OK here goes. My rock days are behind me (this is a bit strange.... since I'm 14 years old), and have decided to focus on 3 main areas of playing: Jazz, flamenco/classical and bluegrass... Of course that really doesn't have anything to do with this discussion, but anyway, let us move on....

So I want to play jazz right? Well, I play the tenor sax in band (I'm just leaving middle school this year) and I'm pretty decent at that, I've played it for longer than I've played guitar. But I like to play the guitar more, and I'm equally/more talented at that than the sax. Our town's High School jazz band is losing a legend on the tenor this year.... and I mean this kid will go places, he is amazing. I also could never live up to the way he plays, though I would like to. So when the jazz band auditions came around this year (We do them a before summer vacation starts, so next year the band will be all set), I went for guitar, cuz I like it more, I don't actually own a sax, I use the school's, and I knew that I would be the only guitar player, but there were two other kids already in the high school who were auditioning for the one open spot with the sax.

I didn't try at all at the audition, but luckily I got in (I was the only guitarist there, as I said), and thought it was the greatest thing ever.

No problem yet right? Well, let me expand. I couldn't exactly entirely keep up with the band, but I know that if I worked on all my comping then it will be easier (and this is a band that competes, last time they won first, plus the kid that's leaving won best solo), and I should be able to do nicely in the rhythm section. The only thing is, I want to be able to shine. I know how to solo in jazz, and I often play along with Charlie Parker, Charlie Christian and Wes Montgomerey.

What haunts me is tone. The guitar can get a nice bell-like clean tone out of it, but not much else without distortion. I do not want to use distortion. It puts out a thin, weak tone, which sounds great with chords, but after a sax or trumpet takes a solo, or even a piano, and the director says, now you Clayton, I can play stuff but it just doesn't sound right. The juice isn't there. There is no big tone. It aggravates me, and I just don't feel right soloing on my electric.

My gear consists of this:
A Danelectro Innuendo solidbody
An Epiphone Les Paul solid body
An Ovation celebrity edition (my prized guitar, so far)
A yamaha classical

I get more out of my Ovation than playing my semi-cheap Les Paul clean. But I don't know how this will work in a big band setting.

So my question begins as, How should I go about this. I want to play my full potential, but it just doesn't sound right over the band. Should I invest in a hollow body jazz-electric guitar, or should I try to use the acoustic?

Or, should I just not solo all together on the guitar, and ask the band director if I can play guitar in rhythm, then switch to tenor on stage if I want or need to solo?

Any other advice in this category? I'd really appreciate it.... Oh, I couldn't really figure out which forum this should go into so I used Open.

Thanx a lot, you guys have never left me hanging before, please don't start now!

-Tha Ace