The final design was finished sometime before the end of 1957, with early, white-blonde, maple neck, black pickguard prototypes with black pickups first appearing around this time. These guitars featured a Strat-type neck, 2 of the new wide-field single coil pickups, an anodized black aluminum pickguard, the separate rhythm and lead circuits, and the new Synchronized floating Tremolo unit. Instead of strat-style knobs, they had barrel knobs like a Telecaster.

The goals of the Jazzmaster were twofold. First and foremost was the dual circuit idea. The idea was that a player could preset one circuit for rhythm guitar, using the neck pickup and the two roller knobs on the upper wing, then on the other side of the guitar was the llead circuit, where the user could preset any combination of the two pickups and volume and tone settings to match, and then use the slide switch on the upper bass-side horn near the rhythm circuit to quickly switch between them. This was something Freddie Tavarez designed and was na pretty cool, and often under-used feature on the Jazzmaster and Jaguar that it's found on.

The second goal was to take over the Jazz Market. At the time, the de-facto Jazz guitar was a F-hole semiacoustic design with a rounded or florentine cutaway on the treble side to allow upper fret access, usually two big, powerful pickups, and a plethora of sonic options via 2 volumes, 2 tones, and a 3-way switch in most cases, with the most dominant setting being a neck pickup with the highs rolled off. Fender wanted to bring the Jazzmaster to jazz musicians by way of a contoured, offset waist body. Most Jazz players played sitting down, and in the Fender patent applications for the "offset-waist" body design, you can see this was what Leo had in mind. It was meant to be more comfortable than one of those big, round, acoustics with sharp-ish bound edges. Jazz players who used a Vibrato prefered the smoother, lighter action for the Bigsby, so a new vibrato was designed for the Jazzmaster where the strings affixed to a separate tailpiece quite a distance from the bridge, and then the bridge moved WITH the strings to prevent breakage. This vibrato unit also had a "trem lock" button to lock the vibrato from going upwards should a string break. And lastly were the pickups. Obviously those thin, twangy, spanky pickups like the Telecaster and Stratocaster had were not going to cut it in a Jazz scenario, so new pickups were designed that were roughly 4"x2" in size and only 1/4" thick. This spread the windings out, and in theory, the magnetic field, resullting in a guitar that sounded "warmer" and mellower. But it had a wide range of sounds due to using 1 Meg ohm pots, instead of the traditional 250K ohm pots of the Strat or Tele. Which due to their lower capacitance lead to the Jazzmaster actually sounding like a "hi-fi" Telecaster than a thicker, more mellow guitar.

However, Leo Fender's design failed to hit the mark. Guitarists tend to be quite conservative, stodgy, and tradition-oriented by nature. Seeing nothing wrong with their big "Jazz Boxes", the Jazz musicians just ignored the Jazzmaster and just kept keepin-on like it did not exist, however, brewing on the west coast of the USA, was a new breed of music, with reverb-drenched, twangy guitars, with seasick vibrato, fast precise picking, and did I mention just soaked in reverb effect? This new sound was called "surf rock". And the Jazzmaster was one of it's guitars of choice as a genre! In the late 50's/early 60's, if you were rocking a Fender Jazzmaster with a Fender Reverb unit and a Fender Bandmaster, you were doing great gear-wise.

As the 60's went on though, the Jazzmaster started to lose some of it's sparkle in the eyes of guitarists, as the "British Invasion" had begun with The Rolling Stones, the Beatles, The Who, The Yardbirds - these guys were a big reason we had the holy "trinity" for so long. The boomers that worshipped them wanted Rickenbackers, then Teles, Les Pauls, and Stratocasters. Not the angular "Surf Guitar" Jazzmaster. However, Fender tried to keep it on the lineup just a little while longer. But to say it was dead would be a mistake. There were still people, even big names using them, such as Jimi Hendrix with various soul & R&B groups prior to the Experience (and even with the Experience from time to time), and of course Eric Clapton once said he recorded "Crossroads" on a Jazzmaster. So Fender, to bolster sales, and bring a sense of "high end", beefed up the Jazzmaster's looks by introducing body binding in 1964, and then Block inlays on the neck in 1965. Around this same time, wiring changed from cloth to plastic-coated, and the headstocks changed to thhe bigger CBS sanctioned one (as CBS bought Fender in 1964) with the large-font "Fender JAZZMASTER" logo removing the spaghetti swoops from the ends of the logo to make it more visible and readable on Television. Later the Kluson Tuners were replaced with "F" key Fender tuners.

