Jazz Guitar on YouTube

Nicolai Foss

Youtube.com is, if perhaps not a bonanza of jazz guitar, then certainly the best internet resource to check out for vids of our heroes. There are a handful of Kessel vids, including a smashing rendition of Barney’s own “One Mint Julep“; there are even more Tal Farlow vids, mainly from the eighties and early 1990s; there is plenty of Wes Montgomery, Joe Pass, Jim Hall, and some Pat Martino, Ed Bickert, etc. There are lots of jazz manouche (if you haven’t seen the clip with the QHCF playing J’Attendrai, check it out now!). Some great guitarists that aren’t there: Jimmy Raney and Johnny Smith.

Update: Be sure to check out this great clip with Chris Flory and Duke Robillard. In particular, I enjoyed Chris’ bluesy playing on his L7 with FHC DeArmond PU.

Vintagearchtop.com

Nicolai Foss

I just came across vintagearchtop.com which is maintained by Thomas Cray and appears to have been in existence since 2002. This beautifully done site features photos of what appears to be Cray’s own, very interesting, guitars, information on books on archtops, a link section, a miscellaneous section (that includes photos of Eric Clapton’s archtops), info on great gadgets like the van Eps string dampener, etc. Highly recommended!

The First Jazz Guitarist …

Nicolai Foss

… wasn’t Eddie Lang — it was Nick Lucas (aka Dominic Nicholas Anthony Lucanese). To wit:

In July, 1922 Nick Lucas cut two original sides for Pathe, “Picking The Guitar” and “Teasing The Frets.” With these sides Nick Lucas also cut a path for generations of guitarist to come. These were the first solo jazz guitar instrumentals recorded. Without a doubt this had to be an influence on banjoists such as Eddie Lang, and also an inspiration for him to trade the banjo in for a guitar. Eddie Lang would later elaborate on Lucas’ fast bass runs and be remembered as being the father of jazz guitar, this makes Nick Lucas the Grandfather of jazz guitar.

The quotation is from an marvelously designed Nick Lucas site Certainly worth a visit.

Bebop Guitar — Transcriptions

Nicolai Foss

Thomas Phleps, a Professor of “Musikwissenschaft” (no idea what the English equivalent is), has transcribed 25 classic bebop guitar solos, by the likes of Jimmy Raney, Chuck Wayne, Bill DeArango, Arv Garrison, and others (including Tiny Grimes!). They can be found here. So, if you are looking for new ideas, lift some from the Early Masters.

Phleps also has a Bill DeArango discography here, which is very useful for locating the works of this seldomly recorded, much overlooked, but excellent bop guitarist.

More Emperor

Nicolai Foss

British ebay has a very strange Epiphone Emperor for sale. It has an added florentine cutaway! Sacrilege!

Black Gibson ES-150

Nicolai Foss

Stockholm-based Vintage Guitars offers a very interesting black Gibson ES-150 (the Charlie Christian model) for 49,000 Swedish kroner (appr. 6,940 USD). This is the first black ES-150 that I know of, but the owner insists that the finish is original.

B-Strings and Pickup Problems

Nicolai Foss

I blogged a couple of days ago about the CC pickup. The first versions of that pickup had a flat blade. However, the next edition of the CC pickup had a small lowering under the b-string to compensate for the b-string otherwise being too loud. The third edition had six adjustable pole pieces.

I have a problem with my Dearmond FHC pickup (which I have fitted to a 1944 Epiphone Triumph) similar to the one that users of the first edition of the CC pickup must have had: the b-string produces a very heavy input and is too loud compared to its neighbour strings. Thus, there is a lack of balance when the guitar is amplified. Unfortunately, the pickup does not have adjustable pole pieces. What can I do to to remedy the problem?

Estimating the Value of a Tudor

Nicolai Foss

The Tudor was a 1930s Epiphone model. More specifically, according to Vintage Guitars Info, the Tudor was produced from 1931 to 1939. In terms of appointments, finish, etc. it was in between the DeLuxe and the Broadway models. Vintage Guitars Info rates its collectability at a “C”, which is not that impressive (the same as a cutaway Triumph). The Blue Book of Acoustic Guitars estimate its worth in “excellent” condition at 3,000 USD. Few Deluxes would sell for that little and I suppose many Broadways wouldn’t either.

