Gear Review: Fender Road Worn 60th Anniversary Jazz Bass

Fender Road Worn 60th Anniversary Jazz Bass review…

Have you ever played a Fender Jazz Bass from the 1960s and thought to yourself, “This is really smooth, sounds great, easy to play, I just wish I could afford it?” We all know that the Fender jazz basses nowadays from that era demand a pretty penny just to own them. Well, now you can!

Fender has just recently introduced the Fender 60th Anniversary Road Worn® Jazz Bass®, but if you want to grab one of these, you need to hurry, as they are only for a limited run.

I had the opportunity to play one of these fine basses on a few gigs and I must say, the feel and tone is superb. I’m not one to name-drop, but some of the folks I play in bands with have been around for a long time and have played with quite a few A-list artists. They were also quite impressed with the sound and the looks. They actually thought it was really from that time period.

Fender did a great job of making this bass not only look road-worn but feel that way too and is the closest to an original 60s jazz bass as you can get, while still being very affordable. 

So, let’s talk about specifications here for a little bit.

The Fender 60th Anniversary Road Worn® Jazz Bass® has an alder body with a Road Worn® Nitrocellulose Lacquer finish for the neck and body. The 34” scale neck is Maple with a mid-’60s “C” shape topped off with a Pau Ferro fingerboard with 20 medium jumbo frets and a 9.5” radius.

The pickups for neck and bridge positions are both 60th Anniversary Jazz Bass® Single Coil with stacked concentric controls which do volume and tone separately for each pickup. What I think about the tone control for each pickup is that it ‘clicks’ into position, so you can really dial in the tone you want and it will stay.

The bridge is the 4-saddle vintage-style with threaded steel saddles, tuners are vintage style reverses and all the hardware has a road-worn nickel/chrome finish. The pickguard is 4-ply tortoiseshell and the strings are Fender® USA 7250M Nickel Plated Steel gauges 0.45-105. 

The bass is available in 3 colors, Sunburst, Firemist Silver, and Olympic White. A hardshell case is also included.

Be sure to check out the Fender 60th Anniversary Road Worn® Jazz Bass® online or at a Fender music retailer near you! 

David C Gross has been the bassist for a lot of folks. He has written 14 bass books and 3 instructional videos, hosts “The Notes From An Artist Radio Show” on www.cygnusradio.com Monday nights 8 PM EDT, and the “Notes From An Artist” podcast available on iTunes, Spotify and all podcast platforms.

NFAA brings you behind the scenes with individuals who forged a timeless musical canon – spanning rock, jazz, funk, blues, folk, country, and permutations thereof. Listen to stories and anecdotes hitherto untold and relive more than a few chronicles that have become lore with a fresh vision. It’s the soundtrack of our lives. Celebrate the past, live in the present, and anticipate the future – take Notes From An Artist

You can contact David @ www.thebassguitarchannel.com/contact for more information regarding his online lessons and world-renown correspondence course.