What Guitar Are You Playing At This Very Moment...

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2001 Silo
 
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That's my 1960s Gibson ES-125TD, which I started playing regularly last month after leaving it for a while. It's the thin body model, no cutaway, and two P-90 pickups. I picked it up in Tokyo about 10 years ago, after hearing it was (at the time) reasonably priced vintage archtop. Interestingly, it was apparently a student model when it first came out. I really like the feel of it and the pickups allow various tonal combinations. I been playing it out at jazz jam sessions for the past couple weeks.

I actually took this photo yesterday, while practicing at home. No amp, just acoustically, although it sounds great through the backline amps at the jam sessions (including the Roland Jazz Chorus). At home I sometimes use an amp for practicing, but this was taken around 10AM on a quiet Sunday. I had just finished running through the jazz standard "Like Someone in Love" for a couple of hours.

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For those who might be curious, I use iReal to practice primarily for the weekly and monthly jam sessions. This particular iReal chart is labelled JSB (Jazz Standard Bible, which in Japan works something the Real Book elsewhere). I first learn the melody and changes well enough to play without having to read, then play through the tune with iReal set to string bass and drums only, without piano or guitar comping, and I also disable the position indicator. I set the tempo on to moderate swing, like it's typically played at sessions. My usual practice routine is five repeats, starting with the melody, then ad-lib, comping, trading fours and the melody again. My goal is playing if fluently enough so I don't have to use charts at the jams and can interact better with whoever happens to be on stage, focusing on listening, with eye contact and body language.

In the first photo, I'm playing a chord I use for the 8th bar, over the Dm7 and G7, giving it Db7 tonality (4F 3B 2Eb, 1Bb-Ab). With just bass and no comping, there's more freedom for using substitutions, and good bassists are usually able to pick up on that. For ad-lib, although it's a straight forward standard, more or less, I'm finding it somewhat difficult to weave lines fluently through the changes. On the one hand, for that A section, playing in C major can work through carefully chosen notes, but I really enjoy plumbing the depths of a tune and truly get inside of it.

I usually listen to several versions when first working on a tune. There are many versions of "Like Someone in Love," but my favorite is by Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. They get a nice laid back groove going after the piano intro, next heading into the beautiful melody played by Lee Morgan.



When first starting to ad-lib on the tune, I studied how Lee Morgan subtlety varied the melody when first stating it, building on that. For his ad-lib, there's some blues tinged phrases, which is one of the things I really love about Hard Bop: it brought the blues back into jazz. Listening to this now, I want to get back to the ES-125 and work on the tune some more to get ready for a jam session this coming Wednesday!
 
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Go this about 3 weeks ago but was caught up reamping NAM stuff to properly sit down with it; just love the feel and sound of this guitar.

Was thinking of swapping the bridge out for a Hipshot Ibby HM but am not sure about it now - find it just right "as-is". The carved heel-joint and the neck on this thing are lovely!

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