Gorgeous performance on an old L4

[L50EF15]

This popped into my YouTube feed and I’m glad for that. Erik McIntyre is a wonderful player, and this performance is a great example.

I must say, I have never heard a bad sounding L-4 in my research on the model. Erik plays it to spectacular advantage here:

https://youtu.be/KgyzBq4xjmE?si=6hSwY3XGxrfY3754

[Bluemonk]

Sweet.

His left hand technique suggests to me that he has studied/played classical guitar.

[mr. beaumont]

Love this piece, and this is a great performance of it.

This is definitely in the styleof what became known as "plectrum guitar" playing, which was basically written pieces that borrowed from both jazz and classical that were meant to be played on a steel string guitar (usually an archtop) with a pick...

It's a style that should be heard more often, as far as I'm concerned!

For anybody interested, this book is the bee's knees.

https://www.amazon.com/Mel-Bay-Maste...ps%2C89&sr=8-2

[L50EF15]

Yeah, Jeff, that’s on my list, along with Mel Bay’s “Rhythm Guitar Chord System”.

Interestingly, I have gotten a bit of both plectrum style and the roots of jazz guitar rhythm style by studying tenor banjo over the past few years. Mel Bay’s tenor banjo method contains elements of both. And listening now to players doing material like in the clip above, it’s impossible for me not to hear how it grows out of banjo practice; and for that matter, mandolin practice, as the tenor banjo succeeded the similarly tuned mandolin (a perfect fifth apart), before the guitar took over. More broadly, I can hear how players like Freddie Green carried their tenor banjo experience to the guitar. But that’s probably another thread.

One thing this performance gives is yet another example of how great those old L-4s sound. I have never heard a bad one yet. It’s a bigger version of what I get from my Loar era L Jr., with extra bass presence. The L-5 changed the course of music, but its predecessor remains an extraordinary instrument in its own right (Cf. mandolins: The F-5 is an icon, but the F-4, indeed all the 12 fret neck oval hole archtop Gibson mandolins, are tone machines).

[mr. beaumont]

Definitely! The banjo was THE jazz instrument...If it wasn't for a few trailblazers we might all still be stuck in the back with one

Banjo jokes aside, I'd love to get a plectrum banjo someday...or even a six string like Johnny St. Cyr...

[RJVB]

Great find, and great tone on that guitar.

Did you notice it's a 12-fretter? That alone should explain its warm sound!