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My uneducated guess on the amp: given the period - could it be Standel?
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07-16-2015 04:24 AM
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In the late 70s early 80s Charlie Byrd had a jazz club in Georgetown. I tried to go anytime Great Guitars was playing - Charlie, Herb Ellis and Barney Kessel, even at that point in their careers, they were phenomenal. I believe there is a recording from one of their performances there.
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The upstanding gentlemen over on the gretschpages.com were able to determine it was an Ampeg bass amp. Below is the thread.
ID of Herb Ellis' Amp in thie Picture? : Other Amps : The Gretsch Pages
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Someone posted this too
NAD: A Prehistoric Ampeg | The Gear Page
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Texas for sure. He once said, regarding the blues influence in his playing, that "If you saw a picture of where I grew up you'd have the blues to". I believe he and Jimmy Giuffre roomed together for a while at North Texas State which has a great jazz dept. Norah Jones went there for a while. It's been said that traditionally the best piano players came from New York. the best sax players from Kansas City, the best trumpeters from New Orleans and the best guitarists from Texas and Oklahoma. Lots of exceptions to that rule! Philly sure turned out a bunch of great guitar players.
Originally Posted by TheGrandWazoo
Last edited by mrcee; 07-17-2015 at 07:06 PM.
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Originally Posted by mrcee
Great stuff. Thanks for posting it. As for "best guitarists from Texas and Oklahoma," it's an over-generalization, but when you've got Charlie Christian, Herb Ellis, Barney Kessel, T-Bone Walker, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Johnny Winter (and that's just off the top of my head), they do have something brag about.
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Plus Jimmy Wyble, Eldon Shamblin, Johnny Guitar Watson, Cornell Dupree and, oh heck, let's throw Roy Clark and Willie in there to. And lest we forget, Lightnin', Gatemouth and Billy G. from ZZ. Like Doug Sahm said "You just can't live in Texas unless you've got a lot soul".
Philly gives them a run for their money though when it comes to the fancy cuff link Yankee stuff where you can hear the tinkling of ice cubes in the background instead of breaking beer bottles. Somehow I can't see Joe Pass playing behind chicken wire in some joint where if you didn't have a gun they gave you one at the door.
If some one wants to know what swing is, play them the following video.
BTW fellow Jazzarinos, that's country music royalty listening to Willie in the above vid. It would be an interesting exercise to name them. If C'n'W was good enough for Bird it seems Gypsy Jazz is good enough for Willie. I heard that he's started taking lessons. At 80+ years old. Good job!!Last edited by mrcee; 07-18-2015 at 08:44 AM.
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Willie Nelson's new album with Merle Haggard is called "Django and Jimmie." Django was Willie's hero and Jimmie (Rodgers) was Merle's. Originally Posted by mrcee
I think this is the single (-or song meant for radio) from the album, "It's All Goin' to Pot". (Willie does love the weed. He also plays more guitar on this track than on "Django and Jimmie")
Wilile's autobiography---"It's A Long Story"---is worth checking out. (He mentions Lightnin' Hopkins several times.)
I didn't know Cornell Dupree was from 'out that way.' Great player. I always associate him with Memphis.
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Dupree was from Fort Worth, TX as was King Curtis who he sided with. I got a chance to see Dupree in 1975, with the group that turned into Stuff a bit later, at a NYC club called Mikell's. You're right. A great player. He's got a good instructional video on YT on R'n'B guitar. He says he wasn't a jazz fan but liked Kenny Burrell. Oh well. We'll forgive him.
I will anyway.
Concerning the above mentioned Merle Haggard. I heard that he wants his grave stone engraved with "He was a jazz musician who loved to play country music".
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Well, it's his gravestone, so if that's what he wants, I hope he gets it! ;o) Originally Posted by mrcee
Here's Cornell with King Curtis (and Bernard Purdie and Jerry Jemmott) "Memphis Soul Stew" indeed.
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Nah, I don't think that's just your imagination, Wazoo. Like others upthread, I hear that too. Originally Posted by TheGrandWazoo
To me, that's what always made Herb a little more accessible than some of the harder guys. A lot like Kenny Burrell in a way. I hear a strong influence of country blues underpinning Herb's playing. With Kenny, it's similar (to me), but more of an urban blues.
How about this for a ridiculous comparison? Herb is like the butter of genius spread on the bread of country blues. And I hear Kenny's genius over a more urban, Chicago-inflected blues.
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I love this clip of Herb and Barney together. Around 1:30 is a nice five-ten second shot of Herb's picking hand.
