Are you still looking for the best jazz guitars? Let’s take a look at this post, we will show you the top 15 best jazz guitars.
Jazz guitars are massive, mostly semi-acoustic, and have been built to draw off a few beautiful, warm tones. In the past, electric instruments have been used to play jazz. Yet guitar also lost its tone in the mixture of big band tones the days prior to amplification. By then, the incorporation of top acoustics in the tower. With a magnetic set, arcs contribute to a new age in the development of the guitar.
This made it easy to listen to players in the way they wanted. For the arch top instruments, the only challenge being that the vast hollow space inside the body of the guitar also generates a high degree of unwelcome microphone feedback. Although this unique sound was very magnificent when it was tamed and used in the proper way, the jazz specifications were entirely out of step.
Today Carroll / Fletcher will highlight 15 of the best jazz guitars on the market offering both great quality and amazing experience in guitar playing.
Best Jazz Guitars Comparison 2023
| Godin 5th Avenue | Yamaha SA2200 | Fender Telecaster |
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The Best Hollow Body Guitars For Jazz |
The Best Semi Hollow Body Guitars For Jazz |
The Best Solid Body Guitars For Jazz |
** You will find our detailed reviews of the Best Jazz Guitars below, also, click these following links to view the current prices and customer comments on Amazon.
Top Best Jazz Guitars Reviews 2023
Ibanez LGB30
The first product on this best jazz guitars list that we want to show you is the Ibanez LGB30.While Ibanez has a reputation for shredding guitars, George Benson, who has been GB for nearly 40 years, was Ibanez’s first large-scale guitarist. The LGB30 wears a laminated spruce top with a laminated maple back and bottom.
The flaming of the maple is subtle, and the finishing looks cool and classical. The set collar is laminated with three parts-two exterior strips of mahogany and a piece of arable within. Plugin (we used both the AER Compact 60 and a Fender Blues Junior), it’s fun to see how the Super 58 pickups are handled.
Beginning with the pickup of LGB30, the warm tone is rich with flowing strings, without a doubt. The clearness in chiming or singing notes, a list of jazz icons, from Wes Montgomery and Grant Green to (of course) Benson and contemporary Lee Ritenour, both contribute to tweaking the power. No lack of f-hole guitars at a price of £ 1,000 on the market, but the LGB30, it is clearly a fine band with a classy “cheap” look and lots of promise in jazz, blues, and American styles. It’s not a single trick pony.
Epiphone CASINO Thin-Line Hollow Body
The second product is the Epiphone CASINO Thin-Line Hollow Body. The jazz sounds of the Casino jazz guitar are held by its pick-ups. This model has had two P-90 T Dog Ore Classic single-coil pickups, Gibson and Epiphone Casino’s pickups since the 1960s. The gel smoothly with a hollow body that gives a strong tonality. This means that both the acoustical and the electrical properties of this electrical jazz guitar can be thoroughly used.
The Natural Epiphone Casino has high-quality materials and parts. The neck is built out of amazing, robust mahogany, which is remarkably polished so that jazz guitarists can perform effortlessly and smoothly.
Pau Ferro has been used to create the fingerboard, something familiar to jazz guitars from Epiphone. It also has a lovely inlay of Pearloid. The body has two f-holes and is laminated with the maple bodies used for producing it. In addition, the top consists of a laminated maple 5-fold. The guitar is incredible to watch. It is difficult to see why John Lennon was so happy to get him slung over his shoulders at the height of his success as a Beatles Member.
The guitar neck’s narrow “D”-taper profile makes access to the 22 frets simple. The strings D’Addario 0.10-0.46 are ideal for the Casino and enhance the natural sound remarkably.
Godin 5th Avenue
The Godin 5th Avenue Jazz features a split Venetian and an all-laminate carcass made of wild cherry in the all-black style, or with added flame maple facings, as in this case. The movement is touch upon the top out of the case but a very playable guitar with a standard pushy mid-range archtop projection.
