New Erich Solomon acoustic archtop

rpguitar · #1 11-27-2011, 09:33 PM

Hi gang,

I wanted to share an extraordinary instrument I just received from New Hampshire luthier Erich Solomon. He was written up recently in Fretboard Journal, and was also at the Healdsburg CA and Woodstock NY shows. Strangely, I Googled and there seems to be no previous mention of him here on the Jazzguitar.be forum.

This is an Imperial model, 16", finished with French polish, and equipped with a handmade KA floater. The guitar is featherweight and puts out an incredibly clear, punchy, sweet tone with lots of versatility. It's not a fat L-5 sound; it's a hybrid of sorts that connects the archtop/flattop worlds and has a hint of classical nylon string mojo as well. It's basically a rule breaker, and you can play chord melody or strum folk favorites all day long. I'm really impressed!

The guitar is built with a European spruce top, quilted maple B&S, and a solid American cherry neck with a cocobolo board. The bridge and tailpiece are African blackwood. The binding is cherry.

(No sound or video is up yet. Eventually... I'm too busy playing it to futz with recording.)

Here are some photos:

NSJ · #2 11-27-2011, 09:39 PM

Wow. Now that's a looker. Hope she plays as well as she looks.

Tim Lerch posted a brief video of a "hybrid" sort of guitar that Trenier had lent him. But it didn't look as sa-weet as this one. This is straight out guitar porn.

Roger, you definitely some of the nicest guitars of anyone here. How do you decide to play each one? Do you play for specific projects/gigs? Rotate weekly?

Here is the video Mr. Lerch posted on the Trenier hybrid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMAAt1fF9qY

marcwhy · #3 11-27-2011, 11:18 PM

Nice, Roger! But how come it's not orange?

Marc

kamlapati · #4 11-28-2011, 12:12 AM

Beautiful. We're a lot alike, we need old ones AND new ones! The modern x-braced archtops are such different beasts than the old Gibsons. I use mine for country and folk strumming too.

kamlapati · #5 11-28-2011, 12:48 AM

I should've mentioned, I met Eric (and his mother) at the Healdsburg show, and played a couple of his guitars. I really enjoyed them all. We talked golden ratio and how it relates not just to his guitars but to the great archtops of the past. We're all looking forward to some recordings or vids!

bustout · #6 11-28-2011, 07:04 AM

Actually, Ive never been much on forums or groups I guess this one spoke to me because I got the notion that this group was pretty serious about Jazz.

I am 75 I started, became seriously involved with playing flamenco when I was stationed in Spain aside from a long recess caused by a tendon in my right hand I' am still working at it. I've always loved jazz and decided to learn. not much more, tha's about it

rpguitar · #7 11-28-2011, 08:20 AM

Kamlapati: Surely we have much in common! It's cool that you met Erich. And that you appreciate both the Old and New worlds of archtops. Your Trenier looks beautiful.

NSJ: How to answer the question about which guitar to play... At home, anything goes, so whatever mood strikes is what I grab. Usually it's one of the '47s in my sig. Now it's the Solomon, since it's new to the family. We'll see how that evolves. It's proving so far to be up for anything as far as my repertoire goes.

If I play out, it's going to be one of two extremes. An electric jam context with some funk thrown in, in which case I play a 335 or one of my Forshages; no archtops at all! Or it will be a quiet solo thing, where I'll bring one of the jazz guitars. I play at an art gallery occasionally, and it's quiet enough that I could play 100% acoustically, but I'll probably use either the L-5/DeArmond or this Solomon when I'm there next time.

I actually just sold 13 guitars, so I'm seriously scaling back and also refining my stable (hence the recent posts containing obscenely nice guitars).

fws6 · #8 11-28-2011, 08:29 AM

Total beauty

oldane · #9 11-28-2011, 09:19 AM

Beautiful guitar. I love that quilted back. I love those leaf shaped sound holes less, but thats just because I'm a conservative old fart.

Solomon is another luthier who has seeked alternatives to ebony and mahogany. That may be a wise step after Gibson got raided by FBI. And why not? After all the use of ebony and mahogany is more than anything based on tradition, and there are likely many other kinds of wood which will work just as well.