I get the use of "country" in relation to Herb but I think of him primarily as a blues player.
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Great clip, Mark! Herb was usually my favorite in those Great Guitars trios (and duos). Somehow his playing sounds just so darn open and friendly, very inviting and accessible to me. Like even my mom could dig it, if you know what I mean.
There's not a hint of the darker, more "sinister" lines and tones one might hear in an edgier bluesy jazz player. (I love the sinister stuff, too, all masculine and ballsy. But Herb sounds more like a high-IQ, friendly uncle. A wonderful musician.)Last edited by Flat; 07-18-2015 at 05:11 PM.
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I know what you mean. I love learning lines from his books---his stuff won't wear out! Originally Posted by Flat
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Herb's playing looks so much cleaner compared to Barney.
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I had dinner with Herb between a couple of his sets in '94. I got a chance to play his '53 guitar, which had the humbucker in it at that point. I asked him why he had it installed. He said that the P-90 simply quit working. He wasn't into rewinds and guitar techs. He sent the guitar back to Gibson. I believe he had the guitar redone in about '91-92. The 175 of his is still my favorite example of that guitar, ever. Feather light and acoustically toneful. The electric sound was superb. Nice, wide fretboard. Probably due to refrets, the radius was flatter than on many 175s I have played. Herb's action was pretty high, too, which is how I prefer it. When you dig in--especially on the bass side--things don't flap or buzz.
And, yes, Herb preferred a Fender Twin Reverb in the studio. He traveled with Polytone amps all through the 80s. By the 90s, he was generally just traveling with a custom-made preamp and plugging into a venue-provided amp (usually a Fender) that he would dial a neutral sound on and adjust things with his preamp. (He usually played with venue-provided musicians, too. This was not uncommon, given the economics of jazz in the 90s. He would meet the guys at the bandstand, shake hands, and start the set.)
I asked him about equipment and he said that he carried a preamp because you never know when the venue would provide something other than a Fender or a Polytone--e.g., a Marshall, which he though sounded mighty thin.
As was the case for so many of the greats of that generation, Herb was about music, not equipment. He had BIG ears. He could get his ideas across, too, on a ukulele--I suspect.
FWIW, the amp in the studio shot looks to me like a Ray Butts amp.
Also, FWIW, the guys who spent years in the studio--Ellis, Kessel, Roberts, Mottola--all played impeccably on thousands of records. It was often stuff that was miles away from jazz. Ellis and Kessel ultimately dropped out of studio work in order to find their muses again. A lot of the stuff they recorded isn't necessarily stuff they would be proud of. Stuff they headlined, OTOH, is a different matter.
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Hey Greentone, or anybody...
Do you happen to know the connection between Herb and the ES-165?
The Herb Ellis signature is a single-pup ES-165--so that's what I expected to see in Mark's clip, but here it looks like Herb is playing a 175 (because of the two buckers).
But then there's that L5-ish tailpiece (I swear I could almost hear it--once I saw it!)
And maybe even a Venetian cutaway?
Is the guitar in the clip the '53 you mentioned?
What's the story?
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Great post. Thanks. As for the studio work, you're right, some of it was miles from jazz. But some of it was transcendent, such as this track with Ella and Louis. Not a guitar showcase, but it's a brilliant recording. "Don't grab your coat now--don't grab my coat, either!" Louis says---he doesn't want this to end. Neither do I. Originally Posted by Greentone
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The one in Mark's clip is Herb's signature model made by Aria.
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Hey, Jeff, ever play one? I haven't but this clip makes me want to. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
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No, but i have played an Aria model archtop from that era, can't remember the model. I remember liking it a lot.
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Thanks, Jeff. I've seen those Arias. I always thought they were just clones of whatever Gibson Herb was actually playing. But Herb's sounds great in that clip! Really thick, nice open bell-like ring.
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Honestly, if you played that clip to me blindfolded and told me Herb was playing a tele on the neck pickup, i'd have believed you.
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That's one of those ideas that I find kinda' sad or wonderfully liberating, depending on my mood.
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The guitar with the L5 tailpiece was the Aria Pro II model PE-175 Herb Ellis Model. It was sold by Aria in the late-70s through the 80s. The guitars were made by Matsumoku in Japan and are pretty good.
I have played them and always liked them. Ellis was pretty sour on the Arias by the 90s--the company apparently dropped some part of their agreement with Ellis, according to what he told me. He always preferred his Gibson, but hated to travel with it--after all the years with the Oscar Peterson Trio and all the recording work, it was a sentimental favorite of his.
If you do a search on this forum for the PE-175 you will find a lot written about it.
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