Why A Jazzmaster? Ask Zac 64

well hello friends and welcome to
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another Ask Zac i hope you're doing
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well today
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today we're going to talk about jazz
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masters and uh
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this is based on my kind of jaundiced or
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negative view of of jazz masters you
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know
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during my lifetime of playing the guitar
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and it's just that i never spent time
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with one and i didn't
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get it and like so many things it's like
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you gotta you gotta dig in and
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uh you know and really play one and live
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with one for a little bit to really
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get what the jazz master is all about
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and why uh
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you know where they're applicable and uh
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and such so that's what today's episode
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is about
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why a jazz master alright
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1:47
enjoying it please go down in the corner
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1:50
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1:52
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1:58
a nice shirt like this or a hat or a
2:02
mug or there's also tip jar information
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in the description of this video all
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right
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so first off we need to talk about this
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jazz master that i have today
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so uh Dan strain Danocaster let me
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borrow this guitar
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this is a 1965 jazz master
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and it has been refinished Dan
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got the guitar from Gruhn a couple of
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years back
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and it was it had been stripped and so
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it
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you know it looked like Elvis Costello's
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jazz master that he played
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you know during his heyday but he
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decided to uh
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refinish it and he did this beautiful
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Olympic white you know refin
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on it looks amazing of course
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and let me just tell you a bit about you
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know this era of jazz master so 1965 is
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the only full year where you get
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dot markers and binding on the neck
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the headstock is still a bit smaller
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it will get larger in 66
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and this is
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very very unique here are these tuners
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so
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these are fender grover machine heads
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and they have these really cool kind of
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artfully squared off looking perloid
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buttons on them
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and on the back here
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on the round part of the housing it has
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a backwards f
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on there you know the fender logo the
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fender f
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and it's very very cool
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you know maple neck round lamb you know
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the thin veneer fingerboard
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alder body you got gray bottom pickups
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normal you know jazz master wiring
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you've got the
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the witch hat knobs
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this is a bit of a mongrel and it's got
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an earlier uh
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tremolo system here this is the patent
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pending
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with the stiffer spring that like Nels
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Klein and some other guys like that's
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actually from the early 60s not from
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the mid 60s and
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probably the biggest modification on the
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instrument besides the refin
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is it's got the mastery bridge and the
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mastery of course allows you
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to use uh you know 10 you know 10
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through 46 or lighter
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on on one of these guitars because they
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they have very little break angle
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if you if you look here if you can see
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it but
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the string has very little break angle
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and
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on you know using a vintage bridge you
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really need to use heavier strings at
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least 12s or such
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but the mastery allows you to you know
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use lighter gauge strings and that they
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uh they stay put
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so that's a nice modification
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so yeah that's uh that's the guitar
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and again a masterful uh you know refin
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by old Dan
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and uh yeah all right so of course i i
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started off by playing uh
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you know some uh ventures which of
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course they use jazz masters a lot until
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they went to
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Moserite guitars and then i played
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a little bit of only daddy that'll walk
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the line and the reason i did that
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was because uh Wayne moss
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who played guitar on that used a jazz
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master and so
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you know most of the time you don't
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think of a jazz master as a good chicken
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picking
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instrument but it it does quite well you
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know
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[Music]
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not too shabby uh
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so again this video has made me kind of
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understand
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the jazz master so first i had to get
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the fact that the jazz master has a lot
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of different tones in it
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but it's always kind of thinner and
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wider
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than most other fender guitars so it
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just has kind of more of a high
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i guess hi-fi is kind of you know what
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you would call it
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but uh it's like you know when you go to
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the back pickup i mean it's a really
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ringy you know
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[Music]
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but also you know you can you can
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chicken pick on it and one of the things
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that's really cool
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is that you can do pedal steel type bins
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and use the tremolo bar on it and that's
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because it doesn't go out of tune
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as much as like a strap tremolo would if
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it were
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floating and that's just because of this
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design so
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i can do something like here I'll do
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some pedal steel type bins
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and then while I'm while i still have it
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bent i can use the vibrato on here now
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of course you can also do this on
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a guitar with the Bigsby but you know
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most time
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Bigsbys are on you know 335s or you
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know you know Gretch's or something like
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that and this really has a
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more of a you know bright twangy sound
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and then with this really cool
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tremolo so here's an example of that
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[Music]
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so that's really nice because part of
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the
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the the challenge in trying to replicate
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pedal steel stuff
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is the fact that you don't just have the
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uh the one of the notes
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changing and the other ones staying the
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same but you also have the fact that the
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pedal steel player
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is able to move the bar and get vibrato
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while they're doing it
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and so that kind of allows you to do
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that you can do all these
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pretty things
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yeah really pretty so that's that's the
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bridge pickup which again is
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really uh you know it's kind of wide and
