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Video Review- Jens Ritter Princess Isabella Guitar

PG's Pat Smith walks us through his latest review in the June 2010 issue of Premier Guitar -- the Ritter Instruments Princess Isabella Baritone Jazz Guitar. The Isabella is Jens Ritter's (renowned bass luthier) take on building a hollowbody-style guitar but with a solid body construction. It also uniquely thin as it only measures 1" thick. Also, it has a very different bridge design/construction, which Ritter describes as "the hand cast bridge foot is mounted into a small hollowed area carved into the body that exactly matches the contour of the bridge foot. The bridge foot is held in place by a friction setting and only makes contact with a 2mm thin elliptical contour ridge along the hollow area. Thus, most of the surface area on the interior side of the bridge foot and the bridge studs float in the hollow area." The body is made from a very light swamp ash, the neck is switenia mahogany and the fingerboard is Bavarian maple. The tuners are Gotohs, the bridge is a Schaller and the pickup is a Haeussel Custom Fat-Jazz.



PG's Pat Smith walks us through his latest review in the June 2010 issue of Premier Guitar -- the Ritter Instruments Princess Isabella Baritone Jazz Guitar.

The Isabella is Jens Ritter's (renowned bass luthier) take on building a hollowbody-style guitar but with a solid body construction. It also uniquely thin as it only measures 1" thick. Also, it has a very different bridge design/construction, which Ritter describes as "the hand cast bridge foot is mounted into a small hollowed area carved into the body that exactly matches the contour of the bridge foot. The bridge foot is held in place by a friction setting and only makes contact with a 2mm thin elliptical contour ridge along the hollow area. Thus, most of the surface area on the interior side of the bridge foot and the bridge studs float in the hollow area."

The body is made from a very light swamp ash, the neck is switenia mahogany and the fingerboard is Bavarian maple. The tuners are Gotohs, the bridge is a Schaller and the pickup is a Haeussel Custom Fat-Jazz.

The Spirit Fall trio: drummer Brian Blade (right) and saxophonist Chris Potter (center) joined Patitucci (left) for a single day at The Bunker. ā€œThose guys are scary. It almost puts pressure on me, how good they are, because they get it really fast,ā€ says Patitucci.

Photo by Sachi Sato

Legendary bassist John Patitucci continues to explore the sound of a chord-less trio that balances melodicism with boundless harmonic freedomā€”and shares lessons he learned from his mentors Chick Corea and Wayne Shorter.

In 1959, Miles Davisā€™ Kind of Blue and John Coltraneā€™s Giant Stepsā€”two of the most influential albums in jazz historyā€”were recorded. Itā€™s somewhat poetic that four-time Grammy-winning jazz bass icon John Patitucci was born that same year. In addition to a storied career as a bandleader, Patitucci cemented his legacy through his lengthy association with two giants of jazz: keyboardist Chick Corea, with whom Patitucci enjoyed a 10-year tenure as an original member of his Elektric and Akoustic bands, and saxophonist Wayne Shorterā€™s quartet, of which he was a core member for 20 years. Patitucci has also worked with a whoā€™s who of jazz elites like Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner, Dizzy Gillespie, and Michael Brecker.

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The National New Yorker lived at the forefront of the emerging electric guitar industry, and in Memphis Minnieā€™s hands, it came alive.

This National electric is just the tip of the iceberg of electric guitar history.

On a summer day in 1897, a girl named Lizzie Douglas was born on a farm in the middle of nowhere in Mississippi, the first of 13 siblings. When she was seven, her family moved closer to Memphis, Tennessee, and little Lizzie took up the banjo. Banjo led to guitar, guitar led to gigs, and gigs led to dreams. She was a prodigious talent, and ā€œKidā€ Douglas ran away from home to play for tips on Beale Street when she was just a teenager. She began touring around the South, adopted the moniker Memphis Minnie, and eventually joined the circus for a few years.

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- YouTube

In our third installment with Santa Cruz Guitar Company founder Richard Hoover, the master luthier shows PG's John Bohlinger how his team of builders assemble and construct guitars like a chef preparing food pairings. Hoover explains that the finer details like binding, headstock size and shape, internal bracing, and adhesives are critical players in shaping an instrument's sound. Finally, Richard explains how SCGC uses every inch of wood for making acoustic guitars or outside ventures like surfboards and art.

We know Horsegirl as a band of musicians, but their friendships will always come before the music. From left to right: Nora Cheng, drummer Gigi Reece, and Penelope Lowenstein.

Photo by Ruby Faye

The Chicago-via-New York trio of best friends reinterpret the best bits of college-rock and ā€™90s indie on their new record, Phonetics On and On.

Horsegirl guitarists Nora Cheng and Penelope Lowenstein are back in their hometown of Chicago during winter break from New York University, where they share an apartment with drummer Gigi Reece. Theyā€™re both in the middle of writing papers. Cheng is working on one about Buckminster Fuller for a city planning class, and Lowenstein is untangling Austrian writer Ingeborg Bachmannā€™s short story, ā€œThree Paths to the Lake.ā€

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