell up! Bill Frisell however is amazing.

I'm no Bill Frisell, but for about a year I've been doing all our jazz sets with my Cali fat Tele. Love it.

MP3 link:

My trio doing Horace Silver's "Song For My Father" with a Tele

pc, Wow, man. That is some excellent stuff. And that Tele sounds incredible. I wouldn't have guessed that it was a Tele if you hadn't told us.

I love the tune and the performances. Your playing is fantastic.

Aw, thanks willie! That tune is from a three-song demo we did some years back, and was originally recorded "live" in a studio with me playing a Godin Montreal, with my amp in an iso-booth. At the time, I was trying to convince myself I could get away without using a hollow-body or semi-hollow, so I re-recorded the guitar track with a Tele. I was really pleased with the outcome!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ch willie

Wish that aggravating slide player would shut the hell up! Bill Frisell however is amazing.

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:lmao: ...gotta wait until 4:35 in the video for that.

I love the Americana sounds Frisell adds to what he plays - sometimes its subtle in how he harmonizes, sometimes it's in your face by adding a steel player. :D