The Other Guys

If You Can’T See Past The Teles And Strats In The Fender Catalogue, Check Out The Latest In The Offset Bloodline, With Their Vintage Looks And Modern Playability

- Ed Mitchell

It’s 1957. Fullerton, California. You’re Leo Fender. Within the last decade you and your team have invented the Esquire, Telecaster, Stratocaster, Precision Bass and the Bassman amplifier. Your competition is floundering. Compared with the Gibson Les Paul and the Gretsch Duo Jet, your Stratocaster guitar looks like it was beamed down from a passing flying saucer. Business is brisk. But you’re Leo Fender. The Strat is already three years old! You need to stay on top. The big question is: how do you follow a guitar like that?

Fender’s response is the Jazzmaster. Released in 1958, the new model combines important Fender trademarks (bolt-on maple neck, six-on-one-side tuner layout) with a recent addition to the Fullerton factory’s spec options – a rosewood fingerboard. The Jazzmaster is intended to be Leo’s flagship model. He regards the Tele and Strat as tools for the working musician. Now he wants to offer some luxury. The brief is a top-of-the-range looker that’ll hook the jazz cats and studio aces.

Fresh from the drawing board, the Jazzmaster is a handsome bugger and that’s no lie. The only problem is, no-one actually wants it. Where the Strat is lithe and lightweight, the Jazzmaster is a bit more cumbersome. The Strat has three pickups, its wiring loom is beautifully simple and the volume and tone controls fall easily to hand. That low-profile ‘Synchronized’ vibrato unit is a work of genius. By way of contrast, the Jazzmaster has two pickups, a complicated control layout, not to mention a spectacularly over-engineered vibrato unit and bridge setup. If Leo thinks the country jazz hotshots of the day are going to trade in their big hollowbody guitars for his latest flame, well, good luck with that.