Electric Guitar - Jazz

Lately, I've been expanding my appreciation for jazz guitar of the electric variety.

Wes, Kenny Burrell, Grant Green, Joe Pass, Emily Remler, Metheny.

Does anyone have CD recommendations for the following artists:

Tal Farlow
Charlie Christian
Les Paul
Barney Kessel
Django (acoustic)

Thanks in advance.

FeO2

 

Charlie Christian

There is a new Charlie Christian box set that I adore. I am too tired to go downstairs and check on the title but it looks just like a Pignose amp.
It's a wonderful set!
As for Wes there is an amazing HDCD on JVC with him and his brothers that I love.
Enjoy
Norm

 

Concerning Django I posted some info a while back on two available box sets which are both worthy of purchase. The Best bang for the buck is the JSP boxset commonly available for around a mere $20!

Here's a link to the thread with a bit more info:

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=236358&highlight=django+jsp#post236358

 

Barney kessel-"Some Like it hot" on OJC

 

Hey Norm,

How's the sound quality of the Christian box?

Montgomery Bros. ... After you get some rest post that title.

How's the little one doing? Walking yet? Rockin' yet?

FeO2

 

Ya made me go downstairs!

OK Ferric Dude:
The Montgonery Brothers XRCD is Groove Yard and I love it love it.
Some other nice jazz guitar stuff on JVC XRCD are Chet Atkins in Hollywood and Kenny Burrell's Soul Call.
Speaking of Wes I have an amazing mono LP of Full House on Riverside which I play a lot.
The Christian box is called The Genius of the Electric Guitar. It's a four disc set with unreleased material and testimonials from some monster guitarists like Wes, BB, Kessel, Brian Setzer, Warren Haynes, Bill Frisell.
It's 24 bit digitally remastered and I think it sounds great. Remember that this stuff is over sixty years old. I have a great old French mono LP of Christian with Benny Goodman.
Baby digs jazz. We put speakers in her room and run a feed off of Direct TV's 24 hr commercial free jazz channel and just keep it playing all through the house and now it's in her room. She can't walk yet. But she is a happy baby and drools constantly.
Peace
Norm

 

Thanks magic.

I can find the JSP "Classic early recs" and JSP "Paris and London" at Tower.
Any preferences?

Ferric

 

Thanks Ron, I'll keep a watch for it.

 

Thanks, Steve.

Interesting link. And have never heard of him before.

Found The Sound of Johnny Smith Guitar 2fer CD on Roulette at Tower. Listened to a couple of cuts. Bingo. I'm buying.

Ferric

 

Re: Ya made me go downstairs!

Thanks Norm. Cool Swingin' Daddy.

 

Go for the Classic Early Recordings if you only want to buy one. It has the Hot Club and HMV sides. But I'll bet you go back for the other sooner or later!

 

Please don't forget Kenny Burrell, also a very super man I had the pleasure to meet back in 1972 my first year at Berklee was Howard Roberts, I believe Howard recorded some nice LP's on the Capitol label that I have somewhere, also don't forget my good friend George Benson as well as Larry Coryell. I'm sure there are quite a few new guys out there but they tend to all sound a bit to much like George Benson. Also if you can find any George Van Epps snag it.

I had a teacher who played a 7 string but I was turned on to Van Epps playing before he was even had invented one and had made for himself. What a MONSTER player and this stuff I heard was from a tape made in the 40's. He sounded at times like there were 3 guitars playing at the same time only it was just him no multitrack overdubbing what so ever. Also don't forget Charlie Christian also the inventor of the electric jazz guitar. And listen to Count Basie for Freddie Green's incredible comping of chords. I had the pleasure of hearing them once while I was home during a summer vacation. Basie and his band were playing a club out in Rome NY about 8 miles from where I live. That was very much worth the 5 or 10 bucks I paid to get to hear the band but to also watch Freddie Green just play acoustically rhythm changes up and down that fret board that was a just a gas.

Also the Joe Pass Virtuoso Albums for which I believe there were three. And Joe and Herb Ellis duets. Emily Remler, she was a freshman when I was a junior at Berklee. I would speak to hear as I would see her down in the cafeteria when I need a cup of coffee in the Mass Ave building part of Berklee. She had a Cherry Red Gibson ES-330 with the silver type of P90 pickups on it. She really couldn't play her way out of a paper bag. But she would sit in that cafe and it seemed like anyone who could show her a riff or some chord solo thing she would just sit there and practice until she got the stuff right. Yes I did in fact show her a few of my favorite things. In my last year I had rented my Fender Twin Reverb to Herb Ellis as he was playing at the Performance Center also on Mass Ave so I got to see both show's free as well as I got 25 bucks for the use of my amp. Well at the end of the night I went back stage to get my amp as well as talk to Herb. This is where I finally got to see the condition of his ES-175 single Pickup guitar. I almost died, the entire back of this arch top was caving in and it was being held together with masking tape. Hard to believe huh!! Herb let me play it but truly I had to put it down because I was afraid the guitar might implode on me! Now get this, guess who else was backstage and Herb took a big liking to.

