MUSIC GEAR
Music and its tools… this has been my life since I was about 13. One of my favorite thing to do has been to read about others’ special guitars, and guitar stories, and articles about oddball modifications. The main music I play these days is some kind of jazz, though I reluctantly use that term only as a rough category. Much like the term luthier (one who makes musical instruments), I reserve that term for the highest of the craft. What I do in either case may qualify, but I look at the pictures of Bob Benedetto or John D’Angelico carving out a beautiful archtop guitar and say, “THAT is a luthier. I build guitars.” There is luthierie in what I do, but what I craft is not like making a violin from scratch. And what I play I would never claim is jazz in the sense of Herb Ellis or Wes Montgomery. I just stack notes into big sounding chord sculptures and connect them with melodies of notes. If I feel that emotional tug from the sound, it works. Whether I can name that chord or not; whether it’s “correct” or traditional or not. And, though I absolutely LOVE the clean, full bodied jazz guitar tone and the whole culture of the traditional songbook, I couldn’t fumble my way through a reasonable “How High The Moon” if my life depended on it. That’s not what I do… It’s not what I want to do. I go on little explorations and paint the air, organize the best results, and jot those down in form. These are my tunes. So I’d never call myself a “Jazz guitarist”… I just play guitar. And so, here - hopefully to inspire your passion and purpose - is a bit about my tools… for the quasi ersatz jazzy as well as the rock & bluesy stuff.
1977 Ibanez Model 2435 “Howard Roberts”
This is one very well played example of an instrument I thought was just weird looking for years. Until one day its beauty revealed itself to my eyes. It was like really hearing jazz for the first time; I got it. “This is not those other simple riffs; don’t look for the familiar here.” The Gibson Howard Roberts - what this is based off of - is an unusual mix of turn-of-the-century (oval hole arched top), art deco, nouveau, and ‘60s “modern” (those slotted square inlays)… and the traditional 175 body… all at the same time. The Ibanez version even more so with the deco-licious L5-style tailpiece. It’s as if I get to play some kind of art history display. Plus, I have a thing for script-logo-era Ibanezes. (“Ibani”?) This one has a swapped pickguard (thankfully, as the original on these looked like some kind of translucent amoeba in ‘50s plastic), and the original pickup was swapped for a Gibson Johnny Smith-style mini humbucker. I knew it would be good, but after restringing with flatwound 13s and tuning to my standard whole-step-down plus “Drop D”… I never could have imagined how inspirational a voice I was to find.
This is why we explore, my friends. Finding your voice is not like “What’s the recipe to sound like Stevie Ray Vaughan” unless you want that. If you’re going tor something “between this and that” or “a combo of this kind of lows with those kinds of highs and a midrange that speaks to me in the single notes”, whatever that means to you but YOUR voice… you gotta buy, try, and modify. I just happened to stumble onto the posting for this and jumped at it. It’s useless for anything else, but “my thing” on it sounds like warm caramel to my ears and it helps me find the notes in the way the right running shoes for a given runner helps their stride. When I get an album together of this stuff, this guitar will be all over it.
Tonal inspirations for the quest were Doug Raney’s Back in New York album, Andy Brown (You want to see a jazz guitarist? YouTube his 4/29/21 Green Mill show and Solo At The Whiskey Lounge). And… Ed Bickert, the godfather of the whole “Jazz on a Tele” thing. One of my favorite players of all. Years back on a road trip that turned into a delta blues pilgrimage deep into Mississippi, once I found a little mom and pop guitar shop in Clarksdale itself, I knew I wasn’t leaving without a guitar from it. I had wanted a Telecaster to mod, and they had a used sunburst MIM (Made In Mexico) Standard Tele. SENOR TELE is nothing great, but a decent tool of the type. Not great at the traditional Tele twang… so I strung it with big flats, tuned it a step and a half down, and suddenly it came to life. It was my first instrument dedicated to this then-new path for me, and still amazes me. The neck pickup, with these strings, in this tuning, is amazing. It’s my main two pickup jazz guitar (sometimes I really like that middle position with both pickups on, and the bridge pickup has a koto quality to it) and I’ve never heard another Tele that sounds like this. Cheap-ass stock pickups and everything. A definite proof of concept to - if you play multiple styles or tunings, try them with each guitar and give it the opportunity to find if its magic sweet spot lines up with one of the voices you are looking for.
For amps for this music, a PolyTone Mini Brute IV (4) I found in a pawn shop is great, as is an old solid state Peavey Bandit from the ‘80s. Fingers or Dunlop X-thick pick, the voice that makes me want to speak through the guitar comes out of either… just seasoned slightly differently. That’s the main jazzy setup. Though not a traditional standards-playing “jazz guitarist” (I won’t even call myself that out of respect for those who ARE jazz guitar players), it’s THAT tone I’m after for my own assemblages of complex chords… and this setup nails it for me. If you want to see one of the best (IMO) electric jazz tones to be found, look up Jun Satsuma on YouTube playing his sunburst Gibson Super 400. Divine.
“Ol’ 78” Pawn shop partscaster
A “Swiss Army knife” of guitars, this parts Tele excels at wild-ass ‘70s-style rock playing now. With a cream NOS Schaller T6 in the bridge that has pole pieces the size of pistons and a really old DiMarzio PAF in the neck position, fitted Ed Bickert style, it’s now all the way back together with the Tele control plate modded to have vol., tone, phase switch, and a 3-way Gibson-style toggle pickup selector. I like .010 flats, currently Curt Mangan, and it jazzes, blueses, and rocks. Ol’ 78 has an interesting story I’ll tell next time I’m on here…
Blues stuff… mainly Delta-style blues in my own open tuning (as opposed to Chicago “bar band” style or the SRV gunslinger guitar hero blues). At this point I play more delta-style blues and less rock by the day. Main blues influences would be Mississippi Fred McDowell, early R.L. Burnside, Son House, John Lee Hooker.
For acoustic blues I have an A&L Ami parlor guitar and old Kay archtop. Electric, a Tele I bolted together out of dead mens’ guitar parts. There’s no other way to say that; sorry. It’s kind of a talisman thing. And an ancient open-back tenor banjo. All in extreme states of wear and disrepair.
General electric playing, my two these days are a Kerf and the Scottocaster. (more to come)
Here are a few guitar stories. (coming)
Blondie’s long strange trip
Lessons of a soul-less 175