Manhattan Prestige Basses Session One Bass Guitar

Complementing Jason’s experience is Jack Thompson’s business acumen and product development prowess. With 33 years of shaping musical equipment brands under his belt, Thompson brings market savvy and hands-on expertise to the company. As a longtime bassist himself, he understands what players need from an instrument.

The culmination of Jason and Thompson’s collaboration is the Session One bass, Manhattan Prestige’s inaugural offering. From the ground up, this instrument was designed to provide professional-grade tone, feel, and performance at a reasonable price point. As Neil Jason eloquently stated, “I wanted to create an instrument that anybody could play, across all genres of music, at a reasonable price.”

Designed and Developed in the USA, built in India, Session One passed the acid test of Neil Jason’s recent world tour with Bryan Ferry, including a rousing debut at London’s legendary Royal Albert Hall.

Blueprint for Success

The blueprint for Session One is none other than Neil Jason’s own 1965 Candy Apple Red Jazz Bass, which has been in his hands for many years. Fender®’s tried-and-tested design proved itself time and time again in the hands of the likes of Geddy Lee, Jaco Pastorius, Blue DeTiger and many more hardworking, touring bassists.

For Session One, Neil and Jack’s vision is to take the Jazz outline and bring to the table modern appointments for the gigging and touring Bassist, but carefully weed out the wants from the needs, to keep the overall balance between quality and cost, whilst still making the instrument a hot prospect for the working musicians.

So let’s get into the specifications, shall we?

The J-bass body is available with a choice of six colours, including candy apple red as a nod to Neil’s OG bass, but also seafoam green, three tone burst, white and black, all with a solid alder body. For the same price, there’s also a rather tasteful burgundy mist and the natural body versions with a solid Ash body. The natural Ash model you see here is a reassuringly dense offering that acoustically on my lap sounds bright, resonant and very rich.

Getting up and close to the poly-gloss finish, it is blemish-free and there are no signs of having not been finished neatly around joins and edges. We’ll come back to the electronics in a moment. Spinning the bass over, we are greeted with, as expected, a bolt-on neck, yet the heel is rounded and downsized. You’ll notice that there isn’t a neck plate, either, further helping to make the heel less noticeable whilst navigating upper fret access. Four inserts for the neck bolts make for a flush and neat installation. The body itself is a two-piece offering where the “split” is right down the middle, rather than slightly offset, so the bridge and neck are connected to the same “wing,” if that’s something that matters to you.

The upper wing includes a belly cut and the overall body is the usual thickness for a “standard Jazz Bass.” Keeping the vintage vibe across the bass, the Session One comes equipped with a Wilkinson Spiral style 5-screw bridge.

On to the body, Manhattan Prestige has selected the familiar combination of a maple shaft neck with a rosewood (yes rosewood!) fingerboard. The profile of the neck is skinny all the way! Very much as expected from a vintage J-bass with a 38mm nut, and in this case, a custom C-like shape carve. The satin finish continues over the neck and headstock for a stylish look, as well as a premium feel in the paws!

Session One has 20 jumbo frets neatly installed into the 9.5″ radius fretboard, which has rolled edges for that wonderful “played-in” feel. The “roll” in this case is a gentle flattening of the edge rather than a curve or arc, but under the hand, there are zero complaints, it’s most welcome. Guiding the strings from the Wilkinson lightweight open-gear tuners is a 38mm spacing TUSQ nut for less friction when tuning – a bonus here too. The G and D strings pass under a round string tree for additional break angle, as the headstock is straight. Like the tuning keys, keeping the weight down, the headstock is a little slimmer, not dissimilar to the design of a telecaster headstock. Not often seen on a Jazz-style body, it’s an interesting yet useful approach.

Topping off the headstock, Manhattan Prestige’s script logo, model name and, around the back, the rear face is a red satin paint finish. The rosewood neck gets vintage style dot markers on the facing, but, on the top edge of the fretboard, we are treated to 4mm “glow in the dark” green Luminlay dot markers. Charge them up with a torch (or the flashlight on your phone) and you’ll easily navigate your neck on dark stages!

Session one features an oversized control compartment whose cover is held in place by five magnets. A handy thumb cutaway means that it’s very easy to gain access to the contents without tools.

We are greeted with Session One’s electronics – in this case, a standard Jazz-style passive harness. Volume, Volume and Master Tone controls in the compartment are mated to a pair of Wilkinson Custom single-coil pickups made for Manhattan Prestige. The compartment has ample room, by design, should you wish to after-market install your own electronics, like active preamplification. I’d expect that with such an ample cutaway, there’s a little weight saving to be had from the ash-bodied models. On the subject of electronics, Alpha made potentiometers for the three controls and the pickups get vintage-style cloth cabling.

The pickups, in comparison to Fender Noiseless™ models, are much brighter when recorded direct with a bell-like chime to notes that can be dialled back with the passive tone control for a warmer sound. There’s still plenty of output on tap, more so than a low-output vintage. Expect ‘60s Jazz Bass tones aplenty when both pickups are full on, but nice open-voiced sounds from each pickup when in solo.

Session One basses come strung as standard with D’Addario Nickel 45-105 strings, which also contributes to a vibrant sound. You can be assured of a quality tone straight out of the box from a reliable and trustworthy string brand. Of course, reach for some flat wounds and I feel Session One will be up for the task of creating warmer tones.

Wrapping up the specs, generally, the ash models come in around 10 lbs. and the alder models, are lighter at 8 lbs. The Seafoam Green bass is kitted out with a maple fretboard with black block inlays on the facing and black edge binding. However, according to the specifications isn’t adorned with Luminlay.

Alpha Distribution kindly sent over the Manhattan Prestige Session One, a great contender for those looking for a bass under $1,000 that has all of the hallmarks of a vintage bass without the expected foibles of 60 years in and out of cases, venues, or attics!