|
|||
 |
Epiphone Broadway Got this in 2005 because i love jazz and wanted a proper electric archtop (i even took a stab at building one several years back). The Broadway is Epiphone's copy of the L-5, my favorite guitar design.* When i tried to pinpoint the moment at which i first came to love the sound of jazz, i thought at first it was at 17, when i plundered a stack of my parents' neglected LPs in our hall closet and spent the following months listening to Nat Cole, Sinatra, Les Paul, and Tommy Dorsey. Then i thought back a bit further to seeing Leon Redbone on SNL, or "The Great Guitars" (Herb Ellis, Tal Farlow, and Barney Kessel) on the Tonight Show, or hearing "When Swing was King" on WVXU weekend afternoons. But the real beginning for me, before i even knew to call it "jazz", was Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, for which Johnny Costa was pianist and musical director. Fred Rogers was a Presbyterian minister who used public television to teach a generation of young TV viewers how to be good neighbors, to believe that they are special, and to love jazz. If there is such a thing as a Saint, Fred must be on that list. Hmmm? Oh yeah: the Broadway. Like most assembled-overseas instruments sold these days, they skimp on the setup, so i dressed the frets, replaced the bridge with a tune-o-matic, as well as switching out the "frequensator" tailpiece for a Byrdland style, and the unfortunate choice of dumb weirdo white knobs with gold speed knobs. The gold Grovers came stock and would've been my choice for this guitar anyway (the keys on those deco knobs are too big). The shape of the neck is really good; a little thicker than the typical Gibson neck but that's never bothered me much. The pickups (i only ever use the neck PU) sound round and clean and full, and the resonance of that big fat hollow body really comes through the amp (currently using a Roldand Cube 60). I hope at some point to write and record a jazz trio record, and this will probably be what i play it with, unless somebody gives me a Benedetto for my birthday. But for an amplified hollowbody, laminated is probably better, more stable. I love playing this guitar. Maybe i'm just a sucker for blondes. * For an excellent intro into jazz guitar music and the history of archtop instruments, check out David Grisman's Tone Poems II with Martin Taylor. A wealth of info on jazz guitars and mandolins (the illustrated booklet worth the price) featuring clean recordings of instruments dating back to the beginning of the 20th Century, playing tunes composed roughly around the time each instrument was made. A desert-island favorite—and those boys can play. |
|
|
