Fender Custom Shop carefully studied Geddy Lee’s famous black ’72 Jazz bass and releases limited run replicas.
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The bass faithfully reproduces the neck shape, pickups, wiring and other details of the Geddy’s bass along with 35 years worth of wear and tear.
Geddy’s black ’72 Jazz bass had a humble beginning, purchased for $200 with no original case in 1977 from a pawnshop in Kalamazoo, Michigan. It went on to become the bass used on some of Rush’s biggest hits like Tom Sawyer and Limelight, greatly contributing to the band’s success.
Although Lee used it sparingly through the rest of ’80s and early ’90s, he fell in love with the bass again when engineer Kevin Shirley insisted that he use it on the 1993 album Counterparts. Since then, the bass has been his number-one bass, used on all Rush albums and tours. Geddy Leee considers it as “the benchmark against which all other basses are judged”.
Now Fender Custom Shop has got their hands on the instrument and meticulously replicated every detail, resulting in a limited run replica for a privileged few to appreciate – the Fender Limited Geddy Lee 1972 Jazz Bass.
The bass follows traditional J-bass builds, with a body made from alder. The body is wrapped with a nitrocellulose lacquer finish and it sports the same bumps and bruises found on the original – made possible by Fender Custom Shop’s experience in building “relic’ed” or artificially aged guitars.
The busy instrument is now on its third maple neck, which was also crafted by the Fender Custom Shop team. It features white binding and pearl inlays, a different look compared to the original black details. This new white look along with Lee-approved oil finish on the back of the neck, are carried over to the limited run models. The neck has a custom “C” profile with a scale length of 35 and comes with 20 medium jumbo frets.
Capturing the sound of the bass are Custom ’75 Hand-Wound Single-Coil Jazz Bass pickups, which are controlled via traditional set of knobs that controls the volume of the two pickups and the master tone setting. The wiring is modified, using .022uF Capacitor instead of a Traditional .05uF. Other features include Vintage-style locking tuners, 3-ply pearloid pickguard, Dunlop Straplocks, Leo Quan Badass II bridge and the hardware all come in nickel/chrome finish.
The Limited Geddy Lee 1972 Jazz Bass has an MSRP of $8,000. You can visit Fender for more information.
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