Yep, Emily Remler. I believe he helped her out in her career after she left Berklee as I don't believe she ever graduated. However it was a sad day to receive my Berklee magazine one day a few years back only to see that she had passed away. I was told her by a friend of mine who also was from Rome NY but we didn't know each other while I was in school that he had heard Emily play and that as us cats would say in typical hip lingo "Man she was Smokin" when he caught her gig somewhere. It was nice to hear that really. So I would imagine she wouldn't sound like a chick playing if you listened to her recorded material. She got damn good...proud to say I knew her and proud of her accomplishments.

Pat Mentheny I was in my second year at Berklee when this guy younger or the same age as me was being brought in to join the teaching staff which would have been in the fall 73 spring 74 semester's. I don't know why but I just never dug him or liked his playing at all. Gary Burton was the one to bring him to Bill Leavitt's attention who was the head of the Guitar Department. Bill was a great guy and he also was my teacher from my 2nd year through my 4th year. I was highly recommended to him by my first year teacher David Spadazzi, but I had to prove myself and do well on each of my proficiencies that we had to take every 16 weeks. Dave had made sure that I would have to be in the same room as Bill's of which there would be 3 other teachers there asking you to play the material that you had to know by that semester's end. As well as you had to perform a Solo Classical piece and a Chord Solo as well as sight read on the spot both being given a chart with single notes and one with chords to be played as written rhythmically and they got to count of the tempo's! Well needless to say Bill liked what he had heard so I had hoped that he would be my teacher for the rest of my stay at Berklee and in fact he was.

 

Thanks one and all.

Django-box, Christian-box, Johnny Smith are on the way. "Some Like it Hot" is not at Tower. Will shop again tomorrow.

I'll be here all week. Be sure to tip your Gorts. Goodnight

 

Beatle Terr,

Your posts are so damn interesting, but really hard to read. Please press the "Enter" key occasionally and make some paragraphs. Your readers will love you for it.

Got any John McLaughlin stories?

Regards,
Geoff

 

All great recommendations so far. I would add Grant Green's Blue Note albums (e.g. Idle Moments), Pat Martino, and even Lee Ritenour (many people dismiss him as a muzak sort of guy, but Stolen Moments on GRP is a very nice straight ahead album).

 

My total apologies to everyone, I'm sorry that it happens. I guess you are right, however when I'm on a roll and I am trying to remember things that happened 20 to 30 some odd years ago in my life, I seem to just want to get the words out. Usually and this is the truth, thank GOD there's a spell checker LOL as well as that you can go back and edit a post. So I will try and do that!

Surprisingly enough, I never met John but man he was the big thing during my 1st year at Berklee in 1972. I did know a couple of my teacher's who knew him well. They said he played a mean BeBop guitar and not just the Mahavishnu stuff he was best known for at the time.

I did love that double neck 12 and 6 string he was using there for a while. It sort of had like a Vine & Leaf abolne inlay growing up the fingerboards. I never did find out who made that guitar for sure but it looked very much like one of my Ibanez Artist models that is has a very grainy looking Ash top to it. My understanding that he had it stolen from him and I don't ever remember him getting it back or having another one made to replace it. Perhaps you know the guitar of which I speak of.

Up above in my other post I hope after a short edit that it's easier to read now!

 

My favorite "modern" jazz guitar LP is "The Dealer" featuring Larry Coryell with Chico Hamilton and group. Moody. Gorgeous.

 

don't forget jim hall.

 

Oh my lord, where has my mind gone. Jim Hall can play the most awesome single lines you can forget that he's improvising playing a solo at times.

You still get the feeling he's playing part of the melody of a standard. Sweet wonderful player! Highly recommended 5 *****stars!!!!

 

Barney Kessell - You can't go wrong with any of the Poll Winners albums on Contemporary. They swing like mad, and with Ray Brown and Shelly Manne - what more could you ask for?

Tal Farlow - "The Swinging Guitar of Tal Farlow" on the Verve BY Request series is pretty good. Even better is "Tal" on Verve (Japanese) CD.

 

Towards the end of Johnny Carson's time on the Tonight Show, one night I turned it on and there was a super guitarist playing "Cherokee" with the Tonight Show Band. Turns out it was McLaughlin, then he sat down and chatted with Carson, who seemed to be really into his playing, asked him about his three divorces, eliciting laughs from the crowd.

 

Thanks for the edits Beatle Terr.

Yes mate, I know that guitar. Saw him playing it on the Apocalypse tour with Mahavishnu in '74. I was in the front row, right in front of the man himself, with Jean Luc Ponty on my left. What a night! I was transfixed by that beautiful instrument and the tone from his Mesa Boogie amp. Probably the finest concert I've ever been to - a truly spiritual evening.

I read that the guitar was not stolen - but one day it fell on the floor and it broke. I read this in an interview with JM, but I can't find the exact article. I know it's out there.

JM said that it was a very strange thing - as no one was near the guitar, but it just ended up on the floor and broke right up the back.

Here is a nice article by JM about the guitar.

