Guitar Info

For sure you won't see these guitars everyday! Only two of them were ever built, and handmade semi-hollow guitars with an experimental design are quite uncommon, because another level of skills is required than when you make up a solid body... 

And the result is - IMHO - quite stunning! The shape is brilliant, the thick contoured horns are quite a smart move (people busy with guitar design will understand what I mean) and I love the big German carve! I appreciate the fact that they look timeless and could have been made at any moment of the history of electric guitars (and they would have bizarre all along) - at least in Germany where there is a tradition of highly creative jazz guitars!

I imagine that people who will look at these strange instruments with the image of a ES-335 in the head will find hard to love them, so please forget everything and really look without any preconception - and enjoy!

Another brand about which I have very little to tell (in these times of vintage worship, I wish someone would seriously write the ultimate book about unknown electric guitars), this time from East-germany. This Marma is not as exuberant as the guitars from West-Germany of the time, but it's very elegant with its classic shape, curved pickguard, sound holes, control plate and tail, and its long tremolo arm.

Marma produced also solid bodies, banjos and some guitar devices that I will present soon here (and all information about Marma is welcome).

Another splendid vintage archtop electro-acoustic guitar is this Höfner 4550/S aka Senator (according to continental or UK nomenclature). Here again this is the venetian cutaway version of the previous spanish model, upgraded with a pickup. I love the strangely shaped perloid scratchplate!

A queen amongst the acoustic archtop guitars I love so much, the Gibson L-7C is a version of the classic L-7 with a round venetian cutaway, and is still in production since its released in 1949 - claiming for some reason to be one of the few non electrified acoustic archtop guitar built nowadays, like it's the best idea they ever had.

Anyway, that's why this 1952 one has been upgraded, probably in the 60s, with a DeArmond pickup. The honey-blonde finish fits particularly to this model, much better than the usual sunburst, as it allows to perceive at the first glance its elegant and structural simplicity.

Look at it people, this one is supposed to be one of the best guitars in history!

I've always loved archtop acoustic guitars, and I wonder why they are not more common... They feel more suitable for steel-strings when flat-tops and round holes belong to nylon strings. This 60s Framus Missouri is way cool, with a deep cutaway perfect for jazz players (it's not a model to play folk songs around a bonfire). 

I've posted about several incredible vintage German jazz guitars here, but the German touch is not lost, and Höfner for example still releases similar guitars, such as this Jazzica Custom.

This beauty is handmade in Germany and combines a great tradition with contemporary technology and ergonomics... But since I'm not paid to make advertisement for Höfner, I let you check their website if you want to know more...

And even my girlfriend who is completely hermetic to guitars unless they make a lot of noise finds it gorgeous, this tells a lot!

I didn't know so far the beautiful Gibson Barney Kessel Custom (there are also plenty of interesting guitars on this website) - and I don't remember ever seeing before a semi-hollow guitar with this kind of double florentine cutaways (the model presented here is the custom one with the Bigsby trem).

Its line is stunning, another example of what you can get when you slightly twist a classic design, it's both familiar and disturbing - a powerful combination. Actually when it was released in 1961 it wasn't so successful, probably too aggressive for its jazz target... This guitar was discontinued in 1973, but I'm sure that if Epiphone would release an updated version today, it would be a hit for all the post-Queens  of the Stone Age guitarists!

A similar but downsized design was used for Johnny A.'s signature Gibson model in 2003 - and it doesn't work, it looks like a SG front glued on a semi-hollow body, it doesn't have this generosity of the shape that you also find on some thinline Rickenbackers. 

And it looks super cool with black finish like here. Another guitar to put on my GAS dream list for when I suddenly become a billionaire without doing anything to make it happen.

There's already been a Framus Bill Lorento guitar presented in this blog, but not as fine as this beautiful thinline model from 1958. This is another example of how terrific German jazz guitar have been in the 50s - though this one doesn't have the huge hollow-body characteristic of these guitars. 

Its most noticeable feature is of course the raised metal pickguard that includes the pickup covers - I don't think I've ever seen this before... 

the lyre-shaped tail is also something, as are the big block inlays on the fretboard.

I love this guitar! I'm happy to show here the guitar that Ibanez designed for Pat Metheny (the PM100 is the model with only a neck pickup - the one that Metheny uses - there is also a PM120 with 2 HB)... It always works when you take a classic shape and twist it slightly, and here the result is beautiful and edgy... And the beauty being always enhanced by ergonomics, the upper cutaway is not only providing a nice aggressive look to the guitar, but is really functional.

Metheny being a very eclectic musician, like everybody I only like one part of his work, but I really like it, even if it's just one album; I still remember when 'Zero Tolerance for Silence' was released, I couldn't believe that I was buying something from this elevator music player but the album was a strong statement for many experimental guitar music lovers (it was before this guitar was issued in 1996 though, so this consideration is not related to the beginning of the post).

Couldn't find much about this beautiful Hoyer Jazz Guitar... It looks like a later, less luxurious and electrified (might be a modification) version of the famous 50s Herr im Frack (Gentleman in Tuxedo). It's noticeable for the rare mix of two non-F F-holes and a round soundhole - some Hoyer of the time even had 18 soundholes all around the table!

You probably noticed that I love hollow/semi-hollow jazz guitars such as this Aria Pro II Howard Roberts (though I would probably stick a screwdriver through the strings and plug it on a fuzzbox with all its knobs on 11).

This Aria is a clone of the custom guitar Howard Roberts designed for Gibson based on the ES-175, but it is not clear if it's a copy from the 'lawsuit era' or one made in the short time when Howard Roberts was endorsed by Aria... But it doesn't have two pickups like the Gibson - only a neck one like the Epiphone version, but still three knobs like the Gibson!

Anyway, I'm not an expert so if you want to know more you can have a look here.

And let's enjoy the beauty and bizarreness of an acoustic flat-top with a florentine cutaway, a sound hole and a humbucker pickup - never seen one like this before!