John Froehlich: JGL Contributor

Hey Lyle, I was just moving around your site, very interesting, especially the ideas about turning younger players to jazz guitar. I grew up a middle-class white kid from surburbia in the 60s and 70s, totally into British Rock and psychedelia, and never really concerned with jazz as an art form, except for my grandfather playing standards, who had died while I was still very young.

As I mention in my bio, he was an all-around fret man--- guitar, banjo, violin and mandolin, who played with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, the Dorsey Brothers and on Broadway, in the original Porgy and Bess. I always dug it when he launched into the Boogie Woogie at family parties in his basement in Brooklyn, (after the antipasto, red wine and macaroni) but didn't learn until years later that it was called swing, and came from The Blues.

Then in my late teens, my younger brother, who wasn't into the heavy sounds of Cream and Hendrix, began studying Jazz Guitar in college, and the rest is history. I started learning all I could about the art form, (and about Grandpa) and turning my friends on to this different sound, really an "art", without all the feedback, bluster and bombast of Rock. (I still dig Rock though---can't get it out of my system, nor do I wish too).

It was at this time that I also became aware of American Black Blues and Roots, and learned that The Stones weren't the originators of "I'm a Kingbee babee..." DUH! Oh well, it wasn't that big of a revelation, but it opened my eyes, and especially my ears to another new world of sound and expression.

Geez Lyle, I could keep going, but I gotta go and paint, which is what I do, man, and I'm probably boring the hell outta you. I just wanted to mention that I was reading that interview with you. That is you in the photo with the Gibson ES-125 ? (I think it is?) I have a step down from that one, a ' 68 ES-120 thinline, which was the student model at the time, the cheapest archtop Gibson made. It's a beauty to me though. But what I dream about is a gorgeous Super 400 in sunburst, or an L-5 acoustic, or a D'Angelico, or...

Best Regards,
John Froehlich

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