Now, here is what the always reliable archtop.com noted about the Tudor they recently offered:

For years it was just an picture in an old catalog. A simple black and white engraving, with a florid description. “Lending itself to the performer’s mood it will sing in a whisper or shout it from the housetops.” And that was that. As pictured, floating in the clouds, the Epiphone Tudor was an exceptionally handsome instrument, combining the figured maple body of the Masterbilt Deluxe with the graceful peghead vine of the Broadway, and adding a variegated floral fingerboard inlay all its own. Though pictured in the1934 catalog, positioned between the Deluxe and the Broadway models, nobody could seem to find a surviving example. The Epiphone Tudor: the guitar that never was.

That all changed with the publication of the Fisch and Fred book, Epiphone: The House of Stathopoulo, still the finest volume on an American guitar maker. There it was, in the plates on page C-17. In living color, a honest-to-goodness Tudor, serial number 7453, big as life, from the collection of the co-author. And that’s when people started looking. There just didn’t seem to be another one. After all, folks reasoned, Epi made some extremely scarce models, especially during the lean years of the Great Depression. (The Epiphone Windsor mandolin pictured on C-47 was found by us some years ago, and remains the only known example.)

If there are only two Tudors left in the World, which it seems reasonable to assume, and if this is almost as fine a model as a DeLuxe, then how is it possible to rate it a “C” and to estimate its worth at 3,000 USD (I cannot recall the selling price at archtop.com, but it has probably in the neighbourhood of 10k USD)?? I confess that my trust in “guitar experts” was shaken somewhat by this.

Rare Eddie Lang Recording

Nicolai Foss

Classicjazzguitar.com has an excerpt from a rare recording by Eddie Lang (under Boyd Senter’s name), “Someday Sweetheart.” I have never come across this recording. In addition to Lang, there is Senter on clarinet and Jack Russell on piano. There is 54 secs. in total, most of which is a nice punchy solo by Lang and his 0.16 strings!

New Charlie Christian Replica Pickups

Nicolai Foss

A number of producers have experimented with replicating the original Gibson Charlie Christian pickups (here is the wikipedia entry which, however, errorneously says that the CC has “not been available on a guitar produced since 1942″ — neglecting, e.g., the Gibson ES-175CC). Jason Lollar has been producing a replica for some time now.

Britain-based CC Pickups has recently launched what they characterize as “an exact replica of the almost mythical pickups.” Here is how they describe the process of replicating the original:

“The full process for building these pickups has required us to source pre-war materials from all over the world and recycling them for use within the pickup. This was the only way we could capture the original sound and ensure we would not disappoint the loyal fans of these pickups.

Original pickups were obtained and stripped to the bone, every individual component has been copied identically to the originals.

The bobbins have been scatter wound by hand in the traditional way with the correct gauge wire with the exact output reading as the originals, and of course these are fitted with the rare steel magnets which also are magnetised to the exact reading of the originals.

The steel blades are made from the same mild steel, which has been copper plated, nickel plated and then chrome plated the same as the originals.

We had original magnets measured for flux density and field characteristics and then had our steel magnetised to the same flux density and field shape as the originals would have been over 70 years ago.

These pickups probably sound truer to the Charlie Christian records that you hear than any old existing original pickups still around today, this is due to the fact that the cobalt steel magnets only retain their magnetism for around 200 years, as they are now approx 70 years old they have lost about a third of their power so not giving the original crisp punch that they would have had when first manufactured back in the 30’s.

Three different versions have been built to the original spec, the 1936 ES150 model with the straight blade, the later model with the notch under the B string and the ES250 model with the six separate pole pieces.”

Although these are pretty expensive (double the price of the Lollar pickups), I decided to invest in one of them, and I am now the proud owner of a very beautiful CC pickup. Now I only need to buy a Gibson L48 or L50. Hmmm…