59s are plenty warm for jazz, so is a jazz neck.
He did not say he wanted a smooth overdriven tone, he said he wanted a warm straight ahead jazz tone. They also have a nice piano like bass response which is good. Also - a clearer pickup means you can roll off the treble on the amp a little more which i find very pleasing to the ears.
The warmth that people immediately regognize in classic jazz tones is gained in an unusual way...its using the rolled back volume and tone knobs a little to smooth oof the sound. Why do they do that i hear you ask? why dont they leave the tone and volume at 10 and use pedals or channel switching etc?
A lot of rock and blues players juts do everything with the volume on 10 cos its brighter and more present (plus gets more overdrive). Getting the right clean and warm jazz tone is different. here's why:
Saxophones dont have gain, pedals etc...the player mixes himself uning the mic and his breath.
Same goes for all wind instruments.
Pianos have an enormous dynamic range, so they use their fingers for mixing themselves.
Drummers in a jazz context use their hands too.
its all very subtle right?live sound engineers tend to set up the mics and then let the band do the rest.
A lot of straight jazz players use very little in the way of effects (mike stern et al notwithstanding) , generlaly you can say its guitar into amp. Its to gain maximum timbral response from the fingers. a clear unadorned sound gives a lot of scope for subtlety - kinda like how a classical player shapes their tone, or a sax or violin etc....
Now an electric guitar in a jazz combo spends a lot of time comping. in a jazz context a lot of that is about subtlety and blending - hence the use of the volume and tone knobs.
Same goes for lead - often if the player opens up the volume knob, they get a big extra dose of brightness, so they roll off the tone to keep that warm fat sound. Or - in the case of many many players, they dont often roll their volume up to 10 (if at all). As a result, pickups with wide frequency response work great, because the give the player a lot of flexibility to shape tones with subtlety and the musical context is constantly changing around them.
Its a whole different approach to the classic rock or blues thing, where you often kinda have a preset, clean tone, crunch rhythm and lead boost, then just switch between pickups of use different pedals for colour.
Thats why im recommending the 59 and or the jazz. Listening to you tube clips with someone jamming along using a lot of overdrive to with a synthy backing track is totally different from sitting in with a straight jazz band.
ps...treble detail is not by definition the opposite to warmth.
There is nothing wrong with some treble in a jazz tone too...listen to grant green (a gibson 330 with p90s) or wes montgomery (l5 thru a fender twin usually) or even charlie christian (again a single coil) . All 3 players have very different set ups, but they all sound warm. Check out Kenny Burrell too listen to how much work he does on the volume/tone knobs. or george benson. Kurl Rosenwinklel or Jonathan Kreisberg.
Seymour knew waht he was doing when he designed the jazz btw.....