When linked, the humbucker brings us straight into the classic territories of jazz, with a pure voice that has the optimal precision to replicate nuanced speech accurately. But not too many, because the higher strings are running and sounding heavy and solid and not weak and stringy.
The Jazz definitely is for the more seasoned jazz musician. Yeah, it seems on the high side the neck pitch and bridge, but the overall lightweight and classy construction, not to mention decent playability, clever fingerboard with tons of spacing air, and a vibrant acoustic resonance and really jazz specific plugged-in sound, everything with the right boxes.
Gretsch G6118T
This is undoubtedly the champion of the best jazz guitars in terms of performance. Gretsch mastered art after over 80 years of guitar making. The build quality is outstanding and offers an unbeatable play experience. This is an ideal option if you don’t mind investing a little more.
This Gretsch is a typical hollow body with a large-scale tremolo. Examples include the Tusq XL nut, the rocking bar bridge, and the Teflon. It’s light and slim, but with a long help, it provides a fat accent. The rich sound of Gretsch is created by extensive tonal controls.
There is a widespread misunderstanding that Gretsch and Bigsby do not feel for jazz because of an ancient pop culture scandal from past years. Great names such as Salvador, Rune Gustafsson, and Cal Collins are starting to vary. Both of them were instruments of Gretsch. And Ted Greene also played Bigsby.
Ibanez Artcore AS73FM
Next up, we have the Ibanez Artcore AS73FM. This incredible semi-hollow body guitar guarantees easy use, creates a magnificent sound and effortlessly retains tunes in order to avoid musicians from battling their guitars continuously while playing. A large number of persons have expected to purchase a moderated hollow or semi-hollow body from the jazz guitar collection at Ibanez Artcore. It is intended to give players an inexpensive, flawless look and a complete, warm sound.
The guitar is equipped with a maple body, mahogany neck, rosewood fretboard, body type double-cut, classical Elite pickup, chrome hardware, and ART-1 bridge. This mix makes the guitar its warm and solid jazz sound even more elegant. In addition, the Classic Elite collectors provide a large and balanced production.
For any jazz guitar player, it may take them a period of time to adapt when they first get a hold of the guitar by practicing the tone. A number of players are happily surprised by the overall AS73 quality. Since Ibanez has developed a reputation for manufacturing and selling jazz guitars for leisure play for kids and teens only a couple of years ago.
With its tuning and as such is a perfect choice for beginners jazz guitarists, the AS73 does a fantastic job. Players won’t have to worry about adjusting their tuning constantly during shows, which increases the confidence in their jazz guitar.
Guild Guitars Starfire Bass II
The Newark St Set recalled some of Guild’s iconic guitars from the 1950s and the 1960s but made it in Korea. The Starfire line-up-launched in 1960-has been a fantastic accomplishment and recruited players such as Duane Eddy and George Benson, not to mention Buddy Guy, Muddy Waters, and Robert Lockwood Jr. The Starfire II is a 419 mm (16.5-inch) large, thin, thin, thinly thick (48 mm at the border) hollow body and single “Flower” cut.
There’s a wide wall, but it doesn’t have a complete center wall that attaches the tune-o-Matic type bridge to the rear of the back – it isn’t vintage-specific, but it can give you more solidity that maintains the tone. It is the LH-1 ‘Small Bucker’ pickups that not only remind us of the original Guilds in appearance and catch the halfway between one bow and a full-size bucker that makes this the biggest calling card. But, although the knobs may look like this part, it is the ‘Little Bucker’ LC-1 pickups.
They sound fantastic, bringing consistency to the hollow body frame that is just like origin, alt-rock crunch, and benefit in old-style jazz. Okay, it’s all empty, so feedback can be a challenge but make it right, touch the front end of an amplifier in a clean way, and the darn thing is almost gone. Honestly.
Gretsch G100CE
If you’re a lover of vintage-style pieces, the Gretsch G100CE Synchromatic is one of the most efficient vintage-theme hollow-body guitars.
