Tim Bram Tribute Archtop #75 Brown Burst

Tim Bram's Tele-inspired carved archtop, with European spruce, curly maple, and a Dreamsongs Charlie Christian pickup.

A great archtop asks something of the player - the body is big, the strings are usually heavy, and it takes some commitment to get comfortable with one. That is a large part of why more and more modern jazz players have picked up Telecasters, with Bill Frisell and Julian Lage making as good a case as anyone for what a smaller guitar can do in that music. We love our Teles and play them all the time. That said, there are still gigs, sessions, and quiet evenings at home that call for the sound and feel of a carved archtop.

Tim Bram, who builds in Pasadena, Maryland, has made that idea the center of his work. His Tribute is a carved archtop with an outline and neck inspired by the Telecaster. It is smaller and lighter than a traditional jazz box, it sits against you like a guitar you already know, and yet it still sounds like a much larger archtop when you plug it in. We followed Tim's work from a distance for a few years before bringing his guitars in around 2022, and they have been everything we hoped for.

The top is carved European spruce, the back, sides, and neck are curly maple, and the fingerboard, bridge, tailpiece, and pickguard are all ebony. The workmanship is clean everywhere we look, the guitar is light, and the neck, which Tim based on a '50s Telecaster, is slightly chunky yet comfortable right away.

The Dreamsongs Charlie Christian pickup takes its name from the guitarist who made it famous on Gibson's ES-150 in the 1930s, and this one is made entirely by hand. It looks the part, and it sounds even better. The voice is deeper, bigger, and thicker than a typical single coil, and the notes stay clear and separate. It is warm and velvety when played clean, and when you push it, it picks up a little fuzz around the edges. Just beautiful, inspiring stuff.

Above all, this is a musical guitar that is a lot of fun to play, and that is the whole point. Tim builds in small numbers, so we only see a few of these each year. If the idea speaks to you, come play this one or get in touch and we will tell you more. Includes a hardshell case.