I think I might regret this, but why?
And don't give me that "hype" garbage. :scowl:
Well several reasons, one of which is definitely a form ofhype, or you wouldn't have mentioned it!
Marketing!
The Jazz is nothing special in itself (and the aesthetics don't please me personally,) but it was and advancement on the P etc and arguably either OF or ahead of its time...all of that is a given.
But it hasn't disappeared NOT because its a classic, but because from early on, Fender knew how to market things, and never moreso than now.
Signature models which are tiny variants on the same thing, product placement etc.
People here call a vacuum cleaner a Hoover - not a vacuum cleaner, because they were here first and their brand caught on. For years people called electric bass the "Fender bass", particularly in country music - even on old album credits etc.
They're the best known brand and the Jazz is the second in the lineup there. The bass itself is just an offset-shaped P with two pickups.
I'm also old enough to remember when Fenders, particularly 70's ones ( I was told at the time that 3-bolt Fenders were shite and to avoid them - how times have changed), Ricks etc were the OLD guard, hard to sell on, and new and better instruments were being produced, and THAT was the way to go.
One store wouldn't take a trade of my 76 4001 off an Ibanez Musician. that was the mid-80's for you.
If you read the Steinberger story, for example, part of what happened to them was that Gibson decided to put vintage guitars in the hands of huge stars in order to turn the tide back towards older designs, while buying up companies like Steinberger who were the pioneers of a possible new way of doing things.
Look at Live Aid from 1985 and see the sheer numbers of huge stars then playing modern instruments - John Paul Jones on an ibanez, for example. They didn't stop because those guitars and basses sounded bad. The tide of fashion turned, thats all.
So "classic" being such a subjective word, I PERSONALLY think the Jazz is classic because of a time and place and other factors, not because its a particularly brilliant bass. As opposed to the precision which is a classic because it was the first of a new breed, a world-changing thing. The Jazz is a variant of the P to me, not a revolutionary thing in itself.
The Jazz is the flavour of the month on the live and session scene here say for the past decade or so, and it was gathering momentum over that time. But again, I'm old enough to remember a time in the early 90's when if you didn't have a Stingray, no-one took you seriously on this circuit.
Again, PERSONALLY , i find them hard work, the pickup placement and resulting mid-scopp when both are on makes it hard to cut through the band, I don't like the offset body shape, I'm not a fan of passive basses etc etc.
Doubtless there are many of you who find your Jazz is just brilliant at everything, cuts through etc etc. thats not been my experience and I don't bother with them anymore.
Your mileage may vary, and I await the inevitable pro-Fender backlash! LOL!