Let’s begin with the look. You look at a stacked corpus and an arched pattern with a matte natural finish that resembles the beginning of the 1940s guitars. It also features a vintage pickguard and angled f-holes in addition to this already retro appearance. This guitar is a beautiful, long story short.
While most of the guitars in this class have dual pickups, Gretsch preferred to pick up a single belt to make things clear. You can also get volume and tone control knobs and a cable jack when you choose to plug in.
The sounds are vivid, round and voluminous.
Many of us have grown to enjoy this special Gretsch model. It’s a lovely, well-crafted and incredibly inexpensive model. You are going to get a great offer if you prefer classic styles reminiscent of the Golden Age.
Epiphone ES-335
Looking for a cheaper version of the former jazz guitar? Epiphone ES should certainly be taken into consideration for those wanting a respectable semi-hollow electric body guitar for jazz that can range from roaring rock to soft jazz. It’s one of the finest Jazz guitars and can do a variety of clever tricks.
It features a laminate maple body and a maple top. The Jazz guitars come built with a traditional pink rosewood fingerboard, a well-maintained Mahogany body, a 22-set fret inlay, and a 24.75-inch long breadth. The manufacturer has also added a very resonant central block from the Mahogany.
This jazz guitar is fitted with a classic Tune-O-Matic-Bridge, a black Epiphone picking watch, and an extravagant headstock. Both these elements work together to ensure that the guitar is maintained in good condition where accurate tuning, high sustainability, and good intonation are concerned. It does quite a good job with the fret, while sparkling wind and buzz can occur occasionally, the Epiphone ES-335 is usually quite robust.
The driving force behind electronics is some Alnico Classic humpback guitar pickups. The individual Tone and Volume controls and a recognizable three-way pickup selector switch are also available. The notes of this guitar that are profoundly rooted in jazz are another significant characteristic of this guitar, but also have the potential to reach as far as heavy and crunchy hard rock guitar.
D’Angelico Premier EXL-1
The first archtop guitarist of the Jazz Era, John D’Angelico is admired. The EXL-1 is a Korean beauty based on the original Excel cutaway. The neck is nice old with a cleverly asymmetric C profile; the neck of the EX-SS has the same characteristics. As the acoustic archtop, the EXL-1 does not exactly set off an enormous volume level but is characteristic immediately of a nearly cut and very direct tone with short but sufficient support.
The tone is knocking back. A lovely, clear, gloomy sound comes up. Of course, there is no enormous range of sounds but enough for more contemporary clarity from older, darker voices of jazz. The EXL-1 is an old age when the jazz guitarist was in control of the roost; it’s one of the best of its kind, if you look out for this.
Fender Telecaster
An interesting addition to our best jazz guitars list is the Fender Telecaster. This is the winner in terms of popularity. The Fender Telecaster is a phenomenon that you saw in the hands of all kinds of world-class guitarists. It is the most popular solid electric body guitar in the world of jazz. Ted Greene, John Scofield, and Bill Frisell are well-known players. The graceful sound and the simple fretting make it one of the finest jazz guitars.
The Basic Telecaster is an excellent choice for hobby players and collectors who don’t want a fortune and don’t want an excessively advanced trick. There are several different versions. Although a regular fender is cheap, it is a fine guitar and is far from copying Squier.
The body is wood of the alder and the maple of the butt. It has two conventional single spindles and a tonal control that makes for the sweet jazz sound. Television is easy, functional and you know what to expect. It is one of the finest jazz guitars even for beginners.
Epiphone Dot Studio
The Gibson ES-335 “Dot” was created in the fifties and is amongst these timeless icons which are now repeated in modern brand models. The Epiphone Dot Studio was made of laminated Mahogany in a cheaper edition. With few features it’s simple, but vintage jazz is all you need to do.
It’s similar to the original Gibson with respect to sound. With an open-coil Alnico Classic bowler, it is clear, warm and thick. The ES-335 contributed to developing jazz creation, so that you know you have one of the best possible jazz guitars. The Epiphone Dot Studio has several slight changes, which remove traditional vintage difficulties and deliver new playability. It costs just a fraction of the classic Dot ‘s worth.