(OT for the those of you who are photofreaks besides being guitar freaks: Another man of the same name, the German photographer Erich Solomon, was one of the founders of modern photojournalism. He used the - for the time - very small Ermanox plate camera which had a lens with a very wide aperture, so he could work unobtrusively and often unnoticed indoors in available light without flash powder guns. He shot a lot of informal photos of politicians and other celebrities in the German Weimar republic. The next step in the development came with the advent of the Leica camera in the late 1920s - but thats another story.)

rpguitar · #10 11-28-2011, 04:47 PM

Erich is into a clean look with very limited non-wood parts. His guitars have wood binding. He even prefers a one piece non-adjustable bridge. I didn't opt for that because I'm far too particular about my setup, and it would irk me. But I love the simple elegance of his designs, including the leaf sound hole. The oval sound port is also tilted and beveled, which is slick.

The guitar is really the epitome of the "magic box" - where this small, light structure produces a disproportionately impressive tone and volume. You can look inside the sound port, point the top towards a bright light, and see the glow right through it. That's a pretty cool phenomenon.

AlohaJoe · #11 11-28-2011, 10:11 PM

Man, that is drop dead gorgeous!

That tailpiece is sure interesting, what's the story on that?

morroben · #12 11-28-2011, 10:27 PM

That's gorgeous!!! Wow!!! I love that it's not too complicated but still has a unique soundhole, headstock and overall look. And to be honest, the quilted look is usually a big negative for me. I don't like flamed much either, but particularly quilted. But this guitar, with such minimal styling and the un-quilted top...beautiful! It makes the quilted back and sides come across as classy, rather than show-y.
I'd love to hear soundclips when you get a chance.

rpguitar · #13 11-28-2011, 11:00 PM

Yes, soundclips. I'm trying to resist the urge to toss up a quick recording of something lame, like I usually do. Working on a few chord melody things, and will probably wait til I'm proficient at one of them.

One thing is neat - the guitar responds exceptionally well to very quiet dynamics, unlike some archtops which don't produce much sound until punched a bit hard. Had a nice time tonight playing pianissimo in the living room while the wife had the tv on (normally I escape to my music room).

The tailpiece is a marvel of simplicity. It's a thin sandwich - wood, brass, wood - simply bolted to the tail block through the bottom of the guitar. The metal grounds the strings to the endpin jack. And the length of the strings suspended between the bridge and the tailpiece causes a lot of interesting sympathetic overtones, which sound much like natural reverb.

The tailpiece is actually how I learned about Erich Solomon a few years ago, when I was having a Forshage archtop built. I found Erich's work via Google, and we used a similar tp on my Forshage. I acknowledged Erich for his design in a blog article I wrote about the guitar. He found it and thanked me for that. Eventually I got the urge to speak to him about a commission, and the rest is obvious.

Jabberwocky · #14 11-29-2011, 10:45 AM

It is good to know that Erich came through with making sure you got a top flight guitar, Roger.

BigDaddyLoveHandles · #15 11-29-2011, 10:55 AM

Sweet guit, dude! I a blonde lover, too.

Interesting tailpiece. I wonder what his rationale is for having it so far from the bridge.

Jabberwocky · #16 11-29-2011, 11:11 AM

Roger, how does it compare tone-wise to an OM-sized flattop? It does look like a hybrid guitar.

rpguitar · #17 11-29-2011, 01:19 PM

Tailpiece:
I think the main thing is that it's not a big hunk of something hanging over the guitar. It's lightweight, and it's very firmly anchored to the bottom - i.e. it doesn't float. So it provides a really solid endpoint for the strings.

Compared to an OM... The closest thing I have to that is a Martin 000-18 Golden Era. The Solomon is ultimately still an archtop in character. It has lots more sustain than a typical vintage style archtop, and a surprisingly deep bass (for its size). But the notes still have a strong fundamental and there's lots of punchy midrange. The Martin rings and shimmers with the full range of frequencies that you'd expect to hear from a mahogany body flattop. It, being small(ish), does have nice punch for a flattop, and you can certainly play single note melody lines on it quite happily.

The Solomon has the "modern" archtop sound I expect when played through an amp. It's got some Johnny Smith in there, some amplified flattop, but with the smoothness of a jazz guitar (if you play it right). Acoustically, it's very much a hybrid in the sense that it doesn't seem to be perturbed by any of the acoustic styles that I am able to play.