Ari Lehtela Guitars?

[Shay]

Is anyone here owns, played or sell guitars made by NC luthier Ari Lehtela? They're very interesting and I was just curious about what you guys are thinking about them. Would love to hear some opinions.

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[Gitterbug]

To be honest, a new name to me. A Finn for sure. If has been trained at the IKATA Institute, like a bunch of top-notch Finnish luthiers, he's Kosher.

[rhl-ferndale]

I have two of Ari’s instruments, a Jazz Tango and a 6A.
The Jazz Tango is a favorite—hollow, light, acoustically responsive. A 1 7/8” nut is pretty standard on Ari’s guitars, and having room for spread triads and dense chord clusters is terrific.
Also, guitar bodies 3-4” deep are now uncomfortable for me, given certain neck/right shoulder issues. The Jazz Tango’s body depth compares to my Forshage Orion and Turner Renaissance, and mostly I divide playing time among these three. This Jazz Tango was once featured on the Dream Guitars website. Search the web with ‘Lehtela Jazz Tango Dream Guitars’ and the video may appear. This body design is what he calls a parabolic carve.








The 6A is a crossover instrument. I bought mine locally and inexpensively (~$1K) because I love the Jazz Tango, and because it is wired 13pin plus a piezo that is actually nondusgusting in its quack factor. But, it is a far denser instrument than the Jazz Tango—in the hands, it feels like Kon Tiki after a long time in the ocean. It handles nylon strings well enough, though steel strings make more sense with the tuners. When I showed Ari a pic of mine, he dispraised that particular instrument for its weight, and said the newer builds were far better. He’ll build these as 6, 7, 8 string guitars.



Ari is a scrupulous and exacting luthier, also quite approachable, willing to customize and tweak almost any feature—as the instrument descriptions on his website show. (I think he overwrites the customizable options in the instrument descriptions, and will raise that subject with him when I see him next!) I wouldn’t look to Ari to build a variant on an L4 or L5 or New Yorker, though his Jazz Wonder tends in that direction. He didn’t have one at the shop, though.

He did have a (semi?) hollow Tele (called, of course, a Tela) when I was there last for ~$4k. And a few of his hybrid instruments that owe a lot to Indian stringed instruments, part fretless with brass fretboards, microtonal frets, and tremendously cool to play.

His shop is in Newell NC, a Charlotte suburb about 70 miles south of me. I’m hoping to work with him this year on far better photographs of his instruments—and I’ll talk with him about streamlining the descriptive prose, because I know how people are overwhelmed by menus with too many choices.

Ari is also a free jazz / world jazz player. This year he released an ensemble album with the super witty title, “The Year the Earth Stood Still.”

[Shay]

I have two of Ari’s instruments, a Jazz Tango and a 6A.
The Jazz Tango is a favorite—hollow, light, acoustically responsive. A 1 7/8” nut is pretty standard on Ari’s guitars, and having room for spread triads and dense chord clusters is terrific.
Also, guitar bodies 3-4” deep are now uncomfortable for me, given certain neck/right shoulder issues. The Jazz Tango’s body depth compares to my Forshage Orion and Turner Renaissance, and mostly I divide playing time among these three. This Jazz Tango was once featured on the Dream Guitars website. Search the web with ‘Lehtela Jazz Tango Dream Guitars’ and the video may appear. This body design is what he calls a parabolic carve.








The 6A is a crossover instrument. I bought mine locally and inexpensively (~$1K) because I love the Jazz Tango, and because it is wired 13pin plus a piezo that is actually nondusgusting in its quack factor. But, it is a far denser instrument than the Jazz Tango—in the hands, it feels like Kon Tiki after a long time in the ocean. It handles nylon strings well enough, though steel strings make more sense with the tuners. When I showed Ari a pic of mine, he dispraised that particular instrument for its weight, and said the newer builds were far better. He’ll build these as 6, 7, 8 string guitars.