The 1970's saw the Jazzmaster fall further into obscurity for the first 3/4ths of the decade, as Gibson became the guitar of choice with it's fatter sounding Humbucker pickups and more glamourous, bound bodies, large amounts of glossy hardware, and whatnot, though Gibson too was in trouble at the time (Norlin era). In 1974, almost all Fender guitars moved to a black pickguard, and by 1977, the Jazzmaster switched to black Strat knobs as well, while retaining the white pickup covers. The Jazzmaster was discontinued in 1980, with one last, extra special one trickling outu of the factory in 1982 for a retiring employee.

But in the underground, the Jazzmaster was picking up speed. Tom Verlaine of Television recorded the album Marquee Moon using them in 1975. Elvis Costello was replacing his Telecaster and bought his furnature polish painted Jazzmaster kicking off his career on the BBC playing by himself with his guitar. Meanwhile, Boston based new-wave band The Cars was running around in a mix of high tech flash and 50's Americana Kitsch, and behind all the clickety 8th note rhythms was Ric Ocasek with a initially sunburst, later pink 1974 model with a Gibltrar bridge on it. Then as Post-Punk was taking off, Robert Smith, starting recording with his new band The Cure, was asked by the producers to get a better guitar though Smith liked his Wards Top Twenty for it's sound, so as a compromise, he got an Olympic White Jazzmaster and had the Top Twenty pickup put in between the stock Jazzmaster pickups. Other people playing them included Elliot Easton doubling up the Jazzmaster in The Cars in 1980 with a beat Pre-CBS lefty one in fiesta red with the pickups nailed in. Lee Ranaldo, Kim Gordon, and Thurston Moore started Sonic Youth and they are well known for their insane myriad of Jazzmasters which all three played interchangably, exploiting the bridge design for unique, resonant, droning sounds. Danny Elfman of Oingo Boingo used one on stage a lot in the early 80's, as did the guy in The Waitresses (Go Make the Weather). But all this post-punk, new wave, pop playing of Jazzmasters was being overshadowed by hard rock and heavy metal with it's pointy, floyd rose equipped, shred machines of the time. So they stayed rather inexpensive at the time and so lots of underground pop, punk, post-punk, indie, new wavers snatched tm up as they were quality guitars that did not carry the price of a more desireable STrat or Tele.

The eighties of course, you had all the people above playing these things, but the focus at that point for Fender was rebuilding their company after the damage CBS had done. Dan Smith took the company over around 82'-83' and the focus was on the two biggest classic guitars, and the two biggest classic basses (Strat, Tele, P-Bass, Jazz Bass). They struck up a deal with building house in Japan, Fujigen Gakki, and started having vintage reissues printed up as early as 84', which is lso when the custom shop started. But we would have to wait until 1985, when the E-series Japanese, Fujigen Jazzmasters started being produced. Not like there was nowhere to get them, a plant in Japan, likely Fujigen Gakki, was making them as a part of the Greco Superreal Series as a lawsuit copy at the time.

Japanese Jazzmasters were made at the Fujigen Gakki plant in Japan up until late 1997, when the serials started over again with "A" and "Crafted in Japan" was written above them on the back of the neck, instead of "Made In Japan" as the old 80's and 90's guitars had, as now the Japanese Fenders were being made by Dyna Gakki. Both the Fujigen and Dyna guitars had an inherent flaw in their design - in the pickups - which where not as flat as the actual US pickups were, and often are quoted as sounding "like a strat rather than a Jazzmaster" online.

