Vintage Gibson ES-175 Restoration

Our favorite local Italian luthier, Luca Quacquarella, was recently commissioned with this vintage Gibson ES-175 restoration.

This guitar, which dates back to 1964, was the property of one of the local hotels in Singapore and had been languishing in a damp basement storeroom, unplayed and neglected, for a few decades. Someone had even pasted a couple of hotel baggage stickers on the back, just in case the ownership of the guitar would ever be in doubt.

The nitrocellulose finish had clouded with the passage of time and the seam on the lower bout of the guitar had split due to water damage. The Hofner tailpiece, that someone had used to replace the original ES-175 'zig-zag' trapeze tailpiece, had also severely corroded.

Hotel baggage stickers

Although how anyone could possibly damage an ES-175 tailpiece to the point where it had to be replaced, we'll probably never know. Remember that this was a guitar used by the hotel lobby band and not subject to the rigors of outrageous stage antics or heavy usage. My guess is that someone took a fancy to the original tailpiece and swapped it out for the Hofner tailpiece when no one was looking.

Luca's first task was to remove all the hardware and electronics, labelling everything to facilitate their re-installation later. The pickups that came with the guitar had the rectangular black stickers with Patent No. 2737842 on the underside, and very large diameter volume and tone potentiometers, true to the period that this guitar was from.

Interestingly, Patent No. 2737842 was not the patent designation for the humbucking pickups but was actually the patent number for Gibson's trapeze tailpiece bridge!

As you can see in the pic on the right, the lower seam had completely split and was lifting away slightly.

After Luca glued the seams together, he needed to match the deep brown color of the original finish on the sides. Mixing dark brown nitrocellulose lacquer with a smidgen of black, he managed to perfectly match the original finish.

Relic'ing and check lines added!

To match the checking of the original finish, Luca added artificial check lines to the new, pristine lacquer. A good knowledge and understanding of the grain and directional patterns of how lacquer would naturally check is definitely required here.

Although the precise technique that he used to artificially create the checked lacquer lines is something that he does not seem to want to talk about. A trade secret shall remain a trade secret!

Once the repair had been completed, the entire guitar was gently wet-sanded to bring back some of the original shine of the lacquer on the headstock, back of the neck, and the body of the guitar.

But according to Luca, he was careful not to make it too shiny, lest it look too new and fake.

To complete the repair and restoration, an after-market ES-175 tailpiece and pickguard were special-ordered to replace the Hofner tailpiece and the original celluloid pickguard. Celluloid starts to de-gas after a few decades and this pickguard was already warped and starting to disintegrate.

CrazyParts.de in Germany, by the way, makes an excellent after-market ES-175 zig-zag tailpiece!

Looks like this 1964 Gibson ES-175 is ready for another 50 years of music!

Be sure to also check out my earlier interview with Luca Quacquarella

Jim Hall | Birthday Tribute

Born December 4th 1930, Jim Hall is known for his impeccable phrasing and deep harmonic sensibilities. Regardless of tempo, his melodic lines always demonstrate economy and remarkable restraint, so much so that one jazz critic even described Hall's playing as akin to 'walking on eggshells'.

After graduating with a Bachelor's degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music, Hall ventured to Los Angeles in 1955 where he landed his first major gig, replacing Howard Roberts (and inheriting Roberts' Gibson ES175) in Chico Hamilton's band. Stints with clarinetist Jimmy Giuffre, saxophonist Ben Webster and jazz diva Ella Fitzgerald soon followed. In 1959, Hall recorded Undercurrent with jazz piano genius Bill Evans, the first of two such piano and guitar only recordings.

Moving to New York in 1960, Hall joined saxophonist Sonny Rollins' group and eventually trumpetist Art Farmer's quartet, seen here in this video.



Jim Hall has been a major influence on countless jazz guitarists including Pat Metheny, John Scofield, Mike Stern and Bill Frissell. In many ways, Hall's stylistic legato approach, wide intervallic jazz lines and 'outside' harmonic ideas have contributed greatly to the development of the vocabulary that is so much a part of post-bop modern jazz guitar.

Happy belated Birthday Jim!



See More Jim Hall CDs and DVDs Here!

Joe Pass and the Synanon Fender Jaguar

Here's a clip, circa 1963, of the late, great Joe Pass playing a Fender Jaguar.

Born Joseph Anthony Jacobi Passalaqua, Joe Pass claimed a strong Charlie Parker influence and spoke often about painstakingly copying the bebop innovator's licks line by line off of 45 rpm records. By age 20 in 1949, he was jamming in clubs on New York's famed 52nd Street -- the birthplace of modern jazz.

The negative aspects of the jazz life -- including an addiction to heroin -- soon took their toll on the young Pass. After 5 years in a Texas prison he decided that enough was enough and voluntarily entered Synanon's drug rehabilitation program.

While at Synanon he practiced on a Fender Jaguar that belonged to the center. He continued to play the Jaguar on gigs after his release and that guitar is the one he is playing in the video above.

After seeing him play the Jaguar at a club, a businessman by the name of Mike Peak, who was also an avid guitarist himself, decided that it was not an instrument befitting Joe's talents. Several months later, on Pass's birthday, a Gibson ES175 --the guitar most closely associated with the guitarist for much of his career -- was delivered to him at his home as a gift.