A Fine Early 1974 Custom Color Maple Neck Jazz Bass
One of the Very Last of the Four-Bolt Neck Models

1974 Fender Jazz Bass.

This medium-weight custom color Jazz Bass weighs just 9.60 lbs. Asymmetrical double cutaway, contoured solid alder body. One-piece maple neck with a very fast medium profile. Single-bound maple fretboard with 20 original jumbo frets and inlaid pearl block position markers. Headstock with type "C" decal with "Fender" in black with gold trim and four patent numbers "2,573,254  2,960,900  2,968,204  3,143,028" in black below, "Jazz Bass," "Trade Mark," and "Offset Contour Body" at the ball end of the headstock. Single round string tree. Individual Fender tuners with oval "paddle" metal buttons. Four-bolt neck plate with the Fender backward "F" logo and the serial number "538780" above it. Two eight-polepiece, single-coil pickups with nicely balanced outputs of 7.35k and 7.96k. Three-layer white/black/white plastic pickguard with beveled edges and ten screws. Three controls (two volume blend controls, one for each pickup, and one master tone control) and jack socket, all on metal plate adjoining pickguard. The neck is dated "02 03 05 43" (February 1974) and the potentiometers are stamped "137 7405"  (CTS, Feb 1974). Black plastic knobs with white markings. Combined 'Standard' individually height-adjustable four-saddle bridge tailpiece. Complete with both original bass pickup and bridge pickup covers, the bridge cover complete with the original mute. The Lake Placid Blue body color is bright, fresh and unfaded. When we purchased this bass we noticed that the treble pickup was not reading correctly so we sent the bass to our luthier Scott Lentz who has successfully restored the pickup back to its former glory. There is a line of 'cord burn' on the back where the guitar has 'sat' on the coiled cord for a prolonged period of time. There is one small 'ding' (the size of a match-head) on the top of the bass-horn, and a couple of very small and insignificant other marks on the back and the sides. At first glance this forty-one year old bass looks brand new - but because of the aforementioned marks we shall just give it a conservative (9.00+) exceptionally fine rating. Complete with the original Fender black leather guitar strap, an original black 'coiled' guitar cord, original Fender polishing cloth and two case keys. Housed in the original Fender three-latch, rectangular black hardshell case with reddish orange plush lining (9.00). Certainly the cleanest '74 LPB Jazz Bass that we have ever seen…

In late 1973 - early 1974, Fender in their infinite wisdom changed the standard four-bolt neck fixing for the (in my opinion) inferior three-bolt micro-tilt neck fixing - this is one of the very last of the original four-bolt examples. (DJB)

"After the introduction of the Jazzmaster in 1958, Fender needed an upscale model to augment the bass line. In 1960, Leo's new Jazz Bass borrowed the offset waist and part of the name from the Jazzmaster. It also featured a narrower neck width, which was faster playing than the Precision Bass" (J.W. Black and Albert Molinaro, The Fender Bass, p. 25).