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Post subject: Fender Elite Jazz Bass
Posted: Sat Mar 08, 2014 6:08 pm
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This is Fender’s Elite Jazz Bass. Designed by John Page and built by Scott Zimmerman with electronics design by Bill Hodges. Best guess is design began in 1982. It was sometime after Dan Smith joined Fender, but the date is not certain.

Acquisition of this bass was quite interesting. It started at an online auction site, took a few twists and turns, and ended in Sunny Valley, Oregon nearly five months later. Turns out the seller was the daughter of John Page, long time designer, R&D and Custom Shop head for Fender.

The Elite series was meant to be the upscale version of both the existing line and the vintage reissues. Standard Series minus, Elite Series plus. The design parameters were pretty open, basically “what would the bass look like if it was designed today”. John had compete control over the bass because “no one else wanted to be blamed for defacing the Jazz Bass”. I think that was said tongue in cheek.

All the Elites came with active electronics, including this bass. Of interest is the second toggle switch which moves the tone pot to the neck, bridge or both pups.

The neck survived the model shop fire and the paddle is inscribed by Scott as “The Pheonix” (yes, misspelled) “Out of the ashes will come a new beginning”.

The bridge is one of two identical prototype pieces made by Schaller. The other was given to Klaus Blasquiz who was writing The Fender Bass book. They were made on a trip to Germany which lasted a few weeks.

The color is Page Pink, one of two instruments painted with it. The other, John’s personal Bullet, did not survive the fire. It is a shade of Brilliant Pink and Gold Pearl.

Of course, the Elite Jazz Bass was never produced. While in the evaluation stage it received nice reviews, especially the speed of the neck, but there were adamant feelings this could not be the new Jazz Bass. That, coupled with the sale of Fender by CBS, put the project at the wayside. (Parts of the Elite Jazz design, such as the body, pup cover and pick guard designs, and the neck profile – 1.5 x 2.1, went on to be included in the Performer, which was made in Japan for one model year, 1985-86. But most similarities end there.)

The cool part of this for me is, because there was only one made, its history, along with the bookmark it was supposed to play in the evolution of the electric bass guitar (and did through R&D, even though never a production instrument), is pretty well documented. Included in the sale were notes, pre build components, and even four pages of historical summary. There may even be some templates but they are missing in action at this time. It is the only bass in my collection where I actually know the whole darn story, and got it straight from the horse’s mouth during a visit to John’s studio.

For a guy like me to sit down and spend a day talking basses and Fender with John Page, well, let’s just say it was well worth the airfare. And to top things off, his wife prepared an outstanding home cooked meal. Very nice folks.

After nearly five months, I get my first peek at the bass:
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Goofy grin = one happy camper, bass is in really nice shape:
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Bass during evaluation by Benjamin Orr (The Cars) during the 84/85 Heartbeat City album tour, also toured with Billy Idol:
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John Page autographing and dating the back of the headstock for me:
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Another goofy grin, still a happy camper enjoying an excellent single malt Scotch:
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Last pic for this post. This is the original bridge used during the evaluation period, prior to the arrival of the Schaller. The other is the brass, in progress model of the string tree, which was going to mount on an angle like a lightening bolt, with grooves under the wings for the D and G. This part was never completed.
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Much more to share, but this should give the flavor of it. A definite high point in my collection and a wonderfully enjoyable experience acquiring it.

Steve

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Post subject: Re: Fender Elite Jazz Bass
Posted: Sun Mar 09, 2014 7:19 am
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There's no Elite Jazz Bass, in fact this is a Performer Bass prototype with a 2-octave Jazz Bass neck attached into a Performer body. Fender adopted the Swinger headstock on the final design, backrouted the controls and added a third humbucker near the bridge pickup with a 5-way rotary selector.

This version of the Performer bass was called the Performer Elite and was manufactured in the United States in 1984; it sported an ebony fingerboard as opposed to the Japanese Performer Standard which had a rosewood neck.

In 1987 Fender issued a 5-string version of the Performer Elite which never reached the final stage and was discontinued shortly after.


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Post subject: Re: Fender Elite Jazz Bass
Posted: Sun Mar 09, 2014 8:24 am
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WOW!

What a story, Steve, and totally documented too. Congratulations on yet another one-of-a-kind find & acquisition. Cheers! :mrgreen:

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Post subject: Re: Fender Elite Jazz Bass
Posted: Sun Mar 09, 2014 8:48 am
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Hey Chrome,

Elite Jazz is straight from the lips of the designer, so any issue with the terminology would have to be taken up with him. While it did morph into the Performer, and this bass is called the Performer proto in The Fender Bass Book, the design project was to create the Elite Jazz, keeping with series started with the Strat and Tele. At least according to John Page. The bass is called the Elite Jazz prototype in the design history and in letter of provenance, and since he explained how the design came about, I have to go with that. I mean, who would know better?

