EXTENSION CHORDS

IBANEZ: FROM ROCK TO RAGTIME

EXTENSION CHORDS

Allen Hester

by

My last installment of “Extension Chords” was a sort of “name-game” piece about the cross-pollination of Americanmade cars and guitars; an article which probably betrayed this writer’s love for both. However, in the interest of balance and equal time, it is only fair that an article about the new Japanese guitars should follow. I’ll leave out any guitar that was ever named after one of them, or vice versa.

But to get to the point, the phrase “Made In Japan” used to be synonymous with poor quality, a low price, and a product that was not expected to last very long. In case you’ve been up on top of a mountain somewhere for the last 20 years, and haven’t kept up with the auto market, the consumer electronics market, or the guitar market, let me be the one to break the sad and shocking news to you: the old stigma of inferiority attached to the “Made In Japan” label has all but disappeared. A few die-hards try to ignore it, and at least one relatively new American manufacturer of guitars, Peavey, has kept pace with the industrious Japanese, but the truth is that the little folks from the tiny little island stand as giants in the world guitar market. Period.

Take Ibanez as an example. They came into the game with guitars that were “replicas” of classic American instruments, namely the Fender Strat, and the Gibson Les Paul. By the early 1970’s, it had already been. established that those two guitars were the guitars to have, simply because that is what the majority of the established rock stars of the day were playing. There was no Elvis Costello around to re-popularize the Fender Jazzmaster, and the punks hadn’t come along yet with their pawn-shop, off-brand and off-the-wall guitars, so Ibanez simply gave the guitar players what they wanted: guitars that looked like the ones the stars were playing, but at a'cheaper price.

The American guitar manufacturers were finally forced to sit up and take notice, and to try to force the intruders off the market by claiming copyright infringments, and so on. But it was-too late, although the Japanese did have to make certain subtle changes in their instruments to avoid the legal hassles.

Before anyone realized it, the Japanese had learned how to make a fairly decent guitar of their own design, and that re-designing, and refining of American ideas has continued up to the present day.

The situation we have today is one in which the Japanese have come up a long way in quality, while coming up not quite so far in price. It can be argued that most of what the Japanese have to offer remains “derivative,” that it comes from the basics of American electric guitars that were designed decades ago. While there is some truth to that, the point is that it is no longer essential that a guitar player, even a great guitar player, have an American made instrument in hand before stepping into a stage. Collector’s items are one thing; workhorse guitars that are affordable and playable are another. In the latter category, the Japanese have excelled.

The new Ibanez Artist Series guitars are a double-cutaway, solid-body line that illustrate the trend of refining old ideas. The double cutaway gives the player an easier access to the upper register of the fingerboard; a simple but significant improvement over the Gibson Les Paul. Model AR100CS features a “Tiger Maple” top and “Super 58” pickups; both features obviously coming from the curly maple tops and “patent-applied-for” pickups of the vintage Les Pauls that were made prior to 1961. Thus this guitar offers the look and the sound of the old American guitar at a list price that is roughly one-half what a new Les Paul costs, and one-tenth of what the going price is for the vintage ’58 Les Paul. So what’s a poor boy gonna do, right? (Model AR100CS lists for $555.)

For a little more money, you can get the same guitar with a “Burl Mahogany” top. That may not sound so significant, but the hidden truth is that the Japanese have been very successful in obtaining highquality hardwoods from all over the world.

Curly maple, mahogany, rosewood, ebony—all are increasingly expensive and hard to come by. In addition to obtaining those choice woods, the Japanese have played a big role in introducing a whole new group of exotic hardwoods to the guitar market; Jacaranda, Bubinga, Pau Ferro, Imbuya, Teakwood—woods that were never even heard of in the guitar market ten years ago, are now being introduced and greeted with success by guitar players.

The Ibanez Blazer Series started out as a very plain, satin-finished, natural grain, solid body guitar, basically a “Strat” (copyright CBS Musical Instruments), with no frills. No tremelo, no color finishes, just a good little guitar that sounded more like an old Strat that the new Fenders themselves did.

Now here we are in ’82, and the humble Blazer Series has grown into a fully-optioned line, complete with new custom colors and a tremolo bridge options. I should be noted that these colors, Burgundy Red, Coral Red, and Sky Blue, are very similar to the custom finishes that Fender was offering back in the late 60’s and early 70’s. The mid-60’s Fender guitars with custom color and matching headstock colors have become very desirable collector’s items. Ibanez has the Blazer Series, available with matching headstock colors, tremolo, phase switch and a birch wood body. The most significant thing to note is that while all these additions to the Blazer Series have been made, the price has not skyrocketed. It has gone up, but not through the roof.

When it comes to the matter of prestige, American guitars have for years relied on artists’ endorsements to lend a special element of desirability to instruments. (The Les Paul model, the Barney Kessel model, the Chet Atkins model, etc.) In recent years, Ibanez has been successful in wooing some of the big names in guitar playing into their camp as endorsees. The first was jazz guitarist George Benson, who came over to Ibanez and helped develop smaller, more compact arch-top hollowbody guitar which bears his name. Two new names have been added to the list this year: Lee Ritbnour and Joe Pass.

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The Lee Ritenour Model LR10AV features a flame maple top, semi-hollow body construction, a laminated maple and mahogany neck, Jacaranda fingerboard, and an antique violin finish. The Joe Pass Model JP20BS is a custom built hollowbody arch top guitar with a spruce top, a single Super 58 pickup, Ebony fingerboard, and a brown sunburst finish.

So far we’ve been talking only about electric guitars. When it comes to accoustic guitars, the Japanese have even more experience in the construction and design of acoustics than they do the electrics.

The Ibanez Model M300AM interests me because it has a spruce top with flame maple back and sides. This is the exact same combination of woods used in the old Guild D-44M, a guitar that has been dropped from the Guild line. Another model, the M330, has both flame maple top and flame maple back and sides. Here one can see both the derivative and the innovative characteristics of Japanese guitar manufacturing.

Another acoustic guitar that is innovative is the Vintage Series V500, which is a “jumbo-shaped” (a la the Gibson J-200) guitar which features an arched back, a thin body, and mahogany back and sides. The V540M0 has the same arched back, thin body, but it comes with flame maple top, sides and back, and is finished in a new custom color, Midnight Olive.

Perhaps the most innovative of the Ibanez acoustics is the Ragtime Series. These guitars were designed for the acoustic finger-picker who eschewed electric guitars in favor of the ‘authentic’ guitar playing of early blues and ragtime masters. The single cutaway design and the fouroctave fingerboard of this guitar gives the acoustic player easier access to the highest registers of the guitar, something that any guitarist can incorporate into even the most rigid standards. OK, so you only play stuff like “Maple Leaf Rag”; what’s a few extra frets gonna hurt? In addition, this guitar has an oual sound hole, an arched back with no bracing, and a spruce top with a new bracing pattern. The result of the oval sound hole and the bracing system is a loud resonant guitar that has a tonal character all its own.

To sum it all up, the Japanese are here to stay, and they now compete in quality as well as in price. Toyota, Datsun, Honda and Yamaha are already household words in America. If Ibanez is not already, it soon will be. ^