A couple of weeks ago I accidentally bought two Fender Jazzmasters. How does that happen? I don’t know, use your imagination. I have no sense when it comes to Stuff I Love and The Internet. The Jazzmaster that I’ll be keeping is a Japanese-made sparkly-blue guitar from around 1999. It came with a pair of Lollar Jazzmaster pickups already installed, replacing the stock pickups that many people seem to hate on these CIJ (“Crafted in Japan”) Jazzmasters. After spending a couple of weeks playing it, I’ve decided to go one step further and put a P-90 in the bridge position, hopefully giving it quite a bit more oomph there, as I find that I never ever play it with just the bridge pickup. The Lollar neck pickup on the other hand is just great. Oh, did I mention it was sparkly blue?

I bought this guitar knowing that it was going to be kind of a modification playground for me to try stuff out, unlike the G&L ASAT which I haven’t touched and don’t plan to. To that end, other “improvements” I have planned are replacing the stock bridge with a Mastery Bridge (already ordered — I didn’t expect to do this but I really understand now why people hate these stock Jazzmaster bridges), replacing the white pick-guard with a black one (already received), and as long as I have the guitar pulled apart, putting in 500k pots to roll of a little of the harsh trebly business it has when up on 10, and soldering a nice Jensen capacitor to the tone pot. A lot of Jazzmaster players do stuff to the rhythm circuit as well, but I’ve not decided anything about that yet. On one hand, I don’t use it much yet. On the other hand, I might find something that would encourage me to use it more one day. So when that happens, I’ll open it back up again.

I was concerned at first that the guitar was too close in performance and tone to the ASAT, but as I’ve played it the last three weeks I’ve noticed that this isn’t the case. The ASAT has a much glossier (?) tone and a plucky attack. It chimes nicely, while the Jazzmaster is more mellow and subtle. They’re both single coil Fender designs, so there is obviously overlap. I’m curious how it all plays out once I install the P90 in the bridge. (By the way, I’m planning on putting in a Novak JM-90, which is a little less expensive than the Lollar P90 for Jazzmaster, and Curtis Novak tells me that he can make a custom one to pair with the Lollar JM pickup that I’m leaving in the neck.

Like a new car, since obtaining this Jazzmaster (these Jazzmasters), I’ve noticed how many are out there played by some of my favorite guitar experimenters and bands. Some I knew of, some I didn’t.

I’ll be posting about this work in progress as it commences…