
Julian Lage's new Collings signature model has DynaSonic pickups and is fully hollow, with a trestle block, a solid Honduran mahogany body, a maple laminate top, and a Bigsby B3 vibrato tailpiece.
The jazz virtuoso used a new Collings signature model and his stunning command of technique, tone, and composition to craft his new album, Squint, but reflection and intention helped him find its soul.
Getting signed to Blue Note Records—the onetime home of John Coltrane, Lee Morgan, Miles Davis, Kenny Burrell, and many, many other greats—is a high honor in the jazz world. "It's just incredible," says Julian Lage, whose new album, Squint, is his debut for the famed label. "It's thrilling and inspiring and absolutely makes me want to be a better musician." But sometimes, simply being a better musician in a technical sense isn't enough. In the period between when the COVID lockdown began and the start of Squint's sessions with his trio in August, Lage had an epiphany during the "months of playing these songs, hours on end by myself. I wanted to write songs that would be restorative to play.
"Way beyond the shutdown was a global reckoning of racial injustice, systemic racism, social injustice, gender inequality, and all of these things that are ever-present, but now, here, on a very large scale, there's a discussion," he observes.
So Lage determined to craft an album that could be transformative for both himself and his listeners. "Is this positive music that's pretty for the sake of being pretty," he asked himself, "or is it music that holds a space for a little more fuzziness or emotional complexity? And in addition to just shutting up and listening and learning and saying, 'Wow, this is the work of our lifetime,' I think in not making the record [when we expected to], I developed a real appreciation for the role of sound in music and art with regard to healing. It's a method of transmission, and 'What are you transmitting?' became the question … You make music because you need to make it, you play it because you need to play it," he says. "Then it's by the grace of much higher powers that it ever sees the light of day. Squint is about the unknown, but is also celebrating deep gratitude."
Julian Lage - Saint Rose (Visualizer)
The 33-year-old virtuoso's perspective isn't a surprise to anyone who's met him. Lage has earned a reputation for being genuine and humble, and exuding gratitude is part of his way of experiencing life. He lives up to the Zen adage: The way you do one thing is the way you do everything.
But let's rewind to early 2020: Lage and his trio, which includes bassist Jorge Roeder and drummer Dave King, were ready to go into the studio when their plans were abruptly upended—and Lage's deep immersion into the nine original compositions for the 11-track Squint began. The results of Lage's reflection reveal a depth not always heard on instrumental albums. Starting with a sharp, delicate solo performance of "Etude" and closing with a cover of Billy Hill's 1940 classic "Call of the Canyon," the pieces are edgy, gentle, smart, and experimental—each an iteration of the album's greater musical personality. Lage notes, "We're putting improvisation right next to composition. These aren't songs that we just take a solo on—you could not hear the melody and just hear the solos. The goal is for you to be able to understand the sentiment."
The Art of Emulating Speech
On Lage's 12th album as leader, there's also the jumpy, swinging title track and the cool, drum-groove-driven "Saint Rose," named after Lage's hometown of Santa Rosa, California. On the quietly chaotic "Familiar Flower," the band members are all "playing different tempos by a few degrees in one direction or another," offers Lage. And the umbral, apprehensive "Quiet Like a Fuse" uses dynamics and varying sections for emotional chiaroscuro. It's not just Lage's guitar that ties them all together, but the feeling that the spirit behind each beat is shared by all three musicians. Surprisingly, part of what guided Lage's process on a technical level were speeches by figures like the poet Nikki Giovanni and novelist James Baldwin. Lage improvised to their words as a way to gain insight into the mode of soloing he envisioned.
TIDBIT: Lage used just two amps to record his Blue Note debut: his Magic Amps Vibro Deluxe, which is based on a mid-'60s black-panel Deluxe Reverb, and a 1959 tweed Fender Champ.
"I think that the way people speak is often more unfettered. There's an urgency which is really striking about speech. There might not be an obvious correlation between the way people speak in a lecture and the notes on the guitar. But it's just a little stretch of the imagination to see that those are pitches, those are rhythms, those are phrases." Lage adds that a seven-to-10-minute lecture might be seen as a correlation to a song's central melody. "The musical version of that is Coltrane's 'My Favorite Things.' It's communication from the second it starts to the second it ends. Lectures help me break it down. And also just recording my own voice talking about something very mundane, then learning the rhythms I use to speak and applying those to the guitar, is really helpful, too.
"Jazz music is abstract art. And for that reason I love taking something that might feel more literal—like influences from singer-songwriters or lectures or spoken-word things—and just saying, 'Okay, my job is to find how notes and rhythms and tone alone represent in an abstract form what these people are saying with words.'"
