Who is gigging doing swing, jazz, blues and r&b with a

[joeyv]

Who is gigging in a band or small trio doing swing, jazz, blues and r&b with a LesPaul? :?:
How do you like it?
Anything you dont like?
What about comfort?
Last week was my first gig using the LesPaul Custom and the guys were kind of like..."Hey Joe, you look funny playing that guitar" It kind of bummed me out..I been a Tele and strat guy along time but why would they think that..I think the LP custom is a beautiful guitar..all shiny and black with the bling ,bling gold hardware, big fat tones,,,smooth and creamy big and round..nice twang when you want it...funky solid rythm sound with both pickps on...whats not to like?....so I'm not a rocker any more , hey I still like to rip with a cranked amp once in a while however I'm just a guy playing clean music jazz, R&b, blues, some country etc stuff alot folks probably would put on the border of Elevator music ..is 39 years old to old to play a LesPaul? Les Paul plays a Les Paul..and he is like 140 years old...why do you think they said that?

[jazztop]

I suppose they were confused because you had a new guitar. Les Paul's can be used for jazz/blues. I play mine that way, but haven't brought it to a gig.
One of the greatest electrtic jazz guitar or blues sounds is the Les Paul with P90's. It also a really classy looking instrument, as you say.
Too old to play a particluar type of guitar??? According to whom?

Phil[/code]

[Paul G.]

Most people are used to the mushy distorted '80s sound with a Les Paul, but that's not what the guitar does best (if you ask me).

Through a reasonably clean, reasonably bright amp a Les Paul has a beautiful crispness with body that works real well for more mature styles of music.

As far as comfort, a Les Paul's small body and perfect balance belies its weight. Mine is fairly light at 8-1/2 lbs., but I've owned (and gigged) a 1972 Custom that must have weighed 10 lbs. with no ill effects.

I also use a 335 and so much prefer the position of the controls on the LP, I can flip the pickup selector in the middle of a solo (or even a phrase), and the 2 volumes can be worked simultaneously if I like, with the side of my hand.

The Gibson Les Paul has been considered a desirable instrument since the mid sixties for good reason.

P.

[charliechitlins]

It's fun to crank a Paul and do Gary Moore or Billy Gibbons, but my favorite tones were always the fat middle and neck positions with minimal overdrive.
I would even use the neck pickup and roll off the tone a tad.
Sweet!
Although...before I got a real wide strap, my pinky would start to go numb some time in the 3rd set.

[alvis]

Remember friends,the Les Paul was intended as a jazz /swing/50s pop axe,the kind of thing it's namesake was famous for. It was only by accident it became the rock icon that it is

John Lee Hooker,Muddy Waters,Jody Williams,were all playing Goldtops in the 50s.And of course Freddie King

Supposedly Eric Clapton wanted a goldtop like Freddie King's 54 but could find "only" a sunburst

I use mine for just about everything.I have tapped humbuckers for the times when I can't bring the tele,not quite the same but I still manage to get some good country tones out of it

[gottapaul]

I'm a blues player!!!
I still prefer my strat, but I get more compliments from people when I play out with my LP.

The only thing I have always hated about my Paul has been the weight.

Just a few months ago I sold my baby (my Les Paul of 5 years) and bought a Les paul Elegant. It is a little deeper in tone and a hell of a lot lighter. The body is chambered and believe it or not is probably lighter than my Strat.

The only thing weird with this guitar is that it is top heavy like an SG. I bought plastic perliod tuning buttons which stripped a lot of weight off of the head..now it's great. I haven't really noticed any loss in sustain, even though the older buttons had a lot more weight. (Solid brass / nickel plated)

[Bluesgtr20]

I'm a blues player!!!
I still prefer my strat, but I get more compliments from people when I play out with my LP.

The only thing I have always hated about my Paul has been the weight.

Just a few months ago I sold one my baby (my Les Paul of 5 years) and bought a Les paul Elegant. It is a little deeper in tone and a hell of a lot lighter. The body is chambered and believe it or not is probably lighter than my Strat.

The only thing weird with this guitar is that it is top heavy like an SG. I bought plastic perliod tuning buttons which stripped a lot of weight off of the head..now it's great. I haven't really noticed any loss in sustain, even though the older buttons had a lot more weight. (Solid brass / nickel plated)


How light is your elegant?

I also use a Les Paul for blues but I haven't gigged for 3 years, I really got the itch to do it again. I would love to see how my historic handles the live situation.

[gottapaul]

Believe it or not, it's equil, or mabe lighter that my alder strat.

Here is the catch...(at least with me an my finaces) I got this guitar on clearance, when Mars Music Shut down.

The elegant series is a hell of a lot more expensive. They usually have "AAA" quilt tops on them.

If the store wasn't going out of business and I got it lower than dealers cost, I probablt wouldn't have been able to buy mine!

[muffin man]

I've played fenders (teles and strats) for years. About 5 years ago I traded a gretsch tennessean for a beautiful black Les Paul standard. I use my LP for everything now. I play blues of all sorts, Freddy King, B.B. King, Allman bros. etc. I still use my strat for certain things but I'll strap on the LP and I won't put it down 'til the gigs over. The weight doesn't bother me at all. Forget what anybody says, you know best.