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thin
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and then really the best sound in my
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opinion
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you know from this guitar is both
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pickups which normally i
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don't like dual pickup sounds like on
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telly's that's the sound i use
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the least I'll either use the neck or
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the bridge pickup most the time i
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usually don't use
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together on a strat same thing i don't
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like the combination sounds i like
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single pickups
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uh Les Paul's 335 same thing so but this
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has a really
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cool uh you know dual pickup sound
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here i might as well go full on get some
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delay going
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[Music]
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just a really neat sound for you know
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for single notes or
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uh or chords yeah and that's another
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quality of this instrument really
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it really does you can strum on it
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well you know unlike some others
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[Music]
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and that was the backpack back pickup
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again and here's
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the neck pickup
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[Music]
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so even the neck pickup still is a
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little more open sounding and I've seen
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guys put jazz master
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pickups in you know like the next
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position on a telly and i was kind of
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like
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why would you want to do that but now
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right now i get it because again you
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have this
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kind of wide but more open sound and
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you can place you know
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that sounds really nice on on this so
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yeah
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these are really really cool guitars
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now I'm not going to go out and buy one
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but now i get it
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so I'm you know thankful to Dan strain
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for you know kind of
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killing my prejudice to jazz masters
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because i kind of thought they were kind
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of this
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you know kind of weird ugly duckling you
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know mistake by Leo fender i know that's
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totally horrible on on my account but uh
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yeah i get it now you know they
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and i also get it why a lot of players
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that use
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big pedal boards and a lot of effects
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like jazz masters and that's because of
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the thin wide
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sound allows you to put more effects
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on it because if you put that on on
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another guitar
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it's going to get bogged down in it but
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because of the
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the wider sound that doesn't have as
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much mid-range to it
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you can put fuzz and flange and a bunch
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of stuff on there and it still kind of
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sounds like something instead of
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mush so i get it i get it now
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so very thankful to uh Dan for letting
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me borrow this so now
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a little bit of lesson uh
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so this is just a cool thing that i
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learned uh
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from Dan strain and uh i just thought it
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was fun and it's a nice
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movable chord shape so so I'll just play
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it and then I'll describe it
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[Music]
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all right so of course you have your
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normal kind of d
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you know chord that's in kind of the a
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shape and then you have this
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uh which we end up you know kind of
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moving around so
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you have your uh on the a string
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you're on the ninth fret and on the d
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string you're on the seventh fret
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and on the g string you're on the ninth
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fret and so you get this
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[Music]
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and then you move it down two frets
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and this shape can be moved all over
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[Music]
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so experiment with that but so
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i like using in the key in the key of d
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because you get this
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because this this voicing it's it's
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really just an e7
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you know the last one but it just sounds
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interesting because of how the notes are
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spread apart
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when i when Dan was playing you know
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something like that
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not exactly like that he he was actually
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playing in the key of e
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and you get different you know because
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of the the open
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strings it sounds even more kind of
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i guess more you know major
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major sounding less uh you know less
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like sixth or something like that so you
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get this kind of thing
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as opposed to playing indeed
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[Music]
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so all right so that's the the jazz
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master and
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we're going to do a little bonus for
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today because i
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you know this is another guitar that Dan
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let me borrow
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and uh so I'm just gonna grab this real
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quick
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[Music]
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foreign
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[Music]
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all right so just for a little bonus
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this is a 1967
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uh starfire five by guild
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and uh Dan let me borrow this also
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and these are really really cool guitars
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and they're a lot more affordable than a
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335
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and they they kind of they
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you can watch out for different models
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because the red ones
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have mahogany bodies and then the the
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other colors have a maple body which is
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like a 335 but the
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mahogany body gives it a warmer sound
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than a 335
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and really makes for a killer bridge
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pickup sound
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however it gets a little dark for the
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neck so what Dan did was then got a
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Jason
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Lawler firebird pickup and stuck it in
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there and it fits in there well he just
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needed a different
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uh surround on it and uh yeah he was
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able to pop that in
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so so for all you guys that are you know
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kind of 335
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mad and and you know can't afford you
15:58
know uh
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one from 59 through 65 these are
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much more affordable they're very very
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cool
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they're similar build similar quality uh
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and you can kind of mess with them if
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you want to uh
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yeah and and 67 is a really cool year
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because of the
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the change in construction on them and
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such so
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anyway so this is just a little bonus
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something to to check out if you're uh
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you know jonesing for a vintage 335 but
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don't want to pay
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you know 20 grand so these are out there
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and they're really cool
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all right guys i hope you have a good
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week and I'll see you next time
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bye