A little help with choosing a Fender Bass

[klothos]

-snip-

thanks for the info, Pekka

[Pekka]

About the original question: early Squier JV series Jazz Basses are an excellent choice, they were made approx. in 1982-1984. Prices are getting higher 'though but with good luck you can grab one quite cheaply.
New Fender Jazz Basses made in Japan are superb too. They have plenty of versions to choose from 'though I'm not sure if every model is available outside Japan.

I have big hands and sometimes the thin Jazz neck is almost too thin or narrow for me. Same with the Thunderbird, my '76 T-Bird has even narrower neck at the saddle end than my Jazz Bass.

I absolutely love the Telecaster Bass (or the original single coil Precision Bass) neck. The good old baseball bat!

[Pekka]

thanks for the info, Pekka

You too. Plenty of good info about how the pickup placement contributes to the sound or voice of the bass. Not many think about it at all and say it doesn't matter. Why then the 70's Jazzes with bridge pickup closer to the bridge sound different than the 60's Jazz with the bridge PU farther?

I see you have your P/J bass with a reverse P config (from the gear thread). I prefer that config too in P/J basses. Yamaha BB2000 style.

[markowitz]

Great info, Pekka, thanks.

[wideopenears]

Where the pickup is positioned is the voice...With a single P-Pickup: All that happens when you move your plucking hand is get variations of ONE voice - its like making vowel sounds with one mouth

Twin pickups gives the person TWO voices to work with - I can make a Jazz Bass sound like Jaco by soloing the bridge PU and rolling back tone, I can dime both pickups and get a modern slap sound thats articulate because of the bridge voice, but I can also solo the mid -pickup and roll back tone to get a P-Bass sound out of one if I wanted to (granted, a lot thinner - but the voice is there - but the whole reason to own a Jazz is to not sound like a P-Bass )... A player can never get a bass with a single mid-mounted P-Bass pickup to sound even remotely like a Jazz and you can never get the nasal quality of the Jaco sound simply because a bridge pickup is non-existant on a standard P-Bass, no matter if you are plucking almost on top of the saddles

This, 100%.