Ari is a scrupulous and exacting luthier, also quite approachable, willing to customize and tweak almost any feature—as the instrument descriptions on his website show. (I think he overwrites the customizable options in the instrument descriptions, and will raise that subject with him when I see him next!) I wouldn’t look to Ari to build a variant on an L4 or L5 or New Yorker, though his Jazz Wonder tends in that direction. He didn’t have one at the shop, though.

He did have a (semi?) hollow Tele (called, of course, a Tela) when I was there last for ~$4k. And a few of his hybrid instruments that owe a lot to Indian stringed instruments, part fretless with brass fretboards, microtonal frets, and tremendously cool to play.

His shop is in Newell NC, a Charlotte suburb about 70 miles south of me. I’m hoping to work with him this year on far better photographs of his instruments—and I’ll talk with him about streamlining the descriptive prose, because I know how people are overwhelmed by menus with too many choices.

Ari is also a free jazz / world jazz player. This year he released an ensemble album with the super witty title, “The Year the Earth Stood Still.”

Ferndale you're the man, man!!! I was actually going to buy this very same 6A guitar when it was on Reverb but was to slow to press the trigger. Ari's guitars has a totally different vibe, I currently owns a Blue Jazz and although I also have a few other semi hollows (Victor Baker, 1968 Starfire, ERG) the Lehtela is my favorite and my number 1 guitar currently... I am hoping to maybe find a jazz tango as well in the future... Thank you so much for sharing this. Both guitars look spectacular

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[jhall1984]

Sorry to revive an old thread but I was searching for Ari’s stuff on google and stumbled onto this one.

I was an apprentice and also taught guitar lessons in Ari’s shop for several years in my early 20’s (maybe 2005-2009-ish). I got to know him really well spending all day most saturdays one on one with him. He’s a brilliant and wildly creative guy, and an extremely skilled builder. He’s also every bit as good of a player. His new album is fantastic, and all though he seems to have done mostly free jazz in the past couple decades he is a killin straight ahead player as well, kinda in the vein of John Abercrombie. I was working in his shop when he first created his hybrid instruments and it was wild, he knew how to play them before they were even constructed. His “West Eats Meat” album was recorded just a few months after creating those instruments.

Ari is an artist’s artist and that’s why he isn’t better known. Marketing a business always took a very far back seat to his creativity. He gets his satisfaction out of creating new things and has never seemed to care much about notoriety or making a ton of money. I haven’t talked to him in at least 5 years (I live a few hours away) but when I was working in his shop the last thing he would ever want to do is sit down at a computer, so that’s why there’s so little out there on the web. There was never a computer in his shop and I doubt there is now. He’s super old school in that regard. His work ethic is old school as well. Prior to a health issue 10 or so years back he would be in the shop 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. And I’m really not exaggerating much, if at all. He was quick too. I would spend all day working on something he could knock out in 20 minutes. I really need to give him a call as he was a great mentor and friend. If I can get together enough money I’d like to get him to build me another guitar.

As for the guitars in this post, I’ve got memories of them! Shay, I working in the shop during the time you guitar was built actually had it in my possession for a few months when I was in college. Ari used to let me take instruments for a while and I’d leave him of mine as collateral. It was a pretty awesome perk of apprenticing over a number of years! That double cut blue was a great sounding guitar. The nut was a good bit to wide for me as I’m a smaller guy who does a lot of thumb over the top bass notes and has had some arthritis issues since I was about 20. Had it not been for that I probably would have found a way to get it.

Robert, I was the original owner of the older twin to your guitar. Yours was an exact duplicate of mine except mine was gloss on the top. I think there might have been one other spec change. I can’t remember if the guy who ordered yours wanted the exact same guitar as mine but I owned it at the time or if he wanted to change one thing. I remember when yours was built and thinking it was the better of the two, which is crazy because mine was so good. Like the Blue though, ultimately the nut was too wide for me and it had to go. It’s unfortunate because I used to love wide nuts and throughout my 20’s I would go back and forth between wider and 1 and 11/16” depending on the up and down condition of my hand health before finally realizing my hands can’t deal with them over time. If I can come up with the scratch I’m going to have him build another Tango for me.

