Why do guitarists in jazz trios play with a muddy tone?

GuyBoden

Jazz on a Tele, muddy, but great playing.

Van_Hayden

Jazz on a tele can be great - and doesn't feedback....

mellowsun

Wes' tone in that vid isn't muddy at all, and the sound fits perfectly with the rest of the band.

The other two vids, yes, the sound was pretty muddy. Not my thing at all, but obviously many people like that sound and that's fine.

I like to hear piano-like trebles and bass. I think it's particularly important if you are playing without a piano and the guitar is effectively filling that role.

Van_Hayden

Round Midnight by my pal Adrian. On a tele with some string bending thrown in.






Shameless plug, I rewound his neck pickup.

GuyBoden

I like this, but some might call this noodling.

Van_Hayden

For some Jazz is noodling.

Megii

Van_Hayden said:

Hmm, not sure I agree with a lot of the above. Most people think they should play jazz with a muddy tone but.....

Wes, Burrell, Farlow etc didn't have a muddy tone. Listen and you can hear the pick attack and a nice balanced tone. You can hear the chords and lower strings cleanly.

Most people think it should be dull. And they buy a Polytone. The amp single handedly responsibly for making everything sound dark (because they have a nasty harsh treble you have to turn down). Now they buy AERs which have a similar annoying treble.

The old guys were using big valve amps - Fender Twins, Deluxes, Super Reverbs. Modern jazz players insist on having the lightest tiniest amp, invariably solid state and invariably a bit crap.

Was about to post anyway then saw your post VH, which does raise some interesting points. I absolutely agree re Wes etc not having a muddy tone. And any tone that could be described as "muddy" does not sound like a good idea to me, so I tend to think any jazz guitarists using such a sound probably are getting it wrong. Perhaps there are a few too many like that out there, I don't know. Every time I look in "Guitar Techniques" at a jazz article, they advise turning down the tone control to a low number - perhaps bad advise which budding jazz guitarists should ignore?

I do fit the description of a "jazz guitarist that plays standards" and play in several jazz groups (non of them a trio) - my guitar's tone control is mostly on 10, or just backed off a tad, never anywhere near turned down fully. I like a warm tone (warm does not equal muddy in my book) but with some zing and chime there in the upper frequencies - something that still has some definition and nuance. I have used a neck humbucker, and still do sometimes, but these days it tends to be some sort of single-coil pickup - sometimes a tele, but not always.

Where I do politely disagree is re Polytone amps - I bought one back in about 1995, and still use it - to me it sounds great, and definitely does not have to produce the muddy cliche tone. Other guitarists sometimes think it is a valve amp actually, based on the tone, and I do get compliments re the tone sometimes. I don't detect the harsh treble you describe - I usually have mine set with the treble and mids set just over half way, and the bass cut a little. Didn't Benson use a Polytone? just to name one great jazz guitarist - I would never have called his tone muddy. Although no argument re the nice Fender valve amps you name, those can sound really superb.

Megii

Hmm, some great examples of great jazz guitarists whose tone apparently can be described as muddy above - those all sound great to me. I think perhaps I should retract what I said above, and just say that muddy can actually be good.

octatonic

GuyBoden said:

I like this, but some might call this noodling.

Man that guy is good.

Really terrific playing.

frankus

Might it just be that with the treble rolled off all the instruments occupy different frequency ranges.

ICBM

I have to admit that most of those do sound unnecessarily muddy to me, with the exceptions of Wes, Adrian Ingram and Kurt Rosenwinkel, which are just about perfect. It's not just mixing by EQ, it removes all the detail of the playing as well - they sound unnatural compared to the acoustic instruments in the same recording.

On the other hand I find the typical blues-rock middy (and still definitely muddy in its own way) overdriven tone more objectionable.

GuyBoden

Maybe, one reason is that many Jazzers only use the neck pickup or only have a neck pickup.

57Deluxe

...is not Muddy it is all the treble rolled off... Reason is, is  that the electrified Jazz Guitar emanates from the era of the 'Big Band' when the guitar was used for providing nothing more than 'wallpaper' to the main tune - expansive but unobtrusive.

Megii

I've always liked Pat Martino's playing, and indeed his guitar tone - I guess it could be muddy, but to me it has a deepness. Maybe a somewhat veiled quality sometimes, but that seems to work for him, kind of powerful, but without having to try too hard, or something...  ">  Have always loved his tone on this one, what do people think?

ICBM

GuyBoden said:

Maybe, one reason is that many Jazzers only use the only neck pickup or only have a neck pickup.

Not at all, the neck pickup - even a humbucker - with the tone control not turned down is quite a clear, bright tone. Full, but not muddy. To get that kind of playing-under-a-blanket sound you have to deliberately turn the tone control right down or set the amp like that.

Megii said:

I've always liked Pat Martino's playing, and indeed his guitar tone - I guess it could be muddy, but to me it has a deepness. Maybe a somewhat veiled quality sometimes, but that seems to work for him, kind of powerful, but without having to try too hard, or something...  ">  Have always loved his tone on this one, what do people think?

*Just* too muddy. Not far off, but there's still that artificial 'blanket' tone to it.

I think, like mellowsun, that this is one of the reasons I can't get into jazz guitar. It doesn't sound natural to me, it's actually irritating in the same way as a too-harsh sound is in the wrong context. If it *was* in a mix, where it was intentionally set like that in order to leave space for something with more treble content (including vocals) it would probably sound great, but in near-isolation it just sounds wrong, to me.

frankus

guys it's really simple - early guitars only used the neck as it was louder, the sound of the amps was too harsh because they were driven to keep up with the rest of the band (in the days of no master volume amps) to tame that they'd roll off the tone on the guitar (unless the amp had eq).

As for bemoaning the sound - you like the sound of Les Pauls through Marshalls - it's 40 years old!!! Someone likes a sound that's 80 years old SO WHAT?

GuyBoden

mellowsun said:

The sax player seemed to be better at improvising a cool melody, whereas the guitarist seem to be more interested in creating harmonic interest.

Yes, creating good improvised "melody" in Jazz is very difficult, mainly due to the complexity of Jazz harmony, with lots of key and chord changes.

GuyBoden

But maybe some people just like it muddy:

ICBM

frankus said:

guys it's really simple - early guitars only used the neck as it was louder, the sound of the amps was too harsh because they were driven to keep up with the rest of the band (in the days of no master volume amps) to tame that they'd roll off the tone on the guitar (unless the amp had eq).

As for bemoaning the sound - you like the sound of Les Pauls through Marshalls - it's 40 years old!!! Someone likes a sound that's 80 years old SO WHAT?

Just because something was necessary 80 years ago to get around a technical problem in a particular context doesn't mean you should use it today in a different context.

I love the sound of a Les Paul through a Marshall from 40 years ago, yes - but it's a balanced sound which sounds good both in a mix and in isolation.

I also love the sound of a harsh punky fuzz-tone *in a band mix* with a lot of other stuff going on, but not as a solo sound because it's usually just irritating.

mellowsun

GuyBoden said:

mellowsun said:

The sax player seemed to be better at improvising a cool melody, whereas the guitarist seem to be more interested in creating harmonic interest.

Yes, creating good improvised "melody" in Jazz is very difficult, mainly due to the complexity of Jazz harmony, with lots of key and chord changes.

Not all jazz is like that though. And why do jazz guitarists tend to noodle more than sax or piano players, who tend to create more interesting, flowing lines?