----------------

The double-neck i'm using now was made by Rex Bogue in Los Angeles. I asked Gibson to make me another one, because the first one was custom. It had ebony fingerboards and I wanted bigger frets because I found them easier for pulling. So I said they'd like to do something maybe, if I'd like to endorse one. I said sure, so they agreed to make me a special guitar. I said i'd like this and this but it took them a year to do it - they had strikes and everything. Finally I got it, but they had only done one thing I asked and that was the writing of "Sweetest Is My Lord" on the necks. The one thing they'd done was the least important as far as the music. The electronics they hadn't done, the neck they hadn't done, the body shape they hadn't done, they hadn't even used the right wood. And they obviously didn't care about me; they might care about some big star, but not about me. I've got the guitar - it's brand new, I've never used it.

I had wanted the neck to go to D, because the other one only went to C, and thats low - I mean if you want to get to E then good-bye, no way. And E is pretty natural for the guitar. I also wanted the guitar in stereo; I wanted the necks separate and with ebony fingerboards, I wanted deeper cutaways and Grover tuners. The pickups were fine - humbuckings are good pickups. So around then I was working at the Whiskey in Los Angeles, and this guy burst in the room with this guitar and case and said I had to have a look at his guitar. It was a hollowed out solidbody - beautiful little guitar with flowers giong down the neck, and this beautiful Ebony board. The neck was really fine too. His craftmanship was impeccable, faultess. He was also int electronics, so he said, " I have to make you a guitar!" So I said go right ahead. He spent thirteen months hand-carving and sweating blood over it. I even got my acoustic guitar in LA, from mark Evan Whitebook. I must say though, that a gibson J-200 with a rosewood body was the best guitar I ever had. It was light, but the top split.

On my Bogue double-neck there's a master volume so one volume can control both necks or just one if thats all I have on. I also have individual volume controls so I can preset them; then when I hit the neck switch I'll be at a specific volume. But I can't go to a specific tone, because the tone controls are for both necks together. To compensate for that I've got a pickup switch, plus Rex took tappings off the coils so I can get sounds out of the pickups that are amazing. By putting them in phase or out of phase or opposing the coils together I can get more brilliance, roll the bass right off, bring the middle in, roll the top off, roll the bass in --- there are all kinds of things I can do just by phasing the coils. I can get a lot of tonal range and response that I can pre-set on the neck. Secondly, it's 2 ot a pre-amp built right into it.

This guitar in combination with the amp [Boogie Amps from Prune Music in Mila Valley, Calif.] allows almost every note to sustain almost indefinitely without feeding back. I just happened to hit on the right combination. This amp is loud, and it's all tube (I think you get more pure overtones with tubes). I used to use Marshall amplifiers, but with my current band they would be too heavy. I don't need them. That was a problem I had with the previous band — the volume would sometimes be ome oppressive, just too loud, destroying the musical content.

---------------------------

Here is a picture of a replica of the Rex Bogue guitar. This copy was made by Robert W. Dullam. If this image does not display because AngelFire does not allow deep linking, the reference is at Mahavishnu John McLaughlin Fan Page



Regards,
Geoff

 

See that guitar and it's body style? I will be damned if Ibanez didn't copy this and use it for the Artist Series Models. In fact in their catalog there was a Double Neck 12/6 guitar model. However I don't think it had that middle sculpting but you can see around the edges of the guitar how it was sculpted there that is exactly what my Natural Ash version is like.

I can also say that the Tail-pieces on that guitar are also the same style and shape that Ibanez had made for the Artist models. The other one I have has a 24 fret fingerboard with super fat frets like McLaughlin is talking about this model has a maple top with a violin sunburst finish on it.

Both guitars also have ebony fingerboards but the Natural Ash version has Abalone inlay all around the front of the body where it is sculpted. If you look close enough on the McLaughlin guitar I'm sure it also has that same inlay. Darn that Ibanez I'd have to say that they started making those models in around 1975 or at least 1976.

Mine were both made in Japan where I would say most of there stuff today is made in Korea perhaps not all there models but most of them. Where all of them were made in Japan at one time. Especially all the Gibson copy models.

 

I have to add a bit more only because it's been years since I have seen this guitar.

Those headstocks are freaking wicked looking. These Ibanez did not copy however. they at least used their own design for the headstocks on my 2 Artist Series Models. I believe if they had tried to copy the headstocks it would have become rather expensive even for Ibanez at the time.

I just had to say that in reference to this nicely made double 12/6 guitar and also the fingerboards do have 22 frets each on these going to a high D so it was easy to bend the D up to a E as John states in the article.

The Gibson ES-1275 does suck because of the necks only having 20 frets. I could never figure that one out as an SG for which that guitar is styled after has 22 frets. So I once asked Gibson why did they not make the guitar with 22 frets instead of only 20 and the answer I got was because the guitar was more balanced with the shorter scale fingerboards.

Now that did make sense to me as I know how light and thin the bodies of Gibson SG's really are, so I could see where it would have been neck heavy for the player. I am sure they could have compensated in some way to make the necks both have 22 frets though.