Here's one smooth jazzer.

New from Ibanez for 2012

I had a noodle on this beautiful Chinese Ibanez jazz guitar today. The Artcore Jazz series of archtop guitars just keeps getting better and better. The AKJ85 is a major jump up from the regular AF and AG series with many more deluxe features such as a superbly flamed top and back and sides with multiple white/black/white binding around the body and f holes. It was nice to see Ibanez actually recognise these archtops a jazz guitars and not just hollow bodied semi acoustics in giving them real jazz flatwound strings. The guitar comes fitted with a wooden bridge and if that's a little too jazzy for you they have included a (metal) Tune-O-Matic style bridge which is an easy swap. Why anyone would want to do this is beyond me though. The traditional trapeze style tail piece is also a nice touch and gone are the plastic hat box speed knobs which have been replace by the cool George Benson Sure Grip knobs. Unfortunately Ibanez haven't gone as far as giving us a real Switchcraft pickup selector switch and the elcheapo box switch with the hex nut is still clunking. While the box switch may be reliable it's awfully 'loud'. It may not be a Gibby 175 but neither is the price at just $995 retail. The pickups are the ACH1/2 with the ceramic mags which may not be the choice for most humbucker fans who would prefer the rounder tones of alnico magnets but personally I prefer the edge of the ceramics in a jazz guitar. The tuners are high geared Grover copies and would take some getting use to, there's a lot of winding for not a lot of pitch change. The neck is three piece maple/mahogany/maple so you wont be pushing this one out of tune. The finger board is rosewood with faux pearl block inlays and the action is low low low, hence fast, though I didn't notice any speed difference in my playing. Acoustically the guitar is quite bright being a laminate and coated in juicy poly so don't expect it to sound like a nice old L5 with a hand carved spruce top, it doesn't. However, nothing comes near the AKJ85 in build quality and playability in the sub thousand dollar price range for an archtop hollow body jazzer.