DjangoBooks.com
Welcome to our Community!
Categories
- 20K All Categories
- 1.1K General
- 484 Welcome
- 59 Archtop Eddy's Corner
- 146 CD, DVD, and Concert Reviews
- 385 FAQ
- 26 Gypsy Jazz Italia
- 27 Photos
- 209 Gypsy Picking
- 21 Unaccompanied Django
- 15 Pearl Django Play-Along Vol.1
- 17 Gypsy Fire
- 45 Gypsy Rhythm
- 1.4K Gypsy Jazz University - Get Educated
- 131 Gypsy Jazz 101
- 230 Repertoire
- 226 History
- 709 Technique
- 51 Licks and Patterns
- 6 Daniel Givone Manouche Guitare Method Users Group
- 20 Eddie Lang Club
- 1.3K Gypsy Jazz Gear
- 813 Guitars, Strings, Picks, Amps, Pickups and Other Accessories
- 464 Classifieds
- 51 Recording
- 62 Other Instruments
- 18 Violin
- 5 Mandolin
- 22 Accordion
- 7 Bass
- 10 Woodwinds
- 351 Gypsy Jazz Events
- 144 North America
- 112 Europe
- 95 International
In this Discussion
Who's Online (0)
Today's Birthdays
Comments
Flats didn't gain popularity in the electric jazz guitar world until the mid 50's. I don't recall when they first hit the market, maybe late 40's? So they were never used on acoustic archtops and weren't adopted by players still using acoustic archtops because they have much less volume/cut in a band situation.
Thomastik flats sound great though, one of my fav strings.
My stupid opinion and I'm sticking to it.
But isn't that the same as our guitars played acoustically?
Selmers? I think Selmers sound much better than archtops acoustically. At least...certain Selmers. To me it's a much more efficient design to use one flat piece of continuous wood vs a piece carved out of a big block where you're getting all sorts of weird short grain.
More stupid opinions but if you built a boat like that (a dugout canoe for instance) it's a pretty poor design.
I've played a *lot* of archtops, modern and vintage, and while the mediocre ones are, well, mediocre, the good ones stand up very well against the Selmer-styles I've played. (And I've played mediocre Selmer-styles as well.) The acoustic spaces the two design formulas occupy are not identical, though they can overlap quite a bit--and sometimes even extend into resophonic-honk territory when pushed hard. And, of course, different ears will have different preferences.
About BeBops: They're my preferred strings for archtops that might be amplified--though I've never used the 11-47 set, which I find too light for acoustic playing, and I don't like an unwound G. I wonder whether a Parker Fly might not prefer really light strings--more like what my Strat-playing friends prefer.
And about Steve Jordan: He's one of the models my swing teachers referred to. There's a really interesting Ruby Braff CD (Braff! The Complete Sessions) that includes sessions with Jordan and Freddie Green in the guitar chair--you tell which is which even without looking at the liner notes. Jordan also wrote a really nice memoir, *Rhythm Man*, that's more about being a working musician in the big band period than just a guitarist.
If nothing else got you in trouble, this one has a good chance lol
I don't think I ever heard of Steve Jordan. He's also doing the figure 8 rhythm shuffle like Dave Kelbie. It would be cool to hear how that might've developed. The reason Dave said he picked it up was because he couldn't get rid of the boom-chuck lapompe when he wanted to play straight swing rhythm. Then he saw the old videos of people playing like that and he figured I might as well try. And that's what did it for him. He's thinking it's because you're going across strings diagonally, instead of straight up and down. So you're somewhat arpeggiating and it's because of that slight arpeggio motion that all four beats even out equally.
Interesting thing about the Parker Fly is I heard Ken say what he had in mind when he was designing it, was to make electric guitar with an archtop top but without the sound box. And the prototype he had with him had most sustain I've ever heard in a solid body guitar. But it was a lot thinner than what ended up being the production model. Ultimately he couldn't make it as thin as he wanted because the original body was too thin to fit a standard humbucker pickup, and they needed something off the shelf because the cost of making the Fly was already way too high.
@Russell Letson Yes, in my case those BeBop strings might've been too light. I picked them because before them I had D'Addario 11-50s (flatwounds) and I just looked that "oh, 11s set, I'll try those" without really comprehending that the other strings in that set were so much lighter. And the set I have on that guitar now is also Thomastik, the 12-50 Swings. But it's my least played guitar currently and maybe I'm not a hollowbody guy after all.
Edit: I wanted to add that the next thing I'll do with that Ibanez is to put some actual acoustic strings on, either Pyramid 11-50 Cleos or Elixir 11-52s and see if I start to like the sound or not.
I've always used the same set of D'Addario flatwound 11s that Joonas used to use on my 335 (or most any humbucker archtop tbh)...pretty much my favorite tone when going through through a deluxe reverb for playing more modern stuff like modal jazz, fusion, funk-rock, etc. As for high quality acoustic archtops to get that early swing tone (Freddie Green, Oscar Moore, Bucky Pizzarelli, etc.), I think I've posted about them before but I'm a huge fan of La Bella's non-bronze wound strings, which sound great amplified through floating single coils as well in addition to playing acoustic.
And back to higher end, carved archtops, I'm 100% with Russell that the good ones are very comparable to a good Selmer-style guitar while occupying a somewhat different space in the tonal spectrum; I mean, all the Carl Kress fans on here know how good that tone can get but it's not Selmer. Then again, we also see how certain flat tops can get close to the Selmer tone too, especially in the hand of a great player...and speaking of, I'm not sure who built Giniaux's big body flat top he's been playing but lord knows he still gets that tone out of it lol
I read his biography a few years back and enjoyed it. IIRC, he talks about his reasons for staying all acoustic and how he had two instruments made for him that he used to perform with. I think I've spoken of this before, but I remember Dudley Hill telling me how he once had a chance to take a lesson from Steve Jordan. Dudley must have been in the DC area for something but drove 45min-1 hour out of his way to meet with Steve and get a lesson on chord comping. (I think Steve was living in Manassas?) Anyway, Dudley said if you have a chance to take a lesson with someone like that, you do whatever it takes. Imagine any of these old jazz guitarists now in the age of Zoom/Skype/Teams where we can take lessons halfway around the world with guys like Antoine Boyer, etc.
In addition to his work with Ruby Braff, he's got one of him and a bass player that is available for streaming and purchase. He sings on it and it is done later in life, but it is a nice listen.