Welcome to the fourth installment of The Jazz Guitar Chronicles.
'Three for the Road' with Rob McConnell (valve trombone), Ed Bickert (guitar), and Don Thompson (bass, piano).
If you just started reading The Jazz Guitar Chronicles, the idea is to share with you some of the most important jazz guitar players in our recorded jazz canon, as shared with me by my friend and superb jazz guitarist, David Gitlen, who has played and studied with some of the greats, like Joe Pass and Jim Hall.
So in essence, these albums are "insider" jazz guitarist recommendations, the jazz guitar albums that jazz guitarists like to listen to because of the great jazz guitar performances on them.
Most of these recordings have quite good sound quality, but the recommendations are "for the music" first, and the sound quality is a secondary consideration.
When David stops by to teach me a jazz guitar lesson, after the lesson we spend time listening to a jazz guitar album that David has brought along for me to hear, while sipping a little espresso.
David often picks up the guitar and plays along with an album while we are listening to demonstrate a certain technique or principle to me about jazz guitar. Now that's about as absolute as sound gets, and its a heck of a lot of fun as well as illuminating.
It is also illuminating to hear David's take as a musician on the audio gear in the system at a given time, and what he values in its performance while listening to music.
We have a blast playing guitars and listening to music, what a great way to spend an afternoon. I recommend it!
Westminsters powered by the Triode Lab 45 EVO SET integrated amplifier.
We listened to this album with the big Tannoy Westminster Royal SE loudspeakers, the Triode Lab 45 EVO single-ended-triode integrated amplifier, and the Audio Note (UK) CD 2.1x/II Level Two Red Book CD player.
David likes this combination of hifi kit, "It sounds like live music", says he. I'll second that.
This time I want to tell you about an album ... a CD ... featuring jazz guitarist Ed Bickert.
'Three for the Road' with Rob McConnell (valve trombone), Ed Bickert (guitar), and Don Thompson (bass, piano) is a superb album.
Three of my favorite jazz guitarists are Jim Hall, Joe Pass, and Ed Bickert. Sadly, all three of these greats are no longer with us here on Planet Earth.
The first three installments of The Jazz Guitar Chronicles (one, two, three) all feature Joe Pass (and one with Joe Pass and Herb Ellis, another of the greats), so I thought it was time to switch things up a bit.
Roman Pokorny (left) with Ed Bickert (right). Roman is holding Ed's famous Telecaster. Photo provided by Roman and shared with his permission.
Probably the most common guitar played by the great jazz guitarists in history was the Gibson ES-175 archtop, which Gibson no longer makes. Its such a shame that the ES-175 is now out of production, all of my guitars gently weep.
Ed played an ES-175 earlier in his career, then switched over to a 1964 Fender Telecaster with a maple neck, rosewood fingerboard, and alder body. The Twelfth Fret guitar shop in Toronto installed a Gibson humbucker pickup in place of the stock single-coil pickup in the neck position for Ed (Ed didn't use the bridge pickup).
Ed's Telecaster. Photo by Roman Pokorny.
This is the Telecaster that Ed was playing when this album was recorded.
To the best of my ability to determine it, Ed's Telecaster started its life as a Olympic White 1964 Telecaster, with a maple neck, rosewood fingerboard, and alder body. Ed's Tele yellowed with age and wear & tear, so it didn't look like much, but Ed could make it sing!
With the aid of The Twelfth Fret guitar shop in Toronto, Ed had them install a Gibson humbucker pickup in place of the stock single-coil pickup in the neck position (Ed didn't use the bridge pickup).
The Fender Telecaster is an amazingly versatile guitar, and it can provide a beautiful "jazz guitar sound" in Ed's hands, and inspired me to build a near-replica of Ed's Tele for my own jazz guitar studies.
My Ed Bickert Telecaster "replica" is a Fender American Vintage '64 Telecaster with a Gibson humbucker pickup replacing the single-coil pickup.
The Gibson ES-175 cost $175 USD when it was first released in 1949. Ed's 1964 Tele would have sold for about $210 USD in 1964.
There's always a bit of controversy among jazz guitarists about a Fender Telecaster vs. a Gibson ES-175 for jazz.
The controversy is a little like that within audio about the differences between vacuum tube and solid-state amplification.
The Gibson ES-175 archtop guitar has a distinctive sound quality, and is the "vacuum tube amplification" of the guitar world in my analogy.
The Fender Telecaster has its own unique sound quality as well, and would be the "solid-state amplification" side of the spectrum of my analogy.
As in audio, the best solid-state and vacuum tube electronics are both fantastic performers, and so it is with the Gibson ES-175 and the Fender Telecaster, they are both superb jazz guitars.
When in the hands of a musician like Joe Pass (the ES-175) or Ed Bickert (the Fender Telecaster) they both blow me away.
I've really enjoyed the performances on this album. Ed's guitar playing is stunning, of course. Ed gets such beautiful tone from his Tele, and there's such a liquid and flowing nature to his style, and such purity of tone. You just have to hear Ed Bickert play on this album, he is amazing.
Rob McConnell is playing a valve trombone on this album, and is a real treat to hear as well. A valve trombone plays like a trumpet, but is an octave lower, giving a more robust and "meatier" presentation. I love it.
Triode Lab 45 EVO integrated SET amplifier.
Don Thompson's bass playing is superb, and with the Triode Lab 45 EVO providing the juice, I'm hearing some of the best upright bass sound I've ever heard.
You wouldn't think that a 2 watt 45 SET would have amazing bass performance, but it does. Articulate, natural sounding, great pitch definition, and truly impressive tone. The 45 EVO provides the most impressively natural bass performance I've heard from my Westminsters.
By the way, even though this recommendation is primarily about the music, the sound quality is truly superb in terms of tone, timbre, etc., all the musical aspects of a recording.
The imaging of the instruments is first rate as well, being vivid, and having a live-like presence. It's like Ed, Don, and Rob are in the room.
However, the soundstage is more like you hear in the "wide mono" of early mono jazz recordings, than some of the later audiophile-style wall-to-wall wide and layered soundstage recordings you'll hear on some albums.
Anyways, I recommend Three For The Road to you. Rob McConnell, Ed Bickert, and Don Thompson really deliver some beautiful performances on this album, and if you're like me, its an album you'll want to hear over and over again.
Ok, that's it for now.
As always, thanks for stopping by, and may the tone be with you!
