I am of the camp that the player makes the instrument sound right for blues, jazz, or what have you. I am also curious. What mandolins are you guys using for jazz playing?
LKN2MYIS thanks for joining the page. I play a baritone electric mandolin built by the famous but not so liked Ron Oates. I got it in 2001 and absolutely love it for Jazz and other styles that the guitar usually dominates. I do play alot of Jazz on my acoustic mando as well which is a Heritage H-5 but I really like the Bari for most of my Jazz and/or jazz like genres. I totally agree with your quote and its funny because there is alot of people out there that think the mando is for certain genres and often freak out when you tell them that you play Jazz on it. I always tell them its not up to the instrument to decide what to play its the player. Check out the cool article that jazzmando.com did on me last week. http://jazzmando.com/new/archives/001170.shtml
I am in the process of setting up a Paris Swing Jorgenson model for exclsuive jazz use.
I just finished playing the Sun Valley Jazz Jambouree with a Lawrence Smart 10 string fanned fret mandolin silmilar to this one: I raised a lot of eyebrows at the Fest for sure, maybe because of the odd instrument, maybe because of the bad playing, I'm not sure! I have a custom Clark (not Austin Clark) archtop guitar shaped 4 string walnut mandolin with flatwounds that is really cool for some swing music.
After seeing Jason Annick, my choice for my rare ventures into swing territory is a 4-string Kentucky E-Mando, that seems to have the same lipstick pickup. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SPG0SPmcG0
I worked up most of my repertoire on a 5-string Ryder solid body, and now use either an Almuse 10-string solid body or my Buchanan 10-string acoustic with Ryder pickup.
I use my jbovier 4 string els. Middle switch position.
I recently got an ukrainian type domra. I used it for a little solo on the third chorus of "Take the A train"
