Jazz Guitar And The Jazz Guitar Amp

Jazz guitars first appeared in the 1930s because musicians felt the need to amplify the guitar's sound so it can be heard more clearly during a live performance. These guitars has influenced music in the 20th century more than any other instrument. Early guitars were acoustic but lacked the volume necessary to compete with other instrumentation, but by the 40s guitarists began to play semi-acoustic, hollowbody electric guitars and solid body electric guitars combined with a jazz guitar amp.

Probably the most recognisable guitars used in this type of music is the archtop or hollowbody electric, It is instantly recognisable due to its large hollow body, f shaped sound holes like a violin, floating bridge and magnetic pickups. This type of guitar have been mass produced since the 1950s by leading guitar manufacturers.

There are several styles used in this kind of music, such as blowing and comping. Blowing involves improvising over a jazzy chord progression with ornaments and jazzy phrases. Comping involves the use of extended chords underneath a tune's melody or another musicians soloing. Comping often uses walking bass lines. When a guitarist improvises they will make good use of scales, modes and arpeggios within the song's chord progression.




It is possible to play this form of music on any type of guitar, whether it is a hollow body, solid body or acoustic. However, the archtop hollowbody guitars produces the famous jazzy tone. Epiphone, Gibson, D'Angelico and Stromberg are among the most well known manufactures of archtop guitars. Hollowbody archtops are usually made from one piece of wood that has been shaped into an arch to form the guitar's shape, with a spruce top and maple back. Hollowbody archtop guitars enjoyed renewed popularity during the 1990s with the jazz musicians, pop musicians and rock musicians of the time.

The beautifully jazzy tone is best produced with a hollowbody archtop, due to its magnetic pickups and hollow body. Although, the desired "warm tone" from these guitars is best combined with a good amplifier that has been designed specifically for this kind of music.

Tube amplifiers are usually favoured to produce a warm tone, and they also have a more musical overdrive sound compared to solid state amplifiers. However, tube amps are harder to maintain and valves need to be replaced. They are also heavier and more expensive than solid state amps.

One of the most popular amps that produce jazzy tones is the superb Roland JC120 Chorus. It was introduced in 1975 and has been used by legendary musicians, such as George Benson, Larry Coryell, Pat Matino and many others. This beautiful amp is the first to have special effects built into it, including delay, reverb and overdrive.

There are several excellent amps produced by Fender. These include: The Fender King, Fender Hot Rod Deluxe, Fender Blues JR and the very popular Fender Jazzmaster stack with amplifier head. Each one of these amps does a fantastic job of creating a beautiful and jazzy tone, especially when combined with a classic archtop or hollowbody.