Wadcutter, the reason a lot of players like the J-45 is that good ones will give you a very even tonal balance, like a Triple O or OM, but while retaining the power and volume level of a large body guitar. I first started playing guitar to back up fiddleplayers back home in my native state of Missouri, and the J-45's in particular are great guitars for playing backup for that traditional Missouri-style fiddling and - especially - playing backup for Texas Swing fiddling.
In that Texas style, the guitarplayer plays a chord change on every melody note with a chord that corresponds to that note, so, for example, if the melody notes stay within a G chord, with them going G, B, D, G, F, instead of backing all that with a G chord and maybe going to a G7 chord, a Texas Swing backup guitarist would play a G chord, then a B chord, then a D chord, another G chord and then an F chord, all of them going up the neck.
If you play that way on a Martin dreadnought, it tends to get a little muddy, especially the further up the neck you go. But if you play a bunch of ninth chords up the neck on a J-45, each note gets equal balance, and you retain clarity and separation between the notes of the chord wherever you happen to be on the neck.
So for an advanced chordal accompaniment style of playing like that, the J-45 is typically the better choice, even if the Martin sounds richer when you play it side by side with the J-45.
So it's a more practical choice for that style of playing, just as an F-5 style mandolin is more practical when playing with a full-tilt bluegrass band, because it'll cut through better. Personally I find A style mandolins more musical to listen to, but something about the added mass of mahogany inside the scroll of an F-5 gives it better projection and "cut."
So to get back to the J-45, that even tonal quality does make it easier to record than an overtone-heavy square-shouldered dreadnought. Obviously lots of Martins do get used in recording studios, and just as obviously there's a measure of hype to Mr. Chappell's comments.
But he's not entirely wrong, either.
Hope that makes sense.
Wade Hampton Miller
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