Here are my Performers. You are correct about the Swinger headstock, also used on the Katana. You can note many of the differences, different pups, no tone toggle, passive electronics, bridge went back to the model shop version, but lighter. I really enjoy my Performers, but they are two basses when played side by side next to the Elite Jazz proto.

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Last edited by affprod on Sun Mar 09, 2014 9:45 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Post subject: Re: Fender Elite Jazz Bass
Posted: Sun Mar 09, 2014 9:33 am
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Best. Post. Ever. Please keep sharing more of the story. AMAZING!


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Post subject: Re: Fender Elite Jazz Bass
Posted: Sun Mar 09, 2014 10:12 am
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I thought you might be interested in some of the design history, as supplied by John Page.

"Dan decided to expand the vintage reissues to include all the major models, including the Stratocaster, P-Bass and J-Bass (the Tele was already complete). His idea was to let those models have the “true to the original” features, then we would expand down and up. The “down” versions became the Standard models, stripped down versions of the classics. The “up” versions would be the Elite series, top of the line, active electronic, flatter fretboards, larger frets, features of other competitor models (like the Elite Tele had some Les Paul features). Basically there didn’t need to be any design commitment to the original… it was to be what we thought those models would like if they would have been originally designed at that time (1982-ish) as opposed to the 1950’s and 60’s.

The Elite series as a whole was kind of a design by committee project. Although the Elites were my R&D design responsibility primarily, Dan Smith, Chip Todd and Charlie Gressett had a lot of input as well. They became a bit of a “Camel” (a horse designed by committee). The Jazz Bass Elite was the one model I had complete control over. I don’t think anyone else wanted to be blamed for defacing the Jazz Bass! I took it as a challenge to go beyond the box which we (Fender R&D designers) always had to work within. It was my chance to try and design a bass that would be right at home in many of the more cutting edge company’s line-ups, As a young designer I was thrilled to work for such a historic company, but felt a bit shackled by the design limitations. Dan Smith was very supportive in letting me run with it.

I had this idea for awhile for a body line. It came from looking at the back of a Strat contour… the flat part where the contour meets the back. I thought it was futuristic while still retaining a lot of the classic Fender curves. The rest of the design came with lots of painstaking experimentation with lines. I love asymmetry, but it still needs to balance as the whole, if that makes any sense. I tried to take the entire instrument to a more sculptural level… thus the pickups, bridge and proposed string tree. I still, however, wanted it to be a Fender, that’s why I designed a more streamlined Fender peghead for it, instead of a new peghead. For the pickups I went with humbuckers since Fender were so historically noisy. All the Elites were active, so that was a given. As I recall, we used a variation of the P-Bass Special electronics, designed by Bill Hodges.

There was a trend around this time for bass players to play more a lead role in the band, they weren’t just holding down the bottom. In fact, a lot of guitar players were switching to the bass. So the idea was to make the neck more friendly to guitar players… and easier to play lead style riffs on. Players really seemed to love the 1.5” nut width that was on the Jazz Bass, so I thought why not continue that narrow width up the neck to make it more guitar like. Instead of going with the standard 2.5” butt width I went with an extremely narrow 2.1” width. That, combined with a classic deep “C” shape, made for a very fast, comfortable bass neck.

At this time, in addition to being the guitar design engineer, I was also the supervisor of the R&D Model Shop. I had two Model makers working for me, Steve Boulanger, who did mostly metal work/amp prototyping, and Scott Zimmerman, who did most of the guitar prototyping. One of the things that was cool about this era at Fender (at least for me) was the ability as a designer to participate hands-on in the prototyping process. I had been an R&D Model Maker for a couple of years before becoming the guitar designer, so I got my hands dirty making the prototypes as much as I could. With the Elite Jazz bass components being as sculptural as they were, I worked on a lot of the parts. It was easier for me to build some of them versus drawing them to pass on to one of the Model Makers. After I would make the prototype I would pass it on to the documentation department to have one of the design drafts-people create the final engineering drawings.

My recollection of the Elite Jazz Bass prototyping was a combination of efforts by Scott Zimmerman and myself. I remember making the body and pickguard templates, and machining the pickups covers and string tree. I think Scott actually made the body, neck and pickguard. As I stated above, Bill Hodges designed the electronics, and I believe he in conjunction with Paul Gagon worked on the pickup fabrication and electronic assembly.

Schaller was a big part of the Elite series of guitars, and the Elite Jazz Bass was no exception. Following the sculptural line of this instrument, I designed a multi-angled bridge. It would have been pretty difficult to prototype using the standard machining methods that were available in the Model Shop, i.e. Bridgeport Mill, etc., so we decided to go directly to Schaller in Germany for the prototyping. They had an EDM machine which they used to make their hard tooling, and it could also make samples. I flew to Germany with the design to have the prototypes made while I was there. I seem to recall that trip being abut 3-4 weeks long, and I came home with 2 complete prototypes of the bridge. The bridge was not on the original prototype when it went out for evaluations because it wasn’t done yet. I gave the other bridge prototype to an author, Klaus Blasquiz, who was writing a Fender Bass book. I had a habit of giving things away.

