Epi Bonanza on Ebay

Nicolai Foss

It is only very seldom that so many wonderful Epiphone archtops are offered for sale at Ebay. Here is one of the most stunning examples of the Deluxe — often claimed to be the best factory-made archtop ever produced — I have seen. At 6,500 USD a pretty hefty buy-it-now price, but considering that the Deluxe is as good (some claim better) than the Emperor, not entirely unrealistic. Here is another, blonde, Deluxe. Also stunning, but apparently it needs some work. Here is a Spartan with some Hawaiian painting on the back. I know what I would do with it if I purchased this guitar!

However, the best bargain of them all, if “bargain” is to be defined as high value for a small price, is surely this great looking Zephyr with a ridiculously low buy-it-now price of only 890 USD. Too bad I have too many black boxes sitting around the house already…

Tiny Grimes

| Nicolai Foss |

I have been listening quite a bit to Tiny Grimes lately, particularly Callin’ the Blues and Tiny Grimes, 1944-1949. Grimes seems to be a rather under-rated player. He may be best known as one of the inventors of rock’n'roll (the rock’n'roll element is very much present on Callin’ the Blues) — which may be sufficient ground for many jazz buffs to disregard or even dismiss him.

Grimes performed on an electric tenor archtop with a bouncing robust style that owed more to Charlie Christian than to anyone else. He was, however, perhaps even more rhytmically direct than Christian and his tone was more distorted. His playing is the link between Christian and more contemporary players like Billy Butler, and, perhaps, Chris Flory and Duke Robillard. If you don’t know Tiny’s work, I strongly recommend the above two CDs (the latter also contains the classic four cuts with Charlie Parker).

UPDATE: Here is the only YouTube clip with Tiny.