Jazzmaster - Now With Added Mojo

Well, I have to say before I start that this little missive may contain a touch of excitedness.

I am trying to appear calm and professional, like normal, but am not so sure that I can pull it off.

Here goes though.

As I have mentioned once or twice, I like Jazzmasters. I like them a lot.

Over the years I have had quite a few. I have had a couple of American ones, and I've lost count of the Japanese ones. I even had a 1968 original for a while. I've not owned any of the Mexican ones or the recent Squiers, as I've yet to find one that doesn't sound more Stratty to me than what I want it to sound like, but I'm sure I will.

In that time I have also tried a variety of pickups to try and catch the real Jazzmaster sound. I love the old sound of Jazzmasters, the proper dark-yet-clear tone you got on the original ones, and with the exception of one MIJ one, it isn't something I've heard from Fender's stock pickups.

Of the after market pickups, I'd have to say the Curtis Novak ones come closest. I've tried a couple of sets and they are really good - maybe slightly brighter than I'd expect, but on the money. Tres expensivo from this side of the water, but worth it.

The Seymour Duncan Antiquities were good too, though not quite right. No banana.

And so on.

Anyway, when I came to upgrade my little MIJ JM, I was planning on trying Jess Loureiro's ones. His P90 and Tele pickups were great and it was worth a pop.

Before I got my act together and ordered some though, I came across Mojo Pickups - I was looking at their Tele pickups, and ended-up having a chat with Marc who runs them.

Cutting a long story, I took the plunge and he wound me a set and also suggested that his PIO capacitors were worth a try, being Jazzmaster specific and rather pretty

It might have been me who mentioned their prettiness.

And so today, copping out on everything else, I finally installed the pickups, caps, new pots and switches along with a proper red torty scratchplate and aged covers and knobs. The knobs are genuinely old, I thought I should make that distinction.

Obviously I scratched the new scratchplate and generally it ended-up with a hint-of-Jook, but such is life.

And then I plugged it in, and I have to say I couldn't quite believe the sound.

I'll be honest now, I wasn't sure what to expect.

I had heard somebody else rave about Mojo's JM pickups, but we all do that about new gear, if only to justify it to ourselves, so I took it with a handgrippedfull of salt.

But even strumming a few things clean I couldn't believe how good they sounded. (Not my usual response to my own playing), and then adding a bit of reverb just took me into surf heaven. From there I played a bit louder and things got fuzzier, but even with a full-on face of fuzziness, there was still a clarity to it that was just beautiful.

It is really hard to describe the change in the sound the pickups/caps have made, but I'd deliberately played the same guitar with the Fender MIJ pickups in for a while this morning, and the difference between what I thought was pretty decent to these is crazy.

Not so much taking cotton wool out of your ears as going from a 12" black and white portable to a 43" 3D HD Plasma. It just feels alive somehow that it never did before.

Don't get me wrong, I loved playing this guitar anyway - there wasn't really anything that big that I felt needed 'fixing' which has only shocked me more.

(This isn't meant to be turning into an infomercial, even though I can feel my hair waving and teeth whitening as I type.)

I really don't know what else to say about them. I will do some recordings so you can see what I mean, but over the last couple of years I've built 50ish guitars, used all sorts of pickups from god knows how many different winders and gurus, but I can honestly say that this is the biggest change in any guitar I've ever known. Tis as simple as that.

I think you know where this is going, I'm going to be having to check out some more of this chap Marc's wares. The geezer has got something going on that's a bit special.

Yours, gobsmacked of Portishead.

Check out Mojo HERE