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Post subject: The Extremely Popular Precision/Jazz Configuration
Posted: Wed Jul 03, 2013 6:57 am
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I just did a quick count and found 11 P/J basses by Fender/Squire, and there sure are a whole slew of them out there by many other bass manufacturers.

The very first time I recall seeing this hot rodding of Fender's Precision bass was T-Bone Wolk on Saturday Night Live. Does anyone know if this was T-Bone's inspired inovative invention/modification? Or did he just make the configuration popular? You can also see bassist Zev Katz playing this very same bass occaisionally on 'Daryl's House'.

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Post subject: Re: The Extremely Popular Precision/Jazz Configuration
Posted: Wed Jul 03, 2013 9:59 am
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I can't speak to TBone but I first started noticing the set up around 1990 with basses like the JP-90, Prodigy, Prophecy, etc. How does that timeline fit?

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Post subject: Re: The Extremely Popular Precision/Jazz Configuration
Posted: Wed Jul 03, 2013 10:06 am
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affprod wrote:
I can't speak to TBone but I first started noticing the set up around 1990 with basses like the JP-90, Prodigy, Prophecy, etc. How does that timeline fit?



Here's T-Bone Wolk playing live with Carly Simon in Martha's Vineyard 1987.



By The Way, Carly is singing this to me personally :wink:

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Last edited by linnin on Sun Nov 24, 2013 7:46 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Post subject: Re: The Extremely Popular Precision/Jazz Configuration
Posted: Wed Jul 03, 2013 12:08 pm
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A search turned up this thread http://forums.fender.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=85443&p=964157&hilit=+wolk#p964157

This intel is quoted from a reply by brotherdave:
"Tom "T-Bone" Wolk (SNL Orchestra 80's & 90's/long time Hall & Oates music director/composer/arranger/producer) did a similar mod to his sunburst 64 P-Bass way back and is credited for fostering widespread interest in the P/J design as one of the early adopters. Since he was on TV with it weekly while perhaps not the first P/J playing pro he was the highest profile one. He actually used a lot of different basses, but the modded 64 P-Bass with the white DiMarzio Jazz pickup at the bridge was his #1. It was sort of unique in that it had a unique control setup with stacked pots that had separate volume and tone control for each pickup in the mode of the 1961 stacked Jazz Bass setup. I liked his 64 PJ P-Bass setup a lot and have always wanted to do one with the same controls but with different pickups. The Custom Shop replicated his 64 P/J Precision in a one-off recreation that a Fender VP personally delivered to him shortly before his death."

I do remember being very impressed both by T-Bone Wolk's bass playing and by his unique (to me) Precision hot rod. When I decided to hot rod my '76 Precision in 1985, I almost copied T-Bone's P. The hot new Seymour Duncan Quarter-Pounders talked me out of it. :lol:

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Last edited by linnin on Thu Jul 04, 2013 4:18 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Post subject: Re: The Extremely Popular Precision/Jazz Configuration
Posted: Wed Jul 03, 2013 7:36 pm
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While Tom T-Bone Wolk is primarily remembered as a bassist he played a multitude of instruments and served in a multitude of roles beyond bassist. I remember some really impressive flat top picking he did on a Hall & Oates PBS gig (minus G.E. Smith) which looked to have been recorded at the Troubadour in Los Angeles. This show aired shortly after Mr. Wolk died and when I saw someone else playing bass I figured he wasn't there and then I saw him on electric flat top. He sang a little backup also. I kept thinking he'd switch but he stayed on flattop the entire broadcast. I'm positive it was him.

Wolk's 64 P-Bass was not the first P/J but popularized the mod probably more than any that came before because it was on TV every Saturday night for a decade starting about 1985.

The first P/J I saw was actually about 1970 or 71. It was a Fender Telecaster Bass with a Jazz pickup added near the bridge. Well technically it was a P/J even if not what we commonly associate today as being a P/J. Apparently there must have been someone in LA or Frisco that specialized in this particular mod on a Telecaster Bass as I have ran across several just like it that can be traced back to California, and usually to LA. These were well done mods that somebody with experience was doing, not your typical home hatchet jobs. There are plenty of the home hatchet jobs around too. I suspect the mod of a split coil second generation P-Bass came well after these modded Telecaster Basses were done. Perhaps these Cali modded Telecaster Basses are really where it started. Who knows?


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Post subject: Re: The Extremely Popular Precision/Jazz Configuration
Posted: Thu Jul 04, 2013 5:13 am
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That makes complete sense, brotherdave. Post WWII California was the progenitor of the American Hot Rod. Inovation and modification were the only rules. Leo Fender himself was most certainly a forward thinking inovative inventor. So it stands to reason that the P/J modification would rise out of the Hot Rod Culture of California.

When I was in high school ('68-'72) I remember seeing a photo of Jefferson Airplane's bassist, Jack Cassady, holding a modified Fender Precision Bass that had been hot rodded with two pair of split pick-ups. I thought this was way too cool. That image stuck with me, and some 13 years later I hot rodded my P in exactly the same fashion with twin split p'ups. :D Today you can buy a very simular factory version of that hot rod in guise of Fender's Blacktop Jazz.

T-Bone was no dummy either. He knew very well that he was irreversibly modifing a much sought after Pre-CBS vintage Precision bass. AND HE DID IT ANYWAY! My hat's off to him. Kudos T-Bone! Job well done.

