capability that, to this day, no other bass can
really get. The 162 has a subsonic sound that
worked really well at the low volumes of the
blues bands back then. The body has two fairly
large braces running down the middle, from
the neck block to the tail block. They keep the
body from caving in and add sustain. It has a
curly maple plywood top and back, and on the
originals the arched back was pressed into the
body. This method of construction is what kept
it from feeding back. The new Thin Twin guitar
is basically the same instrument—same body,
same pickups—just made into a guitar.
am not sure if we’re going to call them that,
though, because we haven’t worked out a
deal with his estate yet. After the Pro, we
hope to bring out the Barney Kessel Artist,
which is one step bigger. It has a 15" body
and two Kleenex box pickups. We also want
to do the biggest one, the Barney Kessel Jazz
Special. It had split parallelogram inlays, a 17"
What else can you tell us about the pickups?
The pickups Kay manufactured were fairly microphonic, so they would pick up sound through
the entire body. Later on, Kay developed a copy
of a P- 90 pickup with Barney Kessel. It was a bit
hotter than the P- 90 that Gibson was making,
and people called it the “Kleenex box” because
the covering resembled the Kleenex tissue box
of that era. The Thin Twin pickup morphed into
a pickup called the “speed bump,” which had a
big rectangular cover so the coil and the magnet
could get closer to the string than with the Thin
Twin. These pickups were pretty unique.
Which models do you plan to reissue?
The Thin Twin and K162 Pro Bass are currently
in production, and after that will be the Jazz II
electric guitar—a kind of ES-335-shaped body
with a Bigsby—and the Jazz Special Bass.
The Jazz Special is sometimes called the Paul
McCartney model because he was pictured
playing one. It’s basically the 162 morphed
into a double-cutaway with an abstract-shaped pickguard. It has the same Thin Twin
pickup. Following those, we’re scheduled to
reissue the Upbeat guitar, which was kind of
a poor man’s jazz guitar: It’s an archtop with
a big, 17"-wide body, maple-plywood back
and sides, a laminated spruce top, and two
Kleenex box pickups. They came in one-, two-and three-pickup versions, and I think we’re
going to do the same. We’re also going to
come out with a scaled-down version of the
Upbeat called the Pro. At one point it was
called the Kay Pro, but when Barney Kessel
came onboard in the late ’50s, they started
calling it the Barney Kessel Pro. It’s the size
of a Les Paul but with a rounded cutaway,
and it’s totally hollow. It’s about 2. 75" thick
and about 12. 5" wide, with an arched top
and back. You see the originals in stores for
around $2,500. We are also planning to bring
out three or four Barney Kessel models. I
Fritz with a Kay K162 Pro Bass
body, and solid woods. It was the top of the
line when it was introduced, but it didn’t sell
that well because people hesitated to buy a
Kay for $400 when they could get a Gibson
Super 400 for the same price.
What changes have you made from the
original designs?
The originals were made for a variety of
house brands. You will see the same guitars
under the names Old Kraftsman, Silvertone,
and Galliano, with different versions of the
headstock. The basic Kay headstock was just
the name Kay, sometimes with the metal logo
and sometimes with the mother-of-pearl inlay
logo. Tony Blair thought he would offer them
all with the “Kelvinator” headstock [Editor’s
note: The headstock’s nickname comes from
the refrigerator-brand logo it resembled.]
to tie the whole line together—and to distinguish it from the originals. In the custom
shop version, I offer original headstocks as
an option. Another change is that we put a
one-degree pitch on the necks. Many of the
original instruments were unplayable because
the necks were pitched flat and tended to
buIILDER PRoFILE
rise over the years. Also, from 1953 to 1958
they had no truss rods, but I decided to go
modern and put in a two-way truss rod. Also,
the necks used to be really big. Though some
think the big necks were great, there are only
a few people out there that want gigantic
necks. We made them smaller, sort of like a
1958 Les Paul. Also, we use a Tune-o-matic-style bridge instead of the original wooden
bridge—which was in the wrong place and
made intonation impossible.
With the Thin Twin, we kept the best features of the 1958 version—like the checkerboard binding. Up until that year, they
had flat backs, but we went with the
arched back that started in ’ 58,
and instead of using a one-piece
top, we bookmatched the maple
top. The original Jazz II had a
bolt-on neck, a floating bridge,
and no bracing in the body, so
you rarely find one that is completely functional. We ran parallel braces down the middle
of the body, set the neck, and
put on a fixed bridge. It is
now a really great guitar.
Click here to check out our video interview of Roger Fritz demoing Kay’s US-made reissues.
kayvintagereissue.com
fritzbrothersguitars.com
Kay Jazz II
Vintage Reissue