Fender Stratocaster
One of the most powerful electric guitars in history is the Fender Stratocaster. Many, many businesses have even done their own with this iconic style. It’s in turn available in a range of genres including jazz, punk, blues, funk, and even heavy metal. The guitar has a broad variety of tonal variations and it’s not shocking that so many players from every corner of life enjoy it.
Because it is a solid body guitar, it won’t offer the sounds you’ve already described, but if you roll down the tone and get the EQ right, you can still have a good warm sound. I especially like to use this atmosphere to play and maybe let some of the “spank” come out to play the lead.
The guitars cost from $200 to a couple of thousand dollars. This is certainly a household name as far as famous guitars go.
Yamaha SA2200
Yamaha is one of the best names behind this Hollow series leading model and an outstanding selection for jazz music. It is a mix of the best hardware appointments for this series with its outstanding double-cut body. This guitar’s general sound and style is reminiscent of the fiftieth and sixties atmosphere. Its guitar shell is also made of maple and a jazz hollow shell. The arched top is made of blazing Naples, the beautiful six-stringer SA2200.
Jazz guitars deliver an enduring classic with a modernized look. It features a host of player-centric attributes and is made to the highest expectations. The guitar sound, design, and playability blend masterfully. The rosewood 22-fret fingerboard is founded on its cava neck.
It has a laminated sycamore body and a soft maple central block is also provided by the jazz guitars. This function also helps to eliminate excessive feedback when playing with a guitar amplifier. It is completed with a brown sunburst that gives it a retro jazz feel.
The top is lined with a bonded plastic pickguard with white binding and two f troughs. A beautiful violin sunburst and a polished outline are the only options in this color palette. It features a stop-tail bar and a tune-o-Matic bridge, each of which is gilded to complement the other hardware. Two Alnico V Hobbins is also provided in order to provide a flexible and complex tonal spectrum. It can also render sounds from soft jazz vibes to sweet rock tones.
Epiphone “Joe Pass” EMPEROR-II
The next guitar in our best jazz guitars list is the Epiphone “Joe Pass” EMPEROR-II.This is a real jazz guitar with an ‘arch’ and a pick Spruce top that’s strengthened by a tweeter and an optimal jazz tone sound tag. The laminate flame maples are manufactured from the sides and back and they are available in stunning finishes. The top even has an opaque pickguard like a tortoise.
These jazz guitars are made from rosewood and have a 3-piece hard-labeled hand-set. This is topped by the retro ‘tree of life’ style for which the best Epiphone archtop guitars have been renowned since the late 1930s, which is also home to 20 medium jumbo frets, beautiful inlays for polaroids in block.
The pickups are built of the same alloy as the OG, which is 18% of nickel silver device, as well as sand-cast Alnico II and premium 4-conductor lead wire. The pickups of the guitar have a mysterious jazz sound. Moreover, each pickup is potted with a wax vacuum for microphone removal.
The guitar also features a stylish gold nickel hardware and a vintage gold scroll tailpiece. It is fine-tuned with 10-46 gauge strings from D’Addario. In addition, with its floating rosewood bridge, its intonation is easy to set and fitted with thumbwheels to easily change the height.
Godin LGXT
Last product on our best jazz guitars list is the Godin LGXT. An LGXT Godin is much like a Telecaster and Les Paul crossbreed, but it has its own special mix of characteristics. It’s not so famous, but it’s a great jazz guitar. One prominent jazz player is John McLaughlin.
The thing is a many-voiced chimera. It’s got two hoppers like a Les Paul and for a Tele tone, you can break the two. It also has an electric guitar playing like a piezo pickup.They can be combined with the humbuckers and an equalizer is available for extra toning. Moreover, you can play electric organ sounds using them as a MIDI controller. And, if you feed MIDI feedback to the right program, you can write tabs and notebooks only when you play the guitar. This unbelievable versatility makes it one of the best jazz guitars ever and indeed perfect for many other genres.