Meanwhile, Jazzmasters, and offsets in general were about to get a HUGE boost in popularity as the 1990's came. A new "music scene" of unique bands called "Grunge" came about, and darn near all of them played an offset guitar at one point or another in their 1990-1995 lifespan, and the Jazzmaster was one of the most common and popular models to pick up on. The scene already started in the late 80's with J.Mascus in his band Dinosaur Jr., of course there's Sonic Youth, you had the etherial washes of sound from My Bloody Valentine with Kevin Shields behind - you guessed it - a Jazzmaster. While the biggest band of the lot - Nirvana - never had a Jazzmaster in their fold, Kurt's widow Courtney Love was using one on the "Live Through This" tour and the Miss World Music video. Chris Cornell would don one with Soundgarden once in awhile prior to Superunknown. Gavin Rossdale's main guitars up until a couple albums in with Bush were all Jazzmasters including a purple one with a Bigsby, and a Japanese one with dual humbuckers installed. John Fruschante's replacement had a late 70's model as the 90's started closing in. The Jazzmaster was one of the most popular guitars of the ealry 90's, and you never would have known it had you walked into your local music shop back then, because if they got one in, it sold right away, but still the industry was scared of keeping some in stock. Plus they were not cheap, a Jazzmaster in 1995 - meaning a Japanese one with Seymour Duncans - was around $550 used.

As the 90's Ended, Fender started finally noticing the growing popularity of these guitars and put a new high-end version in their new American Vintage series. The American Vintage Jazzmaster was a reissue of the 1962 Fender Jazzmaster, but built at the Corona Califorrnia plant, to exacting specifications. These guitars were almost $2000 new in 2000, and rarely seen in any music shop, especially local. Meanwhile, more people picked them up as the decade turned over, and as the younger Gen X and older Gen Y crowd got old enough to actually throw down the dough for a Jazzmaster, Fender warmed up and started offering more options than a Japanese copy or an American remake.

By 2008, we started to see Signature model Jazzmasters released, which included the Troy Van Leeuwin model (Queens of the Stone Age), a J.Mascuius Japanese model in purple sparkle, later released as a Squier model in blonde that's still made to this day, A Lee Ranaldo and Thurston Moore models respectively that came with stickers you could apply yourself (a bit anti-punk if you think about it), just to name a few. Also coming not long after was a new Black and Blonde Squier model in 2010 (which I still wonder if someone at Fender was admiring my home-build, lol), which did alright, but was later eclipsed by a Squier VM model in 2013, that was a truly vintage style Jazzmaster in the sub $500 category new.

At present, in 2022, Fender now has the eAmerican Professional II with it's new updated version of the classic vibrato, the Acoustisonic Jazzmaster, an acoustic electric Jazzmaster with a bridge humbucker, The American Ultra Jazzmaster, the Vintera 60's Jazzmaster, the dual humbucker "Player" Jazzmaster, the Jim Root Jazzmaster, a new version of the Troy Van Leeuwen model, The American Performer, and the American origina - just to list the american models. Crazy to think because only 10 years ago we only hald half as many, and 20 years ago, there was only two to buy.

Why is it naturally aspirated, first off, Jazzmaster pickups generally sit in Gibson T-Top humbucker and P-90 territory as far as ohms reading and output, however, their tone is DRASTICALLY different. A lot of people confuse "P-90 "Soapbars" " with Jazzmaster pickups (which are actually more accurately "Soap Bar" sized actually). Basically, these pickups are built like a pancaked Stratocaster pickup - 2 pieces of flatwork, with a coil about 3/16" deep, wrapped around six alnico magnet pole pieces. The output, due to the larger bobbin, comes up to between 7.0K Ohms and as high as 9 or 10K Ohms. However, the wider field with a heavier focus in the middle of the pickup leads to an interesting, salty, chimey, yet kinda' "pissed off Telecaster on steroids" sound. There's a considerable bit more lows and highs to the Jazzmaster, with the mids sucked out due to pickup design and pots used. This leads to a flat-level mids that's incredibly good for hard rock.