My last sculptural element was a lightning bolt shaped string tree, which I began to prototype, but it was never finished. I can’t remember if the project shifted gears before I completed it, or exactly why I never finished it, but I didn’t. The only thing that remains of it is the in-process, rough-milled piece in brass.

It was the Eighties and flashy colors were very popular. I was a big fan of brilliant Pink and pearl, so I had the paint department mix a specific shade of pink and add gold pearl to it. We called it Page Pink. The Elite Jazz bass prototype was painted this color. The only other guitar that I ever remember being painted this color was what was supposed to end up being my personal Bullet guitar. Unfortunately we had a fire in R&D where we lost tons of guitars… including the Bullet. This Elite Jazz Bass proto is the only instrument surviving that was painted that color, at least to the best of my knowledge.


All of the Elites went out for pretty extensive artist evaluations, but I can only remember the Strat and Tele versions when Dan and I went out. The P-Bass might have been there too, but I know the Jazz Bass version was not. It was the last one on the list for development, or at least the last one I got to. For its evaluations I sent it directly to artists to try and give me their feedback. I sent it out with Billy Idol’s bass player for a while, and that same touring season it went out with Ben Orr of the CARS. As I recall, the feedback on the bass itself was great, especially the speed of the neck; the down part was the adamant feelings that it could not be the new Jazz Bass… that was sacrilege! So with those opinions, and others that came in, Marketing made the decision to not make it the Elite Jazz Bass.


A lot of effort went into developing the Elite Jazz Bass, so when the decision was made to not release it as such, we decided to release it as a new model. It became the Performer Bass. It ended up being made in Japan, and its design features being simplified. The peghead was changed to the Swinger, I designed a new Fender logo, it had single coil pickups, and a simple stamped bridge plate. It was met in the marketplace with limited success, and I believe it was only in production for about a year. After the CBS sale it went by the wayside."

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Post subject: Re: Fender Elite Jazz Bass
Posted: Sun Mar 09, 2014 11:40 am
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That's pretty damned neat. I've been interested about this since you first posted about it in the other thread. Never knew anything about this at all. Then again, I wasn't a musician until 1988 and didn't know anything about gear before that at all. I thought a bass was just some guitar with four strings. :P

That's cool that you found this. It's not like it's something you come across everyday. It's too bad it never got off the ground, it might have had an impact.

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Post subject: Re: Fender Elite Jazz Bass
Posted: Sun Mar 09, 2014 5:23 pm
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Amazing!!!


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Post subject: Re: Fender Elite Jazz Bass
Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2014 1:05 pm
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That 's a great story and one Fender bass story that I had never heard before.
How did you even hear about this bass?

I can agree that it would have been sacrilege to put out a "Performer design" as the new Jazz bass. I couldn't have accepted that. It would've been Fender's " New Coke " moment had it happened.

I do like the Performer bass and I would've liked to have seen this bass produced just so that I could have played it.

On the Performer bass, I came within 10 minutes of buying one for $250 bucks back in the late 80's. It may be the green one in Steve's collection. :mrgreen: LOL

John Page looks a lot older that he did when I met him at the Smithsonian Institution in the late 90's. I guess I look a lot older too. LOL

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Post subject: Re: Fender Elite Jazz Bass
Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2014 9:37 pm
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Affprod- you are the "Ultimate" bass collector. :D


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Post subject: Re: Fender Elite Jazz Bass
Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2014 10:31 am
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BC, if you want to feel really old, here is John Page when he was designing the Elite Jazz. (Love your "New Coke" comment. Agree 100%)

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Post subject: Re: Fender Elite Jazz Bass
Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2014 11:00 am
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:idea: :arrow: Steve, I'd like to have the very first left-handed Fender bass ever made. So if you should find that, just buy it for me please. :wink:

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Post subject: Re: Fender Elite Jazz Bass
Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2014 11:34 am
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I'll bet that would probably cost a few bills. :P

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Post subject: Re: Fender Elite Jazz Bass
Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2014 2:34 pm
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This pic is meant to show the proto Schaller bridge and the control layout. Cool, perhaps only to me, are the hand machined pup covers without the Fender logo.

I don't think this was the first micro tune bridge, but its style was unique to this proto.

Of interest to me, is that the Performers actually sound better, to my ear. The Elite Jazz proto is very bright and a bit tough to dial in. I have actually ordered a set of flats for it to see if that helps. Not a lot of bottom, which is where I dwell.

More on performance once I restring, set up, and have a few more hours on it.

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Post subject: Re: Fender Elite Jazz Bass
Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2014 4:07 pm
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I just noticed that it also has a 24 fret neck, which is rare as rocking horse poop for a Fender. Then again, so is anything higher than 20 frets, for the most part.

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