Not the What, But the How
Lage spent six months both playing and contemplating the intention of the performances that made their way onto his new album, Squint. "I developed a real appreciation for the role of sound in music and art with regard to healing," he says.
Photo by Alysse Gafkjen
The team for the sessions included singer-songwriter (and Lage's partner) Margaret Glaspy, and multi-instrumentalist/producer Armand Hirsch, as well as Roeder and King. Lage says he's been playing with Roeder, "an extension of his musical world," for all of his adult career, whereas his musical relationship with King has been just for a few years. "Jorge's really able to listen so beautifully to what's going on, and what he contributes is so supportive and adventurous and risky."
Lage explains that what he learns from his bandmates comes less from what they play together and more from how they play together. "The way Dave looks at time in a band is not selfish at all," the guitarist says. "He shares the responsibility with everybody but has a way of influencing it through a virtuosic lens that never feels macho or overbearing."
In addition to being his favorite songwriter, Glaspy is also one of Lage's most relied-upon critics. "She'll offer very specific help, always," he says, "from the microscopic to the macroscopic. We have a nice mutual rapport, where I do it for her and she does it for me." Lage shares how the band went into the studio on the first day without her, and when he later reviewed the session at home, he told Glaspy, "yeah, you need to come to the studio."
One of Hirsch's contributions was offering his breadth of knowledge on the history of guitar tones. "I could be like, 'the guitar tone on this song … it sounds good, but I want it to be more George Barnes and a little more of the reverb from '70s Jim Hall,' and he would be able to translate that to Mark Goodell, who's our longtime engineer."
Julian Lage’s Gear
Guitars
- Collings 470 JL
- 1955 Gibson Les Paul
- Magic Amps Vibro Deluxe
- 1959 Fender Champ
- Strymon Flint Tremolo & Reverb
- Shin-ei B1G 1
- D'Addario NYXL (.011–.049 sets)
- Dunlop Tortex .88 mm picks
Calling on Collings
Lage's signature Collings is fully hollow with a trestle block, a solid Honduran mahogany body, a maple-laminate top, and a Bigsby B3 vibrato tailpiece. It also has a custom hybrid C/V neck profile, and a narrower fretboard in the upper-fret range. Lage says it's "as at home with jazz as with early '50s rock 'n' roll tone, Bo Diddley, early John Lee Hooker, early B.B. King." Collings' luthier Aaron Huff, director of engineering Clint Watson, and manager of artist relations Mark Althans were also involved in creating the 6-string. "The 470 JL is like a blues machine that's used for jazz," Lage sums up. "That's my favorite sound."
For the album's sessions, the guitar was run through two different amplifiers. Most tracks were cut with a Magic Amps Vibro Deluxe, which is based on a mid-'60s black-panel Fender Deluxe Reverb, while the rest feature Lage's '59 tweed Fender Champ. A Strymon Flint Tremolo and Reverb and a Shin-ei B1G 1 Gain Booster completed the signal chain. The result is a lush, old-school tone with crunch when necessary.
Lage's latest batch of tones are largely the product of a collaboration with Collings Guitars. The primary instrument featured on Squint is his new Collings 470 JL signature electric, which was introduced in February 2021. (He also used a 1955 Gibson Les Paul for three songs.) The development of the 470 JL was, Lage explains, centered on Ron Ellis, the great pickup master—and specifically his take on the DynaSonic-style pickup. "DynaSonic pickups are always fascinating to me, because I like playing on the neck pickup primarily for everything. A Tele pickup obviously has pole pieces that are covered by a metal cover and there's that kind of fuzziness that's nice, but I wanted the directness of having no cover, kind of like Stratocaster pickups, but with a much larger diameter. That led us down the road of DynaSonics and all of the complications that go with those pickups—the good, the bad, and the ugly."
With a Little Help from His Friends
Julian Lage plays his prized 1939 Martin 000-18 acoustic at NYC's (Le) Poisson Rouge in 2016.
Photo by Peter Gannushkin
Lage's interest in making music from an informed perspective often leads him to seek the counsel of musicians he respects. He shares an anecdote about learning from composer and performer Gabriel Kahane that songs need "terms of engagement, reasons to exist." He also relates flying from his New York City base to Chicago to ask for feedback from Wilco's Jeff Tweedy on a slew of new music he'd written. Tweedy explained that, on an album, you "have to tell the listener's ear where to focus and when to focus" through subtle instrumental cues. But it was on a pre-pandemic tour with Bill Frisell that Lage embraced the concept of bringing both attention and intention to music before performing it—which helped fuel his strategy for Squint.
