G&L Doheny Honey Burst Gloss Maple neck reverse matching headstock
The G&L Doheny is Leo Fender's Jazzmaster® re-imagined. The name "Doheny" comes from a famous SoCal beach immortalized in the 60's surf scene. And being a G&L, the Doheny takes its cues from the 60's and brings it forward; including all new JM-style pickups made with G&L's signature Magnetic Field Design construction, passive treble-bass tone circuit, and their rock solid Dual Fulcrum Vibrato. This very tricked out Doheny is no one-trick Surf Pony and the Doheny takes the essence of the Leo's offset shape and distills it into a package that is arguably more usable in a wider range of situations. This 2021 USA-made G&L Doheny features
G&L non-compression truss rod for consistent, even relief
G&L deluxe tolex hardshell case
Made in USA with G&L custom build sheet
With the G&L Doheny, G&L has applied their poetic license to Leo's Jazzmaster offset shape, combining vintage styling with Leo's late-career innovations such as MFD pickup construction, dual fulcrum vibrato, and passive treble and bass controls. The Doheny also sports it's own unique 21-fret neck (all other G&L's are 22).
The optional Swamp Ash body pairs particularly well with the MFD pickups. With good low end, sweet detailed highs and less pronounced mids than Alder, the ash body is a great complement to the dynamic nature of the MFD's, and allows the player to fully exploit their full range of capabilities.
And about those pickups: The MFD design uses a fairly low resistance coil (neck is ~5.8K ohms and bridge is ~6.2) with a strong ceramic magnet in the base of the pickup. While that sounds like a P-90, they sound nothing like that. They feature strong, full range frequency response, a high signal-to-noise ratio, and and great clarity and touch sensitivity. The neck pickup has a strong piano-ish low end, touch sensitive mids, and a top end that is Strat® like but smoother. It has the "MFD" tone, but it's a little fuller than the ASAT Special, but not as midrange-forward and aggressive as the Comanche. The neck pickup has a lot of low end content, and rolling off the guitar's bass knob can have quite an effect on the overall character.
When thinking about "Jazz," the Jazzmaster bridge pickup does not spring to mind. Real Jazzmasters can be crackly-bright, and while the Doheny has plenty of MFD clarity and brilliance, it's more balanced and in terms of low and midrange content. The Swamp Ash body helps here too, smoothing the mids and slightly softening the top. And like with most MFD pickups, the best tones are not always with the controls dimed. Various amounts volume, tone and bass roll off reveal a range of possibilities from country to funk, to punk. If there was a guitar made for the passive bass-treble circuit, this is probably it.
MFD's are a great pedal pickup, for both modulation and gain. Their clarity and note separation sounds dreamy through chorus and delays; and their strong output and wide frequency response produces harmonically detailed and articulate crunch tones.
The Doheny is not a rehash of some other G&L, and while purists may love the original Jazzmaster for its quirks, the G&L Doheny takes the essence of the Leo's offset shape and distills it into a package that is arguably more usable in a wider range of situations. First and foremost it's a G&L, and the large Jazz MFD's have their own character that lend themselves easily to Country, Rock and Funk. Their affinity for pedals lets hard rockers get in the game, and G&L's PTB controls are an excellent tone shaping tool.
We are an authorized G&L Premier dealer located in Bellingham, Massachusetts, and this is a new guitar with all tags, tools, paperwork and certificates. We have over 25 G&L's in stock at all times, and please feel free to browse our other listings, or contact us for information on a custom order. You can contact us at 508-657-1817.
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