1974 JACOBACCI R. GIMENES

A superb 1974 Jacobacci R. Gimenes, in excellent cosmetic and playable condition.

This electric archtop model represents the pinnacle of what the Parisian luthier duo Roger and André Jacobacci could produce. Introduced around the mid-1960s, this guitar clearly draws its inspiration from equivalent archtops produced by Gibson in the United States: a 430 mm (approximately 17-inch) wide body, an elegant Florentine cutaway allowing access to the upper frets, an ebony fingerboard with rectangular pearloid inlays and a pointed tip, a stylized gold-plated tailpiece, a crown-shaped inlay on the headstock… at first glance, one might mistake the instrument for an L-5, or at least an amalgamation of several Kalamazoo models! Yet this guitar was indeed made in Paris, in the workshop located on Rue Duris, in the Ménilmontant district of the capital.

It bears the name of Raymond Gimenes, a leading jazz musician and session guitarist in the 1960s, and an original member of the group Guitars Unlimited (this quintet of guitarists, accompanied by a rhythm section, gave us some fantastic arrangements of the great jazz standards as they might have been played by full orchestras across the Atlantic). The story goes that Gimenes, returning from a trip to the United States, brought back a Gibson Charlie Christian pickup, the type the American company used on its pre-war guitars (notably the ES-150, the iconic model played by the jazz musician for whom it is named), and asked the Jacobacci brothers to design a model around this pickup. This was quickly accomplished, and it was then possible to order one of the new Gimenes guitars directly from the workshop. This was Jacobacci’s top-of-the-line model, so exclusive that it wasn’t even listed in their catalog. At the customer’s request, it was possible to equip it with either Golden Sound/Benedetti pickups or Gibson humbuckers, in addition to the originally planned Charlie Christian pickup. In our case, it features the original pair of the famous Gibson Patent No pickups, offering the distinctive sound that made models like the Les Paul, the 335, and the L-5CES so renowned. For this reason alone, the Gimenes seems particularly relevant!

The example shown here demonstrates superb craftsmanship, both in the choice of materials and in the execution of the construction: a solid carved spruce top; maple back and sides (on this guitar, the back is solid, which is rarely the case, as many known models have a maple plywood body); and a magnificent natural finish that highlights the wood grain. The neck is made of two pieces of mahogany and features a relatively thin and ergonomic grip; a bonus compared to the guitars that inspired it, the Gimenes has a 22-fret fingerboard versus 20 frets for Gibson archtops, making the upper register even more accessible. The instrument has been meticulously prepared and set up for playing in our workshop, with complete fret leveling, the crafting of a new bone string-guiding nut adjusted to the string gauge for excellent tuning stability, adjustment of the action and intonation at the bridge, and a complete cleaning of the electronics… everything necessary to make this queen of jazz a top-notch instrument!

Sold in a fitted hardshell case.