I’ve still got two that I built with him. I’m being very liberal with the word “built” on my behalf as I largely just did grunt work (hours and hours of hand sanding) and Ari did all of the critical stuff, so the result was the same as if he was the only person who touched the guitars.

The first of them is pretty unique. To my knowledge it’s the only laminate archtop he’s done. It was inspired by a D’Aquisto Jim Hall had in the 80s. What we did on the inside is a classic Ari “let’s try this” innovation. To try to make the guitar as feedback resistant as possible it’s got a large brace underneath the bridge on the top and the back. There’s an open port on the side that you can insert this small block that Ari called “the peg leg” (he actually referred to the entire guitar as “peg leg” after a while). The block would connect the top and back braces and create a sound post. It worked quite well. It doesn’t really change the amplified sound but does increase its resistance to feedback quite a bit. Originally it had an original DeArmond RC1100 from the sixties which was amazing. There’s a small hole you can see in the top of the guitar where the wires were fed through, which was covered by a pickguard back then. At some point I was really broke and sold that pickup for way too much money. It’s a shame because it was special. To this day the only floater I’ve ever liked and I probably liked it better than any humbucker I’ve ever played. This one has a 1 3/4” nut, which while not as wide as the others is still a bit much for me so it doesn’t get much play these days. I’ve thought about selling it many times but it’s got some sentimental value as it was my main guitar for a number of years so it’s a bit hard to justify knowing I couldn’t get an amount for it that comes remotely close to doing the guitar justice. I’d still let her go if someone really wanted her. She deserves to be played.


The other is a Tela model. I still use this one all the time. It’s a heavily chambered solid body, basically everything is routed out except underneath the pickups and bridge. It’s the most recent of all of them and at that point I had settle on 1 11/16” and it also has a medium chunky soft v profile. It’s perfect for my hands and by far my best playing guitar. Super versatile as well. It’s never going anywhere.

[rhl-ferndale]

Fascinating, thanks for this rich sketch of lutherie life with Ari. When I visited the shop early this year to have him fix shorted wiring in the Jazz Tango, I had the same impression of his life and work and priorities. Artistry and exploratory design first, making music next—self-promotion, guitar-show gladhanding, website development seem to be way down the list.

While he fished out the wires and resoldered the short, we talked about rephotographing his instruments. He knew I was a photographer; we agreed that the instrument photos on the website are nowhere near the standard embodied by the instruments themselves; and though I told him I do photography as BW art and narrative documentary projects—not pro product photography or studio work—, the fact is we’re both hopelessly committed to art and in that sense have something to offer each other.

However, I had started another documentary project at the time, so planned to start photographing visiting Ari’s shop to photograph instruments and more in the summer. Since then, a move, then a health problem and long convalescence have delayed things. Now I hope to get going by early spring. Maybe I’ll get to borrow a gitari (sitar/guitar) or a Tela between shooting sessions. If everything truly works out, Ari will get some compelling high-resolution images from me, and I’ll get credit toward an instrument from him. Once that starts, I’ll report back to this thread.

It would be fun, presuming the pandemic ever ends, to have a Lehtela guitar meet-up. I sold the 6A (which weighed as much as a Les Paul) to a guitarist out West, but the Jazz Tango is close by. I’d love to try that Jim Hall homage instrument, even though my laminate infatuations (including a Shiro Tsuji homage to the same JH D’Aquisto) have all ended the same way, in a shipping box headed elsewhere.

Speaking of Telas, there’s one currently listed on Reverb for $2199 at a shop across the SC border just south of Charlotte. Maybe some thread lurker here will be inspired to get it.
Lehtela Tela Custom Guitar with Piezo and Hardshell Case | | Reverb

[jhall1984]

Fascinating, thanks for this rich sketch of lutherie life with Ari. When I visited the shop early this year to have him fix shorted wiring in the Jazz Tango, I had the same impression of his life and work and priorities. Artistry and exploratory design first, making music next—self-promotion, guitar-show gladhanding, website development seem to be way down the list.