[stevedenver]

i love lps and have many-i think they CAN be used for any style of music, but there are better tools for every application,

lets face it LPs are a one trick pony soundwise-they sound like an lp-they dont have anywhere near the range of s strat or a tele or even a prs-they do one thing really really well. I am one of the few people i know of that play them clean as well as distorted-and clean they sound pretty cool.

without being a wise guy, the comparision to Les himself is not quite apples to apples in my book-with the exception of some very early recoridngs, Les used and uses an LP with low impedence pups which really sound different -nothing at all like a 'normal ' humbucker LP ( i have one of these LP recording model guitars) the low z pups seems to make for a unique and sometimes decidely thin and "bloopy" clean sound and has seemingly less sustain because they have lower signal output-thus a bit closer for quick staccato stuff)

LP's always have a les paul sound-lots of sustain, lots mid, not always great for comping or quick arpeggios -they arent as woody or as traditional sounding as a 175 or L5-but humbuckers can sound great, especially when eq'd , p90s have the cut-big fat single coil with warmth-and a slight 60 cycle hum

flat wounds help really a lot, but the bottom line is with a stop bar you get more sustain than with a trapeze tail-IMHO the trapeze lessen sustain and not decay is quicker, something i think is part of a 'jazz box sound' heavier strings will help quite a bit toward a jazz sound-

there are so many variations in lps it is hard to generalize, some are better than others -i love my lp artist for jazz-rib cutaway, a unique big woody non-muddy sound, especially in the neck position, overwhelming sustain but not too bad with flats and a t6 tail-sounds pretty good-but its never gonna sound like an L5-its really about your style and the sound you want-i like lps because they are punchy-but thats not always what you want for straight ahead jazz

[Kerry Vance]

..is 39 years old to old to play a LesPaul?

Very funny... ask Junior Watson. He's one of the best blues players out there and he's playing a gold top L.P. with P90's as his primary guitar. He's got to be in his 50's. Hearing him was the final push that made me buy one recently, too. It's lighter than most L.P.'s I've played and is very resonant. I'm crazy about it and don't give a rat's rear what it looks like or what anyone else thinks about it. I bought my first tele in 1965 and my first strat in 1969. I've been playing them ever since and still love them but haven't been this excited about a guitar in 20 years.
Kerry

[stevedenver]

and im 48 -what should i be playing that is suitable for an old fart-an accordian????? :D

i need all the help with my fashion statement that i can get :roll:

[CP]

joeyv,

You are definitely waaay toon old to be playing a Les Paul Custom!

Send it me.

[black_doug]

I've played fenders (teles and strats) for years. About 5 years ago I traded a gretsch tennessean for a beautiful black Les Paul standard. I use my LP for everything now. I play blues of all sorts, Freddy King, B.B. King, Allman bros. etc. I still use my strat for certain things but I'll strap on the LP and I won't put it down 'til the gigs over. The weight doesn't bother me at all. Forget what anybody says, you know best.

I have recently had a change in career & become self-employed due to being laid off - so had to make tough choices about which gear to sell . . . I've kept one electric (and one acoustic). The Fender Tele and Strat had to go but the Les Paul stays! I have a really nice light DC Plus in translucent black with chrome. Sounds great!

[Paul in Colorado]

You can get a lot of tones out of a Les Paul. The amp you use will make a big difference. I play a Historic '56 with P-90's using a Deluxe Reverb and a Mesa Studio .22+ and I can go from good country twang and nice jazz tone to English blues and all out rock.
I had a Humbucker equipped Heritage '80 that had a lot of range as well. I used it in my last band that played swampy rock and Lousiana music. I had no trouble finding appropriate tones.

[black_doug]

When it comes to tone from a LP, I gotta think that the wood has an effect on the tone. When I bought my Tele I was trying one made with an alder body and then the salesman suggested I try an ash body. I heard the difference and left with the ash one. Now we know that the wood has a density to it and density affects sustain and tone. Ash is generally more dense than alder. Maple is more dense than mahogany so a maple cap on the mahogany of a LP body is part that tone we all know and love. And then when the mahogany has chambers cut out, like some of the LP models, that's going to affect tone. Also, because wood density varies (slightly?) from one chunk of mahogany to the next, that has an effect. Am I right? I only have one LP, my first, and it's a LP DC Plus Standard. It has chambers in the mahogany.

[Charlie Vegas]

8) I play retro (40's & '50's) style Blues, Jump, Rockabilly, and Swing and I don't even own a hollow body. I played about 50 gigs last year with my '73 LP Deluxe and '99 Strat. The LP works well for pseudo T-Bone Walker and old type sounds and I like the short scale for Jimmy Reed like stuff. My LP has the original mini-buckers which I much prefer to full size humbuckers.

[black_doug]

If you love swing blues you surely have heard Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown play. A guitar he plays a lot is a Gibson Firebird (circa 1963?) with mini-humbuckers. It sounds wonderful! You can see a pic of it on the cover of his cd "Pressure Cooker". Highly recommended!

[Charlie Vegas]

:D Clarence is great. We opened for him in December of 2002 at Skipper's Smokehouse in Tampa where he played the firebird with the custom leather pickguard. Clarence and his band played on my band's gear. One of his band members (bass player?) was the tour manager and used my Blues Deluxe amp for Clarence. I only use the Blues Deluxe for harp, but he thought Clarence would be confused with my main guitar rig. He sounded good although not his usual tone.

After the gig we met up with him at Perkins and had breakfast together where he and the waitress playfully tormented each other. I'm not sure he knew we were his opening act or if he'd know who we were if we met him today. But what would you expect from a man now 79?

[Tele295]

My 54RI Les Paul Custom (Alnico V in neck, P90 at bridge) is a swing-jazz-blues MACHINE!

Danny Gatton used a 61 single-cutaway LPC with Redneck Jazz Explosion doing swing-jazz-blues - greatest Les Paul sound I've ever heard outside of the Man (Les) himself.