Jazz for aficionados

**** A serious jazz artist must play an archtop in the vein of Russell Malone, Wes Montgomery, Barney Kessell, Herb Ellis, Joe Pass, etc None of these jazz guitarists played tele’s because the sweetest jazz tone is delivered by an archtop with at least 3" of depth. None of the old players played a tele! ****
 

Pretty bold statement.  I may have a favorite type of tone, but I wouldn't dream of criticizing the choice of gear by one of the most serious players to ever play the instrument; some would say the most serious.  Have you considered that Martino chose his instrument because that was precisely the sound that he wanted; so as not to sound like many other players?  He actually did play an arch top at various points on his career.

You may find this interesting and thanks for the clip:

@frogman, I’ve been a member of the jazz.be website for 14 years. It’s the finest jazz website on the web for all things jazz guitar. But a very few there are actual jazz guitarists. Every one of them grew up playing rock and later came to jazz later in life. It’s an okay place to learn jazz guitar. But 90 percent of the place is simply a hangout much like Audiogon, without any serious instructive qualities. The most popular page there is the gear page. Guitarists obsess about their gear. There they obsess with pedals because that’s what they used during their rock days. I don’t own a pedal. I play nothing but an archtop through a traditional 40 watt tube amplifier.

Yes, I’m biased. Charlie Christian, Wes Montgomery, Django Reinhardt, Joe Pass, Barney Kessell, these are the fathers of jazz guitar. Each played a jazz archtop because that was the jazz tradition. Martino came after Wes died. He too worshiped Wes as every guitar player did. I’m a traditionalist. Give me a full fat bodied tone that only an archtop can create. This new breed of players like Julian Lage etc playing tele’s do nothing for me. Give it another category and don’t call it jazz. All my opinion.