The bridge even has a tremolo, and the neck can be played like the stratum. Both components of outstanding quality and a positive feeling and sound can be expected.
Things You Should Pay A Careful Attention When PurChasing The Best Jazz Guitars
Jazz music is usually performed on any guitar. Today, most jazz musicians are using an archtop guitar to make their signing sound, but there are a number of choices in the wide categories.
Many considerations should be included in the purchasing of a jazz guitar. What kind of body would you like? What kind of sound do you need? You want to spend how much cash?
Type Of Guitars
When looking for a jazz guitar you need to ask yourself “What kind of guitar should I get?”
There are 3 main types of guitars for playing jazz:
Archtop guitars (hollow body guitars): What’s a guitar archtop? An archtop is commonly a semi-acoustic guitar with a distinctive arched top and a hollow body, as the name implies.
In addition to the arched top, the f-holes on each side of the guitar strings are an essential part of an archtop guitar. These holes are often found on violins and other violin instruments, but the only guitars with this pattern include the archtops and semi-hollow body guitars. The hole is built to enhance the sound of a guitar band.
Although jazz music only started to emerge in the 1920s, the archtop was around for a long time.
In 1898 Orville Gibson filed the first patent on what we now know as a classic archtop. The first archtop with f-holes, the Gibson Guitar Company, began to be manufactured in 1922. The L-5 was an instrumental instrument initially used mainly in large groups. In 1940, there was a semi-acoustic variant of the L-5.
The pros of Archtop guitars:
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While opposed to solid-body guitars, archtop guitars have a wider body, they are incredibly convenient to play.
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There is a rather distinctive sound of Archtops, the sound of jazz. There’s nothing that beats an archtop guitar if you play jazz. The rest of your guitar idols in jazz play it!
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Archtops look fantastic.
The drawbacks of Archtop Guitars:
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The biggest downside of archtop guitars is their feedback susceptibility, but to stop this, there are things you can do.
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Hollow body guitars, either semi-hollow body or solid body guitars, are not as robust tone-wise. The sound they create is dark and humid, a sound that is not fitting for any music style.
Semi-hollow body guitars : A semi-hollow guitar has a sturdy body of wood and the two ends (the sides of the guitar nearest to the neck) drop off.
The center block eliminates any of the feedback hollow body guitars can provide, with the sound tighter than a typical electric guitar and more guided.
Because the only possible distinction between the hollow body and half hollow guitars is the middle block, both types have a very similar tone with a somewhat colder body guitar sound but more likely to get the feedback. The hollow body guitar.
Semi-hollow body guitars are more contemporary than hollow body archtop, sound and sensation jazz. These guitars provide less feedback than archtops, give a warm “jazz” and are more robust than the professional guitars of an archtop.
Pros:
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The key advantage of a semi-hollow guitar is that it tames the vibration that hollow-body guitars are vulnerable to. In comparison, without losing the clearer, more oriented sounds of a solid-body guitar, it retains some of the wet, round tones that conventional jazz guitars are famous for.
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Compared to a classic jazz guitar, a semi-hollow body guitar is more robust.
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Semi-hollows, relative to solid-body guitars, sound “jazzier.”
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They’re best suited to warped tones, which is why jazz guitarists like John Scofield and rock guitarists like Dave Grohl use them.
Cons:
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The biggest downside to these guitars is that a hollow body guitar can lose any warmth. The sounds are also very similar, though, and this guitar has historically been preferred by jazz musicians such as Larry Carlton and John Scofield as their signature instrument.
Solid body guitars :A solid body guitar is entirely constructed from a single block of wood. The strings are extended over the guitar body and the sound can be repeated or intensified through no external gaps. Solid-body guitars have a clear sound, a high speed, and are nearly entirely responsive to criticism in contrast to the other two kinds of jazz guitars.
