Another D'Angelico question

[rpjazzguitar]

Rpjazzguitar,
Yes, the blonde non-cut L5. One of the finest guitars I've ever played. That was the stolen guitar - which was eventually recovered with a broken neck. John Monteleone repaired the neck in the early 80's.

The lessons from Sid were invaluable. They provided me with a life long skill set. He insisted on me reading many different books, including Paganini , jazz syncopation studies, solfeggio etc.etc. I still use those books on and off. Its been a wonderful musical journey and I'll never forget his generosity, guidance, encouragement and wisdom.

I apologize to the Op for getting off course, but sometimes these discussions lead us into our past a bit.

Sent from my SM-P610 using Tapatalk

How great to read this! I also did the Paganini, Moto Perpetuo. Two Mel Bays, Rhythms Complete by Colin/Bower, Advanced Dance Rhythms. Pasquale Bona's Rhythmic Articulation (which I still have and occasionaly try to read the harder stuff in the second half of the book). And, chord melody out of that fake book. Don't Blame Me, Moonglow, Stars Fell on Alabama, Stompin' At the Savoy etc. And I also felt the glow of mentorship. I don't recall solfeggio -- I was there 64-66 or so.

Years later, I played his arrangement of Don't Blame Me and an audience member came up to tell me that it reminded him of his childhood, listening to the Arthur Godfrey radio program with his mother in the 50s. Good memory! Sid did that show.

[DRS]

cool thread

[213Cobra]

Year old thread, so what I'm about to write is probably irrelevant to the OP. But I'll contribute to the historical record.

The Gene Baker 1942 Masterbuilt Excel D'Angelico guitar is a well-built and meticulously finished instrument. I have one. They did start with MRI data from scanning an original, D'Angelico 1942 Excel. Or given the water content nature of MRI, perhaps it was a CT scan. The MRI story is what stuck but I'm not sure how that would work. Regardless, they got dimensional data of an assembled guitar. What this means is that Baker and this crew at Premier Builders Guild in California were able to replicate all the dimensions of the guitar, including the size and placement of the braces, the thickness and carves of all the wood elements so that they produced a dimensionally and internally faithful new copy of a 1942 Excel. And of course, it was built with new wood. Nobody should expect it to sound like what today would be an 83 year old D'Angelico archtop guitar. I didn't buy it expecting that. The last time I played an original Excel was around 45 years ago, prowling shops in New York. What I can say is that ergonomically this Gene Baker replica feels like an original. The neck is especially inspiring if you like girthy necks, .096" at the 1st fret, 1.04" at the 7th. I love it.

They obviously had some spruce insufficiently dried, as I've seen three that had the top seam crack under the tailpiece and extending almost to the bridge, left unrepaired. I played one and it sounded fine, but I wasn't eager to buy one with an unaddressed seam separation at the prices being asked. I did, however, stumble across one with the separation filled by a luthier. The history is interesting. It was originally bought by an employee of PBG, who filled the separation himself. The dealer who eventually acquired it felt that the work was not on par with the quality of the guitar, had the prior work removed, and the crack refilled to a much better result. It's far from invisible, but it had been stable for two years before I made a favorable deal on the guitar in January 2025. Aside from the seam separation, I got it in nearly unplayed condition. And for less than some ES-165s around.

Also, as I understand it, these guitars were intended to be finished in nitro, but they had some problems with that. In California, nitro in compliance with VOC emissions is especially tricky for small operations. So it has a very thin poly finish. Not at all thick and goopy. It's easily mistaken for a beautiful new nitro finish.

When I got the guitar, its setup and playability were spot on, but the guitar sounded "tight" or stiff. Not too surprising for a solid woods archtop made in 2014 and played relatively little since its birth. But everything else about the guitar was lovely and inspiring so I decided to keep it and just get to playing it. I played it every day for two weeks and the transformation in resonance, tone and openness was nothing short of amazing. The guitar just needed to be played, and with more time on it since, all just more so. Someday after I am gone it will be an 80+ years old guitar, and then someone else can see how it fares against today's vintage D'Angelico.

The 1942 Excel replica is a non-cutaway acoustic with a Lollar floater mounted to the pickguard, with volume and tone controls mounted same. Electrically it sounds as expected, but I bought it for its potential acoustic qualities and I'm altogether happy with it.

Now that it's had some play time, my guitar is loud and sensitive. I play fingerstyle, 95% of the time without picks. It is dynamically very responsive and beautiful.

After selling 3/4ths of my once-46-guitars collection in 2023 due to sudden illness on the part of my wife, which upended everything about our former way of living, I found her illness essentially untreatable and not likely to incur the massive financial commitments I initially feared, so after converting assets to cash to have a stash, I concluded I could rebuild a smaller collection, and began doing so in 2024. With a lot more focus on archtops than before. So I have some guitars to compare this Gene Baker replica to.

To start with, in the last few months, thanks to @ThatRhythmMan, I have a Hutchins 2001 L-5CT Acoustic, a 1944 L-7 and a 2015 Gibson Solid Formed SF17. I also got a 1951 Epiphone Emperor Regent, and just this week a 2018 Gibson Crimson Super 400 Acoustic (not even a floater on it). And I have a Gibson Super 4000 from 2002, also Hutchins that I've owned for 14 years. The L-7 and the Epiphone were amply used guitars, totally played in, aged wood, scuffed here and there as expected. The Epiphone is a magnificent cannon, not harmonically nuanced but has projection into next year, along with some nice rumbly bass. The L-7 has the unusual quality of being fundamental and simple in tone while individual notes come with subtle, complex harmonics. The Solid Formed sounds old (I think by design, inadvertent or by intent, more like the L-7 than a new era guitar, and is more responsive to touch than I expected. It also has a wonderful neck. The L-5CT Acoustic is responsive and loud, with more tonal complexity than the older guitars. The Super 4000 is acoustically louder than any of them and also dynamically explosive, but also brighter than the rest, which reflects Chet Atkins' influence on the design.

The PBG 1942 Excel Masterbuilt replica hangs with this crew pretty well, and it's only going to get better. Loudness is in league with most of them, touch sensitivity is also competitive. Tone is not Gibson, not vintage Epiphone. Its general tonal shaping is what I remember from real D'Angelicos without all the benefits of now-old wood. It's a heavier build than my Guild-Benedetto Johnny Smith, not quite as bright as that one but livelier and more tonally complex than my Westerly-built '94 Guild Artist Award. All comments regard acoustic sound only.

The just-arrived Crimson Super 400 is also a lightly-played instrument, still stiff and too soon to judge. It feels alot like the Excel replica did its first day here. Even a few days of playing have begun limbering it up. So far it can't match the loudness of the Super 4000 Chet, but that's now a 23 year old guitar I've put 14 years of playing on. So we'll see. I think it will turn out to be swell. Workmanship is beyond reproach. Setup and playability are spot-on.

All these guitars have their own feel and sound, which is why I have them rather than buying one six-figures collector. If prices on the seam-separated PBG guitars had reflected the repair work to be done, I might have sprung for one and had the work done before encountering the one I bought. But my message is that if the price is right, you can acquire an exceptional guitar in the form of one of these scarce Gene Baker built 1942 Excel replicas.

Here's one on Reverb right now that does not suffer the top seam separation:

Just a moment...

As I recall, original price on these was $10,000 US.

Phil