While he fished out the wires and resoldered the short, we talked about rephotographing his instruments. He knew I was a photographer; we agreed that the instrument photos on the website are nowhere near the standard embodied by the instruments themselves; and though I told him I do photography as BW art and narrative documentary projects—not pro product photography or studio work—, the fact is we’re both hopelessly committed to art and in that sense have something to offer each other.

However, I had started another documentary project at the time, so planned to start photographing visiting Ari’s shop to photograph instruments and more in the summer. Since then, a move, then a health problem and long convalescence have delayed things. Now I hope to get going by early spring. Maybe I’ll get to borrow a gitari (sitar/guitar) or a Tela between shooting sessions. If everything truly works out, Ari will get some compelling high-resolution images from me, and I’ll get credit toward an instrument from him. Once that starts, I’ll report back to this thread.

It would be fun, presuming the pandemic ever ends, to have a Lehtela guitar meet-up. I sold the 6A (which weighed as much as a Les Paul) to a guitarist out West, but the Jazz Tango is close by. I’d love to try that Jim Hall homage instrument, even though my laminate infatuations (including a Shiro Tsuji homage to the same JH D’Aquisto) have all ended the same way, in a shipping box headed elsewhere.

Speaking of Telas, there’s one currently listed on Reverb for $2199 at a shop across the SC border just south of Charlotte. Maybe some thread lurker here will be inspired to get it.
Lehtela Tela Custom Guitar with Piezo and Hardshell Case | | Reverb

I hope you do get to get him some images, and a discounted guitar as well! He could certainly use better representation of his instruments.

He was definitely still a very dedicated player when I was there, and I would assume he is still as he seems to be more active in terms of gigging than he was during that time. I would usually get there around 11AM and he was always playing when I came in. He used to get there pretty early so I always got the impression he started every day with several hours of playing before building.

I’ve seen that Tela on reverb. It looks like a twin to one he’s had for a very long time that’s been the only straight up guitar he played the whole time I knew him. That one had a Roland synth pickup on it so I’m assuming this is a different guitar.

It says under your post you’re in Winston, I’m just up the road in Greensboro if you ever want to check that guitar out. If you wind up liking it I’d cut you a hilariously stupid deal on it, as you probably just did for someone with the 6A haha! It would help fund another one. I’d love to see that Tango again as well. You could also photograph my Tela for his site.

When you were there last, did he still have the black Tango Petite on the wall? I always loved the way that guitar looked and played, but it was super heavy as the neck was solid ebony. He originally wanted a huge price for it but I think last time I was there he has started adding some micro frets to it and probably gradually turned it into a hybrid. There was also always a blonde single cut Blue model carved top archtop that was super expensive in a display case the shop. I have a feeling that one has sold by now. It was a traditionalist’s dream. Beautiful design but not too modern for the average player.

[FourOnSix]

Emily Litella? Oh yes, very highly recommended!

Oh, Art Lehtela. Never mind!

https://tenor.com/view/emily-litella...r-gif-10001771

[Shay]

OMG I just saw this. Was without a working phone for a few months and enjoyed the temporary disconnection from the world. JHall thank you so much for the insights about Ari as a person and the life in his shop. Extremely interesting. I really enjoyed reading it. I'll try to look up some of Ari's music, I always on the lookout for new artists and new music to listen to. I love the DC Blue, it has so much vibe. Your guitars looks amazing as well. Thanks a bunch for the pictures. Rhl-ferndale if you ended up getting this archtop please post your impression about it...would love to know how it compared to the tango.

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[rhl-ferndale]

Just checking in on the little Lehtela players world on JGO. How's everyone?

I'm hoping to arrange a Greensboro visit to see the Jim Hall inspired archtop. But I'd also like to see how that Jazz Tela plays.

[rhl-ferndale]

Here's the Jazz Tango fronting three others in recent morning rotation--Forster Samois, Forshage Orion, Greg German Vireo.