Leo Fender had currently made his tag in the wonderful world of guitars with the Fender Telecaster and the Fender Accuracy bass in 1951. Then in 1954 he designed the Fender Stratocaster, which was the initial guitar to feature a contoured waist style for the convenience of the participant, This same contour was used the bodies of the 1953-54 Precision bass. By 1958 Fender had come up with a whole new idea that Leo Fender thought would replace the Stratocaster. In his ever improving design, Leo Fender had developed an offset body style for the Fender Jazzmaster and it could be a rhythm instrument or a lead device by simply flipping a switch. This guitar came with a back again contour similar to the Stratocaster, but the offset body style he put on the Jazzmaster meant that the upper and lower halves of the body are offset from one another to provide added convenience for the player. Essentially, your body of the device leans ahead. The Jazzmaster featured an offset body and waistline. Prototypes of the Jazzmaster existed as early as 1957, however the guitar was finally wanted to the general public by August of the following year.

The initial models acquired aluminum anodized gold pickguards as shielding. That idea was scrapped in 1959 and only faux tortoiseshell nitrate celluloid pickguards. The Jazzmaster was built with recently designed pickups which were wide and flat and covered in a more substantial rectangular casing. The intent was to get a wider area of the string hence producing a bigger and mellower sound. Who knows? Perhaps a second intent was to provide pickups that resembled Gibson’s P-90, which were popular at the time of the Jazzmasters intro, although the design of this pickup is nothing beats the P-90. Great guitarists videos was to catch the attention of jazz players to use a Fender guitar. The Jazzmaster was the to begin the Fender guitar to come equipped with a rosewood fretboard. Nevertheless some early creation and prototype examples came with a one-piece maple neck, others with an ebony fingerboard and/or a black painted aluminium pickguard. Longtime Fender associate George Fullerton possessed a 1957 Fiesta Crimson pre-production body in conjunction with a unique and experimental fretboard that was stated in 1961 using vulcanised rubber - reportedly only 1 of two ever made.

Eventually rosewood became a standard fretboard material for the Jazzmaster and a season down the road other Fender models. By 1959 the pickguard became faux tortoise shell nitrate celluloid. And in 1966 the dot markings were changed by pearloid blocks. An optional maple fingerboard with black binding and block inlays was briefly provided in the mid-1970s. The Jazzmaster has generally had a 25 1/2” scale. This is the same size as the Stratocaster and Telecaster. The Jazzmaster bodies have already been constructed from ash, alder, and basswood through the years. Fender has a history of using whatever solid wood was easily available at the time of construction. Originally the Jazzmaster colours were offered in Fiesta Red, Blond, Metallic Gold, San Marino Blue, and some of the various other 1950’s custom colours. You can bank on the fact that Blond Jazzmasters always has ash bodies. The initial versions had somewhat thicker bodies than later on ones. This was because of the necessary routing on the anodized pickguard versions.

When the celluloid pickguards became standard the routing in the top bout was transformed and the bodies had been made thinner to lessen the instruments pounds. The electronic switching on the Jazzmaster was more technical compared to what have been offered in the past on the Telecaster or the Stratocaster. Leo experienced a policy of financing instruments to operating musicians and listening to their suggestions for improving his products. He discovered that guitarists, in the 1950’s, were looking for a easy and clean rhythm sound, like one would expect from an acoustic guitar, and a bright, loud and clean lead sound because of their solos. So he determined the Jazzmaster would have two independent circuits for rhythm and lead work, so the player could preset the tone and volume for rhythm function and with the flip of a change instantly change the sound colour and volume of the guitar to noisy and bright for business lead solos function.

Some players found this confusing, because the rhythm circuit just works on the neck pickup. The controls for this circuit are housed on the top bout and feature an on/off slider change and two rotary dial potentiometers or thumbwheels; one for quantity and one for tone. When placed in the up or neck position the rhythm circuit can be engaged. In the down position, the rhythm circuit is definitely turned off which activates the lead circuit which operates in the way that most folks are accustomed to. The 3-way throw toggle switch on the lower bout activates the throat pickup, both pickups or the bridge pickup only. Tone and volume are managed for both pickups through the more regular potentiometers housed on underneath lower bout. As I currently stated, the Jazzmaster includes single coil pickups, which are encased in a brass shielded cavity and underneath of the pickguard comes with an aluminum coating.