Jazz Guitar recommendations.

Loobs

Maybe look at Eastman 335 variants. 

Matt_McG

For what it's worth, most of the early jazz greats didn't use flatwounds. They were invented later than you think.

I'm with @octatonic ; -- just play whatever you have, and concentrate on technique.

Here's George Benson letting rip on a shreddy solid body:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jdH1T8hc9c

This clip never gets old for me. The pure joy in the singing and playing, and the guy is still destroying it.

That said, it sounds like image might matter, if you are going for a certain kind of gig, so by all means, the Ibanezes and Epiphones are all pretty good in my experience, although the cheaper Artcores sound a bit "scratchy" to me.

carlos

Ray Suhy plays Death Metal for Six Feet Under and Jazz for his quartet using the same guitar.

ROOG

I would suggest trying one of the Peerless range. I liked the Ibanez George Benson too but they are a bit rich for me. 

lysander

I actually much prefer that type of tone for jazz to the usual jazz box : 
https://youtu.be/5kcmui5Eh6k

DaiCapp

I have a Epi Joe Pass that's great for jazz but I prefer my Gibson 330 - the Epi equivalent would be a Casino. For the kind of stuff I play the slightly more gritty P90's work better...

stratcat

Funnily enough lots of people play rock and heavy metal on a guitar "made for" and named after the jazz guitarist Les Paul.

carlos

@adamino ;
I'm considering selling my Peerless Manhattan if you're interested - http://guitarsnjazz.com/product/peerless-manhattan/
It's a 17 inch archtop w/ a floating neck pickup. That's about as far as you can go in the jazz guitar direction since it has the biggest body and no centre block. Let me know.

DB1

I like the Manhattan. Very nice indeed.

Jalapeno

carlos said:

 
I'm considering selling my Peerless Manhattan if you're interested - http://guitarsnjazz.com/product/peerless-manhattan/
It's a 17 inch archtop w/ a floating neck pickup. That's about as far as you can go in the jazz guitar direction since it has the biggest body and no centre block. Let me know.

Cracker !

carlos

Thanks @DB1 and @Jalapeno it's a really cool guitar but I can't imagine myself getting a gig where it would be suitable.

JayGee

Jalapeno said:

carlos said:

 
I'm considering selling my Peerless Manhattan if you're interested - http://guitarsnjazz.com/product/peerless-manhattan/
It's a 17 inch archtop w/ a floating neck pickup. That's about as far as you can go in the jazz guitar direction since it has the biggest body and no centre block. Let me know.

Cracker !

Or just about anything by Peerless - they really do seem to have the affordable archtop thing cracked. I have a Peerless Gigmaster SC, which is a Gibson ES 295-a-like and while the P90 pickups gold finish and Bigsby give it more of a Scott Moor rockabilly or George Thorogood scuzzy blues[1] rather than jazz vibe In the right hands (not mine!) it sounds great for Jazz.

I ended up playing a whole bunch or Peerless guitars (not because I specifically wanted a Peerless but because they seemed to have cornered the market for archtops in my price bracket so there were a lot of them on the wall...) when I bought mine, and every one of them was a damned fine instrument in its own way!

[1] Which is what I actually bought it for, although shortly afterwards I ended up playing it in a punk band. Go figure...