The typical "heavy" Jazzmaster application is to run the neck pickup through a cranked to hell fuzz pedal - ie Big Muff, ProCoRat, Fuzz Face, or some other fuzz device. Jazzmasters are bloody amazing for fuzztone guitar - BUT, not a lot of people play these through a cranked Marshall - because it involves understanding the Jazzmaster's unique tonal characteristics, and tone stack.

While the wide-flat pickups wiith hotter windings provide more low and high end, the 1MEG pots on the lead circuit really enhance the "Twang" to a point that the lack of capacitance within the circuit leads to a fuller frequency response. Wiht a 16K ohm humbucker - say a Duncan J.B. - in a scenario where the guitarist chooses to play with "full up gain" - they have the knob DIMED to 11. Some people, like me, LIKE this twangy, biting response of a Jazzmaster through a cranked British high-gain tube amp. But to some, it's not "heavy" enough because the fatness is lost through the 1MEG pots. So with a Jazzmaster, a very high gain amp - ie. TSL, Rectifier, Peavey JSX/XXX, Engle Powerball, Carvin X-series...might call for taming those highs using the volume or tone controls. I often roll my volume back to about 7 in a pinch, or the tone to 7. Seems that's the lucky number on the Jazzmaster - at least for me - "7" - then it starts to sound more like a cranked Gibson with T-tops or vintage PAF pickups in it, albeit with a little more hum, and a better "bite".

However, the nice thing here, is say.....you're covering ZZ Top's medley Waitin' for the Bus/Jesus Just Left Chicago...which changes from a fat Les Paul type tone to a Fender Esquire, I can just crank the Jazzy flat out once we hit "Jesus" and get that twang, and still keep the gain, giving it a really cool, high-gain "fender" tone that's unique. While I describe it as a "pissed off Tele" - it would be closer to a early 50's Blackguard with a 7K single coil. I mean that thing can CRUNCH!.

The gain reduction for thickness is also a good training tool on how to be a better lead guitarist in general. Most of us who got used to playing metal, keep playing lead with the gain just cranked, but a lot of the masters - Eddie Van-Halen, GEorge Lynch, Glenn Tipton/KK Downing, or even in some cases, Kirk/James of Metallica - really did not use as much gain as it sounds like. That's why their leads sound so clear and cutting - because sometimes gain can be "too much". Go listen to Van-Halen - a Jazzmaster is totally capable of the "Brown Sound" if you back off the volume on the lead circuit a little bit (Similiarly a flat-out Jaguar cranked does the same thing).

For the bridge system, I use the same setup I do on the Jaguar - low E saddle cantered lower toward the bass side, heavier spring on the high and Low E strings to box in the middle four and make the assembly stronger. Threadlock/tape in threads of saddle screws (or even jammed in import screws - that's how I did my Jaguar), no trem lock, bar gets roughly the same range as the Jaguar, but a ltitle less floppy due to the longer 25.5" Scale length.

But the Jazzmaster has some real good pros for hard rock. We have wide, flat single coils measuring around 7-9K Ohms each, we have a lot of circuitry with quite a wide range of adjustment, we have a skinny neck, a vibrato with more movement than a bigsby, and a respectable string path.

The only things going against it is the 60 cycle hum of the pickups - one of the things the Jazzmaster is infamous for, and the fact that most metal players would find this guitar confusing to use if used to a single knob Charvel or the traditional 2 knob 1 switch esetup like my Paul Dean guitar has. And maybe the vibrato range.

A Jazzmaster through the normal, distorted tube amp or a pedal will get in that P-90 guitar range somewhat, but it's a little more twangy, and a little more "hollow" sounding because of a natrually scooped midrange. Unlike others on this page, it gets this from the pickups themselves rather than the shorter scale (because it' a 25.5" scale instrument - like a Strat or a Tele).