He and Frisell sat down to rehearse Johnny Mandel and Johnny Mercer's "Emily," one of the two covers that ended up on the album, for four nights in a row before Frisell finally approved of playing it in their set. The first night, it was for 10 minutes. The second, 20. The third, 40. And the fourth, a full hour. "No talking, just play the tune and don't look up for an hour. And he's like, 'Okay, we're ready to play it.'
I think it was on the last day of recording—we were about to pack up—and it was like, 'Can we record one more, just in case we need an extra track?' I showed it to Jorge really fast and we played it and that's the one take of 'Emily.' It kind of sums everything up, in a way."
YouTube It
Even before the lockdown, Julian Lage exhibited a talent for turning melodies into conversations. For evidence, check out his 2016 live performance of "Nocturne" by Spike Hughes, Britain's earliest jazz composer. Lage is playing his 1954 Telecaster, which was his No. 1 before the new Collings signature 470 JL.
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Tobias bass guitars, beloved by bass players for nearly half a century, are back with the all-new Tobias Original Collection.
Built for unrivaled articulation, low-end punch, and exceptional ergonomics, the all-new Tobias Original Collection comprises an array of six four and five-string bass models all offered in both right and left-handed orientations. The Tobias range features Classic, Killer B, and Growler models, and each is equipped with high-quality hardware from Babicz and Gotoh, active electronics from Bartolini, and the iconic Tobias asymmetrical neck design. Crafted from the finest tonewoods, Tobias Original Collection bass guitars are now available worldwide on Gibson.com, at the Gibson Garage locations, and at authorized Gibson dealers.
The bass world has been clamoring for the return of the authentic, high-end Tobias basses, and now, Tobias has returned. Combining the look and tone of the finest exotic tonewoods, such as quilted maple, royal paulownia, purpleheart, sapele, walnut, ebony, and wenge, with the feel of the famous Tobias Asym asymmetrical neck and the eye-catching shapes of the perfectly balanced contoured bodies, Tobias basses are attractive in look and exceptional in playing feel. However, their sonic versatility is what makes them so well suited to the needs of modern bassists. The superior tone from the exotic hardwoods, premium hardware, and active Bartolini® pickups and preamps results in basses with the tonal flexibility that today’s players require. Don’t settle for less than a bass that delivers everything you want and need –the look, the feel, and the sound, Tobias.
“I’m thrilled to release Tobias basses, emphasizing the use of exotic woods, ergonomics, and authenticity to the original Tobias basses,” says Aljon Go, Product Development Manager for Tobias, Epiphone, and Kramer. “This revival is a dream come true, blending modern craftsmanship with the timeless essence of Tobias.”
“It’s amazing to see this icon of the bass world return,” adds Andrew Ladner, Brand Manager for Epiphone and Kramer. “These models are truly a bass player’s bass, and true to the DNA that makes Tobias world-class—the ace up the sleeve of bass players around the globe since 1978. Today’s players can find that unique voice and feel that only Tobias can offer.”
For more information, please visit gibson.com.
Price unveiled her new band and her new signature model at a recent performance at the Gibson Garage in Nashville.
The Grammy-nominated alt-country and Americana singer, songwriter, and bandleader tells the story behind the creation of her new guitar and talks about the role acoustic Gibson workhorses have played in her musical history—and why she loves red-tailed hawks.
The Gibson J-45 is a classic 6-string workhorse and a favorite accomplice of singer-songwriters from Bob Dylan to Jorma Kaukonen to James Taylor to Gillian Welch to Lucinda Williams to Bruce Springsteen to Noel Gallagher. Last week, alt-country and Americana artist Margo Price permanently emblazoned her name on that roster with the unveiling of her signature-model J-45. With an alluring heritage cherry sunburst finish and a red-tail-hawk-motif double pickguard, the instrument might look more like a show pony, but under the hard-touring and hard-playing Price’s hands, it is 100-percent working animal.
The 6-string was inspired by the J-45 she bought at Nashville’s Carter Vintage Guitars after she was signed to Third Man Records, where she made her 2016 ice-breaker album, Midwest Farmer’s Daughter. But her affection for Gibson acoustics predates that, going back to when she found a 1956 LG-3 in her grandmother’s home. The guitar had been abandoned there by her songwriter great uncle, Bobby Fischer.
“I played it for years before I found my J-45,” Price recounts. “At Carter Vintage, I tried a lot of guitars, but when I picked up that J-45, I loved that it was a smaller guitar but really cut through, and I was just really drawn to the sound of it. And so I went home with that guitar and I’ve been playing it ever since.”
“Having a signature model was something I had dreamed about.”