I like the guy down on the Squire Bass forum that took a hammer & chisel to his brand new bass and made a beautiful hot rod out of it. The video he made is outrageously fine. http://forums.fender.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=86161

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Post subject: Re: The Extremely Popular Precision/Jazz Configuration
Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2013 12:38 pm
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linnin wrote:
When I was in high school ('68-'72) I remember seeing a photo of Jefferson Airplane's bassist, Jack Cassady, holding a modified Fender Precision Bass that had been hot rodded with two pair of split pick-ups. I thought this was way too cool. That image stuck with me, and some 13 years later I hot rodded my P in exactly the same fashion with twin split p'ups. :D Today you can buy a very simular factory version of that hot rod in guise of Fender's Blacktop Jazz.


The Blacktop Jazz Bass isn't the first Fender to sport a dual split-coil setup.

The Precision Elite II of 1983 featured such pickup config.

Image


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Post subject: Re: The Extremely Popular Precision/Jazz Configuration
Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2013 2:13 pm
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chromeface wrote:
linnin wrote:
When I was in high school ('68-'72) I remember seeing a photo of Jefferson Airplane's bassist, Jack Cassady, holding a modified Fender Precision Bass that had been hot rodded with two pair of split pick-ups. I thought this was way too cool. That image stuck with me, and some 13 years later I hot rodded my P in exactly the same fashion with twin split p'ups. :D Today you can buy a very simular factory version of that hot rod in guise of Fender's Blacktop Jazz.


The Blacktop Jazz Bass isn't the first Fender to sport a dual split-coil setup.

The Precision Elite II of 1983 featured such pickup config.

Image


Ooooooo! That's very cool chromeface! I'd not seen that before. Very simular to mine, just not as nice. :wink: But it's the Blacktop Jazz that's available right now, and outrageously inexpensive with Fender's Summer Sonic Boom going on. It's a great time to SNATCH one up! :lol:

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Post subject: Re: The Extremely Popular Precision/Jazz Configuration
Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2013 6:48 pm
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linnin wrote:
Ooooooo! That's very cool chromeface! I'd not seen that before. Very simular to mine, just not as nice. :wink: But it's the Blacktop Jazz that's available right now, and outrageously inexpensive with Fender's Summer Sonic Boom going on. It's a great time to SNATCH one up! :lol:


+1 zillion :) well said!


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Post subject: Re: The Extremely Popular Precision/Jazz Configuration
Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2013 11:33 pm
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chromeface wrote:
linnin wrote:
When I was in high school ('68-'72) I remember seeing a photo of Jefferson Airplane's bassist, Jack Cassady, holding a modified Fender Precision Bass that had been hot rodded with two pair of split pick-ups. I thought this was way too cool. That image stuck with me, and some 13 years later I hot rodded my P in exactly the same fashion with twin split p'ups. :D Today you can buy a very simular factory version of that hot rod in guise of Fender's Blacktop Jazz.


The Blacktop Jazz Bass isn't the first Fender to sport a dual split-coil setup.

The Precision Elite II of 1983 featured such pickup config.

Image



Oh...that thing is beautiful. I've played a few of those double pickup Elites. It's like heaven.


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Post subject: Re: The Extremely Popular Precision/Jazz Configuration
Posted: Sun Nov 24, 2013 7:41 am
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And Now Fender's Latest P/J Hot Rod!

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"Richly versatile and powerful tone comes from its American Vintage ’63 split single-coil Precision Bass (middle) and ’64 Jazz Bass® single-coil (bridge) pickups."

Ash body with a very cool 7.25" - 12" compound radius neck is just killer!

Just a tad on the expensive side at $2,699.99 MSRP :shock:

This is the P/J to own!

"The Vintage Hot Rod ’60s Precision Bass is a dual-pickup beauty that gives you the best P/J Fender bass tone, style and performance of both eras—authentically vintage-style design touches straight from the 1960s and hot-rodded modern mods ideal for today’s players."

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Last edited by linnin on Sun Nov 24, 2013 7:49 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Post subject: Re: The Extremely Popular Precision/Jazz Configuration
Posted: Sun Nov 24, 2013 7:46 am
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I'm not sure about the date, but Mr. Fender, at G&L had an SB-2 P/J bass in the G&L line. It's still there.

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Last edited by Mr. Nylon on Mon Nov 25, 2013 5:40 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Post subject: Re: The Extremely Popular Precision/Jazz Configuration
Posted: Sun Nov 24, 2013 9:57 pm
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Okay here's the question--- who was the first to reverse the P pickup in a P/J set up? My 95 Ibanez trb 100 has that and no kidding it sounds very very good . I'd never sell it. I like the way the G and D strings have more bass to them.
Or I should say the bass sounds very even in response on all strings and all frets.


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Post subject: Re: The Extremely Popular Precision/Jazz Configuration
Posted: Sun Nov 24, 2013 10:18 pm
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I don't think we'll ever know the origin.

My favorite PJ is easily an un-modified Precision Plus Deluxe. The Kubicki with the Lace stuff is very forgiving, especially when you play funk and slap.


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Post subject: Re: The Extremely Popular Precision/Jazz Configuration
Posted: Mon Nov 25, 2013 3:52 pm
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I seem to remember seeing bass bodies by Warmouth sometime before 1990 that show the reversed P and std J cut- outs.


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