While I was back home visiting my parents last week, my dad alerted me to the presence of a new record store that had recently opened in downtown Port Huron, MI. That area has been without a record store since well before I left in 2012. I was a bit skeptical, but had to see it myself. Besides, what if they had some good albums? That Tuesday we headed down to check it out.
The store, Loud Music and Apparel, is so new that it didn't even appear on a google map search. This made finding it a bit of a challenge, but thankfully we were familiar with the area it is located in, which happens to be the main street of Port Huron's downtown area. After backtracking a little, we did find it. There didn't appear to be a sign on the building yet, but there was one out on the sidewalk near the entrance. Not knowing what to expect, we headed inside.
The store itself is basically one long room, with clothing in the front and the records along the right wall. Though it appeared they were still setting some things up, the place had a nice record store feel to it already. The guy behind the counter, I believe one of the owners, was very friendly and knowledgeable. My main concern though, was what they might have hidden away among the stacks of records.
My finds at Loud Music and Apparel
For a new store they had a pretty impressive selection, especially in the rock department. There was also a section of new releases and a smaller section of jazz and blues albums. I checked those out first, and not finding much of interest, made my way to the rock stuff. This was where I found some very good albums I hadn't yet come across in the wild at my local Grand Rapids area haunts. Most of the time the good classic rock stuff is sold as soon as it gets into the store, but that was not the case this time. The only real limit here was my budget!
I ended up finding four albums I had been keeping my eyes open for: Aerosmith's "Rocks," Little Feat's "Waiting For Columbus," Jethro Tull's "Thick as a Brick" (complete with all the newspaper inserts intact!), and Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Bayou Country." All of these records were in very good condition and all were very reasonably priced. I was certainly happy to have them!
My trip to Loud Music and Apparel was definitely worth it. From the looks of things, this store can only get better from here, and they appear to be doing a very good job so far. I hope Port Huron, which has a pretty poor history of keeping local businesses open, will continue to support this store. Don't let another nice record store fall by the wayside! I just hope I can get back there before too many people DO discover it and buy up all the good stuff!
Vintage archtop guitars. Heck, archtop guitars in general. Nowhere else in the world of guitars is there more misunderstanding and confusion. Most guitar players even mistakenly call hollowbody electric guitars archtops. Archtop guitars are actually acoustic guitars that were the dominant style of guitar from the 1920s to the 1950s. Being the owner of a 1935 Kalamazoo (the one shown on the sides of my blog) archtop acoustic guitar for the past several years, I hope to shed a little light on the subject of at least budget level archtops. These still plentiful vintage lower end models are many people's first experience with the world of archtops, and knowing what to be concerned about (and what not to) can be a big help!
I first came across my old Kalamazoo totally by accident while visiting Elderly Instruments in Lansing, MI. At the time I was quite happily playing a Martin 000-15m, but a few minutes with the Kalamazoo had me thinking twice about the guitar I was playing. I was also getting more and more interested in the playing styles of the early jazz guitar masters that would eventually lead me to where I am today, and that Kalamazoo, man, did it have the tone my ears were craving! It was even far better sounding than some of the more expensive archtops they had there at the time. About a week later I went back and traded in my much nicer Martin for an old beat up guitar that would change and grow with me in the most tumultuous times of my jazz journey.
Before that time I had never owned a vintage guitar, let alone one that was nearly 80 years old! The oldest instrument I had owned up to that point was a 1971 Wurlitzer 200 electric piano (for those who care to know, its the keyboard heard on Pink Floyd's "Money" as well as many other classic rock tunes). I had such a terrible time getting that piano restored that I didn't think I'd ever go vintage again! The tone and mojo of that Kalamazoo guitar had me hooked though. Over time I've learned a few things about vintage guitars, especially the fact that they are not as delicate as one might assume!
One of my major concerns was the fact that this guitar had NO truss rod whatsoever! The neck did not even sport a non adjustable one as found in many later lower end models. The lack of a truss rod was not because they hadn't been invented yet, rather, it was a cost cutting measure by Gibson to be able to sell guitars as cheaply as possible during the depression era. The lack of a truss rod is made up for by having a VERY thick neck. This guitar's neck is the definition of "baseball bat" thick! It is one of those things you get used to though, and I never really had trouble adjusting to it. I've also never had trouble with neck bow, even using medium gauge (13-56) strings. This was my real fear with not having an adjustable truss rod, but the neck has not changed in the three years I have had the guitar!
