Mandocello, Anyone?

[dixiehwy25]

I'm wondering if anyone has tried a mandocello in the jazz idiom. From the videos I've seen it looks like it's got pretty interesting possibilities, especially in the lower register. I know that Lloyd Loar's K-5 mandocello sort of begat the L-5 guitar. I wonder if you could make a counterfeit K-5 from one of the Loar guitars out there today? Especially since the cost of an original is stratospheric.

Gold Tone makes one today along the lines of a floating pickup jazzbox. Here's a demo of it.

[Sandaun]

In conventional cello tuning, your fourth string'd be a third below the guitar's sixth string - C below E. It'd allow you to play counterpoint to the bass. (Ironic, because the cello was the original bass, and the double bass is so named because it doubled the cello's lines an octave below.) In my hands I suspect I'd throw in a few lines from Vivaldi, Bach and other classical favourites.

[sgosnell]

Martin Taylor and David Grisman recorded a couple of albums, "Tone Poems I and II", which used mandocello on a few tracks.

[Woody Sound]

See my avatar.