Of course, Price was also aware of the model’s history, but her demands for a guitar were rooted in the present—the requirements of the studio and road. The 1965 J-45 she acquired at Carter Vintage, which is also a cherry ’burst, was especially appealing “compared to a Martin D-21 or some of the other things that I was picking up. I have pretty small hands, and it just was so playable all up the neck. It was something that I could easily play barre chords on. I could immediately get everything that I needed out of it.”
If you’ve seen Price on TV, including stops at Saturday Night Live, The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, and Jimmy Kimmel Live!, you’ve seen her ’65. And you’ve also seen, over the years, that part of the soundhole’s top has been scraped away by her aggressive strumming. It’s experienced worse wear from an airline, though. After one unfortunate flight, Price found her guitar practically in splinters inside a badly crushed case. “It was like somebody would have had to drive over this case with a truck,” she relates. Luckily, Dave Johnson from Nashville’s Scale Model Guitars was able to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
After that, an alternative guitar for the road seemed like a requirement. “Having a signature model was something I had dreamed about,” Price says. Friends in her songwriting circle, including Lukas Nelson and Nathaniel Rateliff, already had them. Four years ago, a tweet asking which women they thought should have signature models appeared, and one of her fans wrote “Margo Price.” Smartly, Price tagged Gibson and retweeted. Codey Allen in Gibson entertainment relations spotted the tweet and agreed.
The double pickguard was chosen for Price’s J-45 because of its symmetry, as a nod to the Hummingbird, and due to her heavy strumming hand.
Photo courtesy of Gibson
“The neck is not quite as small as my J-45, but it is just a bit smaller than many J-45s fives, and very playable no matter what size hands you have.”
“And so we began our journey of building this guitar,” Price says. “I debated whether it should be the LG-3, which I still have hanging on my wall, or the J-45. I went to Montana and visited their [acoustic] factory and sat down with Robi Johns [senior product development manager at Gibson acoustic], and we ultimately decided that the J-45 was my guitar. Then we started talking about the specs. We did pull from the LG-3 in that the body of this signature guitar is a bit smaller. It still has a really loud, clear sound that rings through. The neck is not quite as small as my 1965 J-45, but it is just a bit smaller than many J-45s, and very playable no matter what size hands that you have.”
The pickup that Price selected is a L.R. Baggs VTC Element with a preamp, and she took a prototype of the guitar on the road opening for the Tedeschi Trucks Band. “I am used to playing with a really loud band, with drums and sometimes a couple electric guitars, and I wanted to make sure that this guitar just cut through,” she says. “It was really important to me that it be loud, and it cut beautifully. It’s got a mahogany body and scalloped bracing, which makes it very sturdy. This guitar is a workhorse, just like me.”
The Margo Price J-45’s most arresting characteristic, in addition to its warm sunburst finish, is its double-sided pickguard with an etching of a quartet of red-tailed hawks in flight. It’s practical for her strumming style, but it’s also got a deeper significance.
“We talked about all sorts of things that we could put on the pickguard, and I’ve always been a big fan of the Hummingbird, so what we did is a bit of a nod to that,” Price continues. “I’ve always been drawn to red-tailed hawks. They are supposed to be divine messengers, and they have such strength. They symbolize vision and protection. I would always count them along the highway as I’d be driving home to see my family in Illinois.”
Birds of a feather: “I’ve always been drawn to red-tailed hawks,” says Price. “They are supposed to be divine messengers, and they have such strength. They symbolize vision and protection.”
Photo courtesy of Gibson
With its comfortable neck, slightly thinner body, and serious projection, Price notes, “I wanted my guitar to be something that young girls can pick up and feel comfortable in their hands and inspire songs, but I didn’t want it to be so small that it felt like a toy, and that it didn’t have the volume. This guitar has all of those things.” To get her heavy sound, Price uses D’Addario Phosphor Bronze (.012–.053) strings.
Price says she and her signature J-45, which is street priced at $3,999, have been in the studio a lot lately, “and I have a whole bunch of things I’m excited about.” In mid March, she debuted her new band—which includes Logan Ledger and Sean Thompson on guitars, bassist Alec Newman, Libby Weitnauer on fiddle, and Chris Gelb on drums—in a coming out party for the Margo Price Signature Gibson J-45 at the Gibson Garage in Nashville. “I’ve been with my previous band, the Price Tags, for more than 10 years, and it’s definitely emotional when a band reaches the end of its life cycle,” she says. “But it’s also really exciting, because now, having a fiddle in the band and incredible harmony singers … it’s a completely different vibe. I’ve got a whole bunch of festivals coming up this year. We’re playing Jazz Fest in New Orleans, and I’m so excited for everyone to hear this new iteration of what we’re doing.”
