Barney Kessel — £500 · Sweet Spot Rig

• Feedback is unavoidable at high volume — embrace it with good amp positioning (angled away from the guitar) and lower gain settings
• The signature trait is glassy, clear headroom — don't try to push these amps into breakup with gain. Use a drive pedal in front and keep the amp fully clean
• Keep the amp at clean all the time — all texture and warmth comes from picking dynamics and the natural bloom of the amp's clean channel
• A slight clean compression (low ratio, slow attack) evens out strumming dynamics for chord accompaniment without audibly changing the tone.
• Amp bass should be at 6-7 — jazz tone needs warmth and fullness in the low end, especially with humbuckers that have natural midrange emphasis.
• A small room reverb or plate reverb at low mix level adds space without washing out the note definition that jazz harmony requires.

• ✗Using high-gain distortion — hollowbody guitars are designed for clean and light-drive use. High gain causes uncontrollable acoustic resonance that the pickup amplifies as noise.
• ✗Using the amp's volume at less than 4 — boutique clean amps are designed to be played at certain output levels. At very low volumes the tone is compressed and flat compared to full-level operation.
• ✗Expecting a clean tone to cover all playing dynamics — clean tone requires picking technique to do all the work. Lazy picking dynamics become very audible on a clean signal.
• ✗Keeping the tone knob at 10 — full treble on a jazz guitar gives a nasal, honky quality that sounds nothing like the warm round jazz ideal.
• ✗Using round-wound strings — they are brighter, last longer, and have more sustain, but they also sound more "electric" and less woody than flat-wounds for jazz.

Gibson ES-350 through a clean amplifier — Kessel was one of the top session and jazz guitarists of the 1950s-60s, appearing on countless recordings with his fluid, swinging bebop lines.