Smaller than an ES-175

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Small Jazz Guitars

My brother, a guitarist, recently commented on a picture of me playing a Stratocaster that was on Facebook. He said he always thought I was more of an ES-175 guy. I was and am. I do love the Strats but I have long wished for an ES-175. The ES-175 is the standard for a smaller jazz guitar with a lower bout of 16 inches, a laminated body and humbucker pickups mounted directly on the body. The Gibson L4-ces is essentially the same size and shape as the ES-175 but has fancier hardware, inlays and has a carved solid spruce top.

I’ve wanted an ES-175 since I was in high school. But now I wonder if a 16 inch guitar isn’t still too big. There seems to be an increasing number of small bodied jazz guitars available.

What I Want and Why I want it.

• Hollow body means lighter weight plus I can better hear the guitar when I practice unamplified.
• Laminated top is less sensitive to  feedback than a solid top. Acoustic tones are less important if most of my sound is coming from amplifier. (It is more likely to produce feedback than a semi-hollow or solid body though – so many compromises.)
• Small body. Larger sized guitars are louder acoustically but I’ve already given up the acoustic component as being minimally important to an electrified sound. Smaller bodied guitars are just more comfortable for me to hold.
• Two pickups. I mostly play with just the neck pickup but I appreciate the extra versatility in tones that a two pickup guitar can have. If I only played jazz, a single neck pickup would be fine.
• Surface mounted pickups. Floating pickups make sense when you might play your solid carved top guitar unamplified or at very low volumes. But I’ve already chosen a laminated top over a solid carved top. The extra mass of the pickups on the laminated top aren’t going to have much effect on the amplified tone.
• Finally, I want a fully hollow archtop jazz guitar because my heroes played them. Yet I don’t need to play exactly the model guitars they played because I have more choices than they did – and I’m stubborn and opinionated.

Eight Guitars Smaller than an ES-175

Here’s some of the archtop guitars I’ve discovered that are 15 inches or less in width.

1. One of my favorite jazz guitarists who is still playing is Jimmy Bruno. Sadowsky who makes a Jim Hall model also makes a Jimmy Bruno model.
2. Sadowsky makes a couple of other small body guitars of interest. There is a semi-hollow that you’ll have to look up on your own if you’re interested. The other model I’ll mention here is the SS-15. It’s very similar to the Jimmy Bruno model.
3. D’Aquisto is now distributed by Aria USA. The New Yorker Junior is one of two smaller bodied archtops they make. It has a solid sitka top.
4. The other archtop made by D’Aquisto is the Jazz Line Junior.
5. D’Angelico, another famous name now resurrected, makes the Excel-SS. D’Angelico guitars, like a number of companies are now doing, has the guitars made overseas to their specifications. The prices are good compared to a Gibson though are more than a Korean Epiphone.
6. Ibanez doesn’t publish width and depth dimensions on their website which makes it difficult to determine which models are smaller than 16 inches in width. I know that a number of their popular, lower cost models are smaller than this but I’m only listing here the George Benson GB10 – one of their most expensive models.
7. Eastman Guitars has acquired a reputation for great value in archtop guitars. The first model I’m giving you may not currently be in production. It is the 803_15ce. The standard model listed on their website is 803_16ce, a 16 inch width guitar. But the 803_15ce can be found used on Ebay and at a number of web retailers.
8. A non-standard design for a jazz guitar from Eastman is the El Rey. There are actually four models of El Rey, but all have the same shape and dimensions – all are small bodied jazz guitars.