With its heritage cherry sunburst finish and other appointments, the Margo Price Signature Gibson J-45 balances classic and modern guitar design.
Photo courtesy of Gibson
Get premium spring reverb tones in a compact and practical format with the Carl Martin HeadRoom Mini. Featuring two independent reverb channels, mono and stereo I/O, and durable metal construction, this pedal is perfect for musicians on the go.
The Carl Martin HeadRoom Mini is a digital emulation of the beloved HeadRoom spring reverb pedal, offering the same warm, natural tone—plus a little extra—in a more compact and practical format. It delivers everything from subtle room ambiance to deep, cathedral-like reverberation, making it a versatile addition to any setup.
With two independent reverb channels, each featuring dedicated tone and level controls, you can easily switch between two different reverb settings - for example, rhythm and lead. The two footswitches allow seamless toggling between channels or full bypass.
Unlike the original HeadRoom, the Mini also includes both mono and stereo inputs and outputs, providing greater flexibility for stereo rigs. Built to withstand the rigors of live performance, it features a durable metal enclosure, buffered bypass for signal integrity, and a remote jack for external channel switching.
Key features
- Two independent reverb channels with individual tone and level controls
- Mono and stereo I/O for versatile routing options
- Buffered bypass ensures a strong, clear signal
- Rugged metal construction for durability
- Remote jack for external channel switching
- Compact and pedalboard-friendly design
HeadRoom Mini brings premium spring reverb tones in a flexible and space-savingformat—perfect for any musician looking for high-quality, studio-grade reverb on the go.
You can purchase HeadRoom Mini for $279 directly from carlmartin.com and, of course, also from leading music retailers worldwide.
For more information, please visit carlmartin.com.
Handwired in Hollywood with NOS components, these pedals deliver classic tones reminiscent of iconic rock albums. Get authentic vintage tone with modern reliability.
Rock N’ Roll Relics, known for crafting beautifully aged guitars, is stepping into the world of guitar effects with two new stompboxes: The StingerBoost and The Stinger Drive. True to the brand’s vintage aesthetic and rock ‘n’ roll spirit, these pedals are handwired in Hollywood and built to look, feel, and sound like they’ve been gigged for decades.
The Stinger Boost: This single-transistor boost features a Dallas Rangemaster-style circuit, with a NOS (New Old Stock) Fairchild Silicon transistor and a NOS Sanyo Germanium transistor. The circuit is modified beyond a typical Rangemaster to provide wider bandwidth for more of a full-range, mid-focused boost. The rest of its small components are all high-quality NOS, sourced from 1970s stockpiles. It’s completely hardwired and uses vintage-style clothwire, including a true bypass footswitch switch.
The Stinger Boost delivers classic midrange honk that cuts through any mix. Its switchable silicon and germanium circuit lets you dial in everything from glassy bite to warm, vintages aturation. The germanium mode provides a smooth and warm boost, and the silicon circuit delivers a brighter, hard-edged push. The pedal’s single Boost knob offers everything from a subtle push to a full-on vintage-style gain boost. Think back to the classic lead tones of theBeano album, the melodies of Queen, and the blues shredding of Rory Gallagher: that’s what you’re getting with the Stinger Boost – capable of over 30dB of gain with a midrange bump.
The Stinger Drive: Inspired by the iconic MXR Distortion+ and DOD250 pedals, the StingerDrive features Volume and Gain controls to dial in rich, midrange-forward drive with a smoother high end than traditional circuits. Built using a mix of NOS and modern components, this pedal delivers sought-after vintage tone with modern reliability.
The Stinger Drive features an LM741 asymmetrical hard clipping circuit utilizing a germanium diode and silicon transistor, pushing forward loads of even-order harmonic distortion. It provides more volume than a vintage overdrive and also more gain which, at its maximum, stands on the knife’s edge of oscillation for really hairy tones.
Combining old-school looks with modern reliability, each Rock N’ Roll Relics pedal is hand-agedand uniquely relic’d, making it look like it has spent 30 years on the road. Open one up, andyou’ll see true vintage-style wiring, with all components on full display—just like they did back inthe day.
- NOS transistors & hand-selected components for authentic vintage tone
- 9-volt operation via external power supply or on board battery
- Individually hand-aged enclosures for a one-of-a-kind look
- True bypass switching
The Rock N’ Roll Relics Stinger Boost carries a $279 street price and the Stinger Drive carries a $289 street price. They’re available from Rock N’ Roll Relics dealers and direct from RockNRollRelics.net.
For more information, please visit rocknrollrelics.com.