The distinction between solid body guitars is indicated by the name, because, while a hollow-body instrument encourages sound waves to bounce within the guitar’s body, to raise power, the solid body guitar is assisted by technological upgrades. The name suggests that.
Pros:
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Size is one of the biggest rewards of utilizing a solid body guitar. Strong body guitars are lighter than their hollow or semi-hollow counterparts, which may make a difference on stage for artists who fear playing with an instrument that is too voluminous or unmanageable.
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There are fewer or no feedback complaints about a solid body guitar.
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Strong body guitars, in terms of tone, are more robust. In other genres, including rock or punk, you can use them, which is less the case for semi-hollow and definitely hollow body guitars.
Cons:
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For jazz players, Solid Body Guitars may not have the best sound. Although there are some significant exceptions to this rule (Telecaster-type guitars), the typical wet, circular tones of hollow-body guitars seem to influence a lot of musicians, and a solid body guitar just can’t duplicate that sound.
Budget
I’d not want to pay a ludicrous amount for a top guitar when you launch, but you’ll need to look at a budget.
The guitars mentioned here typically vary from $300 to about $700. Add the price of a small starting amp for about $100-400, and a few cords, picks, etc.
I know there’s a huge variety of prices for a start amp, so it depends on what you want!
In everything, the initial spending on the new kit is between 700 and 1,000 dollars. If you do good shopping and deal with used appliances, you can start a lot, much lower.
Famous Brand And Favorite Model
In seeking to do it on a budget there are several different approaches. Various businesses such as Ibanez, Fender, Epiphone, and others have been willing to fulfill the need for inexpensive jazz guitars.
Tips For Purchasing The Best Jazz Guitars
Here are a few suggestions to help you determine which one will suit your needs and tastes better if you are on the hunt for the best jazz guitars.
- Get some inspiration from the major ones. What did your beloved jazz musician play? What did he play? What other jazz players are you motivated to perform with? There’s an explanation you’re attracted to their music, huh? It might be their sound, their style of playing, their abilities, so you can have something to focus on. It’s also worth looking at their guitar. You don’t necessarily have to have the same type, just one that looks and/or sounds like it (if you can afford it, why not?). When having your own jazz hammer, it is a good jump-off point.
- Read the reviews and watch it. What are other guitar players thinking about various types of jazz guitars? One thing is product details, another is statements on real-world use. Being knowledgeable of how a certain jazz guitar plays in the hands of various players can be good for you. A decent source of knowledge about the pros and quirks of the jazz guitar models you are considering purchasing is feedback from blogs, guitar sites, forums, product pages, and YouTube.
- Just check them out. It’s a wonderful way to save money to buy a guitar online, but how can you make sure the one you choose is true “The Best?” In a music hall, check it out. Going to a music shop helps you to check out various versions of jazz guitar so that you can genuinely see, sound, and hear it. You may also find another model that varies a lot from your first preference but appeals to you more. Take notice of the sticker price to see how much it costs online, delivery included, if you select the guitar you like.
My Final Picks For The Best Jazz Guitars
As long as our experience and practice, this is the final picks on the best jazz guitars list:
The Best Hollow Body Guitars For Jazz
The Best Semi Hollow Body Guitars For Jazz:
The Best Solid Body Guitars For Jazz:
These jazz guitars are available for a number of price ranges from the best jazz guitars, classical semi-hollow guitars, to big-bodies, best jazz guitars, and archtop guitars, also with some robust guitar selections. The suggestions we had received were scrutinized carefully and were accepted. Many throughout the category give excellent years of service to jazz fusions, traditional or more modern styles.
We have shown the top 15 best jazz guitars in this list and also presented data on how to select the most appropriate one.
In this guide, we have gone through a multitude of specifics that we believe will help you quickly make a decision. For your practice or personal use, we hope you can find the best jazz guitars for yourself.
Thank you for reading this far! I hope that the information provided in this article will be helpful to you.
- Don’t forget to share your thoughts about Best Jazz Guitars at the comment box below!
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