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NBD - Modern Vintage Jazz Bass

Bass Viking

Bass Viking

Aug 30, 2004
10,353
13,473
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
#1
I received this beautiful shoreline gold bass from Club Bass and Guitar a couple of days ago. It's Rob Elrick's take on a 1966 Jazz bass. It has a nice, smooth roasted maple neck with a rosewood fretboard and binding. It sounds and plays great. Made in Korea. The workmanship looks to be high quality. It weighs just over 9 pounds. Check out the photos and the video below.

MV back.jpg
MV front.jpg
MV body.jpg


 
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#3
That’s really nice, congrats! Club Bass has a black fretless MVJ4 available that I keep coming back to the website to stare at :drool: I am tempted to make an appointment to go there an try it out next time I’m in the GTA. But I can’t afford the darn thing anyways :laugh: I don’t know why I torment myself like this :laugh:
 
#5
thisheregiraffe said:
That’s really nice, congrats! Club Bass has a black fretless MVJ4 available that I keep coming back to the website to stare at :drool: I am tempted to make an appointment to go there an try it out next time I’m in the GTA. But I can’t afford the darn thing anyways :laugh: I don’t know why I torment myself like this :laugh:
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Gas is a cruel mistress. Whoever said “it doesn’t hurt to look” never had GAS! :laugh:
 
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#8
I wish the Modern Vintage website was a bit more informative – the specs list gives a little information, but seemingly expects you to know what a 1964 Jazz should be.

So we get told that the neck is Torrefied Maple with an Indian Rosewood Fingerboard, has binding and pearl dots, with a painted headstock fitted with lightweight Hipshot Lollipop tuners. But the rest, we have to work it out ourselves.

34" scale is obvious ... 1½" nut is well known for a Jazz ... 7½" radius would be a reasonable guess for the fretboard? ... ¾" spacing at the bridge? ... What kind of profile does it have? Not so much as a "slim C" is given let alone the actual thicknesses.

The listing for the P is the same. A 60s instrument means 1¾" nut and 7½" radius, right? I think I've gathered that an early 60s P profile will be wide and shallow, but really I haven't a clue.

Am I expected to have experience of pre-CBS instruments? Am I expected to not care? It seems weird to charge so much for an instrument made in an unknown factory and not try to inform potential customers. Or perhaps I'm supposed to note that Ed and Scott are telling me to buy one and just do as I'm told?
 
#11
Bass Viking said:
It’s interesting that Elrick chose that year. It seems a lot of vintage Fender-style basses are based on pre-CBS models. But variety is good.
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1966 is transition year. It was the year after CBS bought Fender. I think it is the first year when Jazzes had bound necks, and I think it was the first year when any, but not all, Jazzes had block position markers. I may be wrong, but I think it was the only year with lollipop tuners. 1966 Jazzes got my attention, because both Victor Bailey and Darryl Jones favored 1966 Jazzes. More to the point, one of my all time favorite basses, my old DJ5 was based on Daryl Jones ‘66. I know the Fender Custom Shop makes some awesome 1966 replicas.
 
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#13
Ricky Rioli said:
34" scale is obvious ... 1½" nut is well known for a Jazz ... 7½" radius would be a reasonable guess for the fretboard? ... ¾" spacing at the bridge? ... What kind of profile does it have? Not so much as a "slim C" is given let alone the actual thicknesses.
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The radius is 9.5 inches. Not sure what the neck profile is.
 
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#15
bass12 said:
Sounding good! Nice song choice too. Always liked the bass line in that one.
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Dr. Cheese said:
It also a very appropriately Canadian song too, even I think the bassist was from the USA.;)
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Brother To Brother is a great album. Jimmy Haslip played on the album but I don’t think he played that particular song.
 
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#18
Bass Viking said:
I received this beautiful shoreline gold bass from Club Bass and Guitar a couple of days ago. It's Rob Elrick's take on a 1966 Jazz bass. It has a nice, smooth roasted maple neck with a rosewood fretboard and binding. It sounds and plays great. Made in Korea. The workmanship looks to be high quality. It weighs just over 9 pounds. Check out the photos and the video below.

View attachment 4417785 View attachment 4417783 View attachment 4417784

Click to expand...

Really nice sounding Jazz!

The '66 Jazz came in a couple of variations. The first one I saw in 1966 had the white binding and the block markers. It also had a terrible neck. For some reason they introduced a Deep U-shape neck which made playing above the 12th fret almost impossible. I was never so glad I had a '65 Jazz as when I handed them back that brand new 66.

Since then I've seen a number of '66 Jazz with the same neck that my '65 had, that is a 60's slim C-shape neck with 7.25" radius and white dot markers on the fretboard. Not sure when they made the switch but I've seen some early in the year and one in July that used that slim C-shape neck. Any idea on what neck shape and radius yours is. From the pics it doesn't look like the deep U-shape. Regardless of the shape all the 1966 Jazz had the bound neck. The only two times that Fender had that neck binding as a standard feature was 1966 and 1982. My current Jazz is an '82 with white binding.

Again, I really like the sound of your bass and she's a beauty! Nice score!!
 
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#19
Rip Van Dan said:
Really nice sounding Jazz!

The '66 Jazz came in a couple of variations. The first one I saw in 1966 had the white binding and the block markers. It also had a terrible neck. For some reason they introduced a Deep U-shape neck which made playing above the 12th fret almost impossible. I was never so glad I had a '65 Jazz as when I handed them back that brand new 66.

Since then I've seen a number of '66 Jazz with the same neck that my '65 had, that is a 60's slim C-shape neck with 7.25" radius and white dot markers on the fretboard. Not sure when they made the switch but I've seen some early in the year and one in July that used that slim C-shape neck. Any idea on what neck shape and radius yours is. From the pics it doesn't look like the deep U-shape. Regardless of the shape all the 1966 Jazz had the bound neck. The only two times that Fender had that neck binding as a standard feature was 1966 and 1982. My current Jazz is an '82 with white binding.

Again, I really like the sound of your bass and she's a beauty! Nice score!!
Click to expand...

Thank you! As I mentioned above, the neck radius is 9.5 inches. I don't know what the neck shape is, if I find out I will post it. The neck is very playable and going above the 12th fret is not an issue. Roasted maple was a great choice.

I'm really loving the sound. Currently it has some no-name brand nickel strings but I'm going to try the Elrick stainless steel strings that Club Bass carries.
 
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