Another concern for many players is whether or not a guitar is made of solid woods. Though some argue the Kalamazoos are not made with solid woods, I am here to destroy that rumor. My KG-31 is most certainly has a solid top. How do I know? Well, the top has a repaired crack! Laminated wood cannot crack due to drying out like solid wood does, obviously. I think the confusion arises because these guitars, keeping in line with Gibson's cost cutting, have PRESSED solid tops, rather than the hand carved tops and backs found on up-market vintage Gibsons and Epiphones. Many people seem to equate pressed with laminate, but that is certainly not always the case. Many mass market solid top archtop guitars today are made with pressed solid tops. One thing to look out for on ALL archtop guitars, though, is a sunken top. This happens when string pressure causes the top to bow under the bridge. It can cause issues like decreased volume, the wrong string angle, and more.
The only other area of concern with a guitar like this for me is hardware. My Kalamazoo came equipped with newer tuners as the old ones (which were included with the guitar) were worn out and the plastic buttons were rotted from age. I would think that replacing the original tuners on any vintage budget guitar like this would be a very common and useful upgrade. Another thing to be aware of with hardware is pickguards. Many vintage archtop guitars have ruined finishes due to off-gassing of their original pickguards, and should be replaced regardless. Many have no pickguard included at all. My Kalamazoo did not have this problem, but it had one that is nearly as bad. My guitar had a pickguard included but no hardware to attach it with. Due to the non-elevated neck on these old budget Gibsons, special hardware is required to attach the pickguard as normal archtop pickguard hardware will not work. Its simply holds the pickguard too high in relation to the strings. I am currently looking for a solution to this problem, and as of this writing have ordered a Les Paul style pickguard bracket to see if that works.
Buying a vintage guitar can be both a thrilling and frightening experience. I think a good frame of mind and perspective is a prerequisite to getting one. You cannot expect perfection on a guitar older (maybe several times older!) than you are. Look the guitar over well, and buy from a seller who knows a thing or two about archtop guitars. If you can overlook some flaws, these old Kalamazoo and other vintage budget archtops can be a great way to get into the archtop game without spending a ridiculous amount of money. Remember, too, that just because they are old does not mean they are fragile. When you do the kind of heavy playing I do on an 80 year old guitar with no issues, you know its a decently built instrument!
Since my leg breaking incident in February I haven't done much musically other than put in lots of practice time while laid-up on the couch. I've slowly gotten back to feeling more normal and decided to finally record some tunes. That practicing seems to have paid off though: Here are a couple of videos of tunes I recorded on May 8th. I was really only expecting to use the video to see what my practicing and playing was sounding like currently, but I ended up pulling off a couple of good performances of two of the most recent tunes I've learned. I hope you enjoy them both! They are both very different tunes from very different periods in time and styles within jazz!
First of all, an old swing era tune with a vocal: "Love Is Just Around The Corner:"
I fell in love with this old 1930's tune just over a month ago when I stumbled across one of Marty Grosz's versions on YouTube. Its a fun, cool little tune with silly lyrics and I really like the chord progression. It is just different enough to be quite interesting, particularly during the bridge (the "Venus de Milo" section). The toughest part of the whole tune was getting the improvisation together. As many other jazz musicians will attest, it can be very hard to get variety out of fast moving two-chord-per-bar progressions like this one has. I think it has come together really well though. As with most things, the more you do it, the better you will get at it!
The other tune I did was a bossa nova tune called "So Danco Samba:"
This is one of my favorite bossa nova tunes. I learned it quite some time ago from the classic album "Getz/Gilberto," the 1965 release that also features the famous original version of "The Girl From Ipanema." But it was this summery tune, "So Danco Samba" that got stuck in my head again even after not hearing it in many months. I actually remembered enough of it to be able to re-create the whole thing from memory. Maybe it was inspired by my yearning for warmer weather, I'm not sure! The chord melody arrangement required a bit of octave transposition and some creative chord forms (OK, more like simple triads) to make it possible in this style of guitar playing, but I like the results very much. The improvised choruses are always a blast to play through on this tune as well. Now I just need to find a small group to play it with so I can play the rhythm chords too!
