JAZZ
When Eastman set out to design a portable, lightweight and versatile instrument to add to its line of hollow body archtop guitars, they turned to luthier Otto D'Ambrosio, who designed the entire El Rey series for the company. The three El Rey models (two jazz guitars and a rock model) all feature hand-carved, non-chambered 14-inch hollow bodies with a sleek 2-inch depth. All El Reys have a 22-fret neck with a 25-inch scale length and a patent-pending "neck block" cutaway design for comfortable access to the upper frets.
The Deluxe Jazz (ER2) under review is a gorgeous instrument. Its design and detailed craftsmanship immediately impressed me. Constructed using a spruce top with figured maple sides, back and neck, the body and headstock are tastefully bound with natural maple, highlighting the dark tobacco stain and stunning gloss lacquer finish (pictured guitar is in red). In a departure from traditional archtop design, it has no f-holes or sound ports cut into the top. All the hardware is gold-plated, with the ebony fingerboard attractively inlayed with offset pearl fret markers. The Deluxe has two Kent Armstrong pickups mounted into the top and a Tune-o-matic style bridge sitting on an ebony base. An ebony-capped, suspended archtop tailpiece mounted at the endpin completes the picture.
Before I even picked it up, I knew this guitar would be comfortable to play. The 14-inch bout combined with a 2-inch depth and nicely contoured body profile seemed perfect. Lifting it out of its well-constructed, form-fitted hardshell case, I was shocked by the guitar's light weight-it's a mere 5.25 pounds. The neck has a sleek elliptical profile with a 1inch width at the nut, and it felt good in my hands. Strumming a few chords on this baby without any amplification, I noticed its resonance-it actually put out a decent amount of acoustic tone. Out of the box, the setup and action were right on.
With the El Rey plugged in, I could begin to explore the tonal potential that the guitar offers. Its operation is straightforward, with volume and tone knobs for each of the two pickups and a three-way selector toggle offering pickup options of either neck, bridge or a combination of the two. Not surprisingly, the Kent Armstrong pickups sounded great. Playing through the neck pickup only, I could get a respectable jazz tone with a surprisingly thick high end and a smooth bass. Adjusting the tone knob produced a nice range of usable tones, from dark to a bit more sparkling. Switching to the bridge pickup, the tone was naturally much brighter; especially with the tone knob cranked, I could coax a twang out of this box. Backing off the bridge tone control produced another clean, well-balanced jazz tone that worked well for chord melody playing.
Flipping into the combination mode, the options for creating a wide spectrum of tones became evident. I found the guitar capable of nearly limitless variations, from the fat jazzy notes to well-saturated blues tones to crunchy overdriven rock sounds. The small, slim body and absence of sound holes keep the Deluxe Jazz highly resistant to the feedback problems that plague most hollow body designs.
The Deluxe Jazz is a versatile instrument capable of fitting into a number of musical situations. Clean and smooth enough to satisfy the discerning jazz player, it also has the guts to scream when it needs to. At a suggested retail price of $1,995, it won't break your bank, and thanks to D'Ambrosio's groundbreaking design, it won't break your back, either.
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