The banjo in jazz. These days, its almost an oxymoron. Outside of a very few examples, the banjo is nonexistent in modern jazz. Its connection with its close cousin, the guitar, has also become distant in the genre. In swing music and classic jazz, however, that connection remains very strong. Many of the most celebrated swing guitarists previously played plectrum or tenor banjo before it went out of fashion around 1930. Carmen Mastren, Carl Kress, George Van Eps, Freddie Green, and many others first played banjo before switching over to guitar.
A couple of years ago, I decided to discover this connection for myself. In the process I learned a bit of tenor banjo and an enormous amount about techniques that came from the banjo to the guitar. While I didn't play banjo for very long, the discoveries I made changed my guitar playing forever, and opened up doors I never even knew existed. There were four major things that I gained from the time spent learning banjo: Right hand picking technique, tremolo and duo style playing, chord melody improvisation, as well as vast potential for solo playing on plectrum instruments.
A large portion of the things I learned came from Buddy Wachter's old VHS video "Beginning Plectrum Banjo." Yes, I ended up playing tenor, but the material in this video is mainly right hand technique anyway, and that stays the same on both four string banjos. Buddy Wachter is one of the finest four string banjo players who ever played the instrument, and thankfully is also a superb teacher. There is an in depth section of the video where Wachter describes the correct way to hold the arm and pick for maximum play-ability. The way I had been holding the pick was very limiting, and now I saw why I had hit such a wall in right hand development. Let me just say that anchoring in any way is no good for pick playing! I knew Wachter's way had to be the way the swing guitar guys played as well.
My suspicions were confirmed several times over. I searched for videos of 30's players on YouTube and found they all played this way. Nobody played with their hand resting on the bridge like I did. What was even more eye opening was a section in George Van Eps' "Method for Guitar" where he describes the correct way to hold the pick EXACTLY like Wachter does, right down to the angle of the pick against the index finger. It took me a while to adapt, but when I did, I never looked back. There's nothing you cant do playing this way.
Not only did studying tenor banjo change the way I approached the right hand, it also changed my mind about what is possible playing with a pick. In that same Wachter video he goes into detail about the tremolo, a common technique of rapid picking used to sustain a note or notes on the four string banjo. You rarely hear it done on guitar nowadays, but it was more common in the 20s and 30s. Django Reinhardt is probably the best known guitarist for using tremolo, and he, not surprisingly, started on banjo too (albeit a 6 string). Another related and really fascinating banjo technique is called duo style. With this technique, a tremolo is played on the first or melody string and the notes of the underlying chord are played either all at once or arpeggiated to give the illusion of a melody with accompaniment. I use this technique a bit for intros and endings. Check out the Wachter video I've included below to see it in action. Its another one of those musical devices that is nearly impossible to describe in words.
Another very common four string banjo technique that was popular with guitar players during the swing era was chord melody playing and improvisation. This style of playing was probably inspired by Eddie Peabody, who was well known for it on plectrum banjo. From what I can gather, Carl Kress was one of the first to bring the style over to the guitar. George Van Eps was probably the biggest proponent of this style; he taught it to Allan Reuss who in turn taught and inspired many others during the era. This banjo style chord melody is the foundation of the style I play in as well. It allows a guitarist to perform solo pieces, harmonized melodies or improvisation in a manner that is not unlike that of a piano player providing his own harmony.
In a related way, learning and playing tenor banjo opened my eyes to what was possible for a seemingly simple instrument in regards to solo playing. Though the plectrum banjo is more well known for players who do a large solo repertoire, the tenor too has a smaller but still respectable library of composed pieces and classical adaptations. It has also been influenced heavily by plectrum banjo chord melody solo virtuosos, and chord melody is done just as often on tenor banjo nowadays. I think about it like this: If that kind of solo repertoire can be played on only four strings, the plectrum style guitar is even more capable!
Learning and playing tenor banjo was a fantastic experience for me as a guitar player. I didn't spend too much time with it, but I learned a wealth of new technical devices and playing styles that fundamentally changed my guitar playing forever. I really think all swing oriented guitarists could learn a thing or two from studying four string banjo. It can truly offer a different approach to what is possible with plectrum style playing!
