Bruno wrote us this “letter.” We liked it and are publishing it here.
Dear Jacarandi: Daniele, Luca, Davide
I am sending you this photo. Look at it closely.
You recognize the object in the foreground: you made it. It’s easy for your gaze to fall there: it really is in the foreground, and for some effect I cannot explain, it came out so bright compared to everything else that it seems as if the light is coming from within it.
In reality, you also recognize many of the things that can be (half)seen in this photo: those other guitars in the background (and the many others not visible here) have all practically passed through your hands, for the most varied reasons. A pickup change, a refinish, an assembly, a potentiometer to be replaced, a consultation… By now, there isn’t one that hasn't been seen and fixed at Via Corsico.
But there are some things that aren't visible in the photo. At least, not clearly: I'd better explain them.
To understand the first, a little intuition is enough. You can see that my life is full of instruments: climbed one on top of the other, they overflow from everywhere. These are instruments—mostly guitars and mostly electric—that I have always chosen for their sound, never for the brand. Different from one another, sometimes highly desirable even for their appearance, sometimes strange and not so popular. But all of them—to my ears—are exceptionally sonorous and deeply loved. I don’t resell what I choose for myself: generally, if I buy a guitar, it’s for that short “forever” that will be my life, and the two or three I have let go, I mourn like fallen soldiers in war.
However, you can’t tell from that photo that for some time now I’ve said enough. Enough because, at the point I’m at, adding an instrument would just be replicating something I already have. Enough because it’s a bit of an illness. Enough because there is less money. Enough because it is better to take good care of the things you already have and use them to their full potential: play them!
I said it, and I mean it: I am convinced. I was convinced even when—the other day—I stopped by to pick up my fake E175, of unknown brand but noble sound, that you had fixed for me. I was certain: I will not buy another guitar, I thought.
Only that cursed delay in putting my guitar back together (sometimes, as you know very well, you have to wait when you bring something to you, and that’s fine), only that wait—“hang in there Bruno, ten minutes and it’s done,” Luca said—made me pick up a couple of the guitars hanging on the wall. The second one was this strange object, which looks like it was carved from a single piece of wood, and it almost is. “Korina,” Daniele said. I had only seen it on some old Explorers. Set neck, two humbuckers: a Les Paul disguised as something else.
I didn’t believe it right away. It took me a while. I had to change amps and try to understand what, what on earth was happening to me...
You can’t tell from that photo how happy I was with the offer you made me to take it home for a couple of days and try it out better: I really needed to play it and play it again, and to evaluate if that thing I was feeling was just a fleeting moment: acoustic memory is frail, it deceives. And a guitar with new strings, encountered in a moment of fascination, can cause seductions and betrayals. I needed, like Saint Thomas, to unplug it, plug it back in, and plug it back in again, and compare it with all my guitars that could recall its sound.
Again, however, a bit of intuition is enough, and everything becomes clear: because if that guitar is still here, shining with its own light, there is a reason. It is exactly the reason why I am sending you this photo and writing you this e-mail: She is staying here with me.
All that frantic and inspired comparing made me change my mind: the “Enough” wasn’t true, not entirely. Not at least for this instrument that sounds in this crazy way and that, as soon as I touch it, makes me fall into a full trance, conquered by its large, deep, and clear voice, like that of a cello, by its infinite sustain, and by the quality it radiates when I caress it.
She is staying here: she will be mine. Tomorrow I’ll drop by and we’ll work it out: but she is staying here.
Thank you! Ciao, Bruno
Bruno’s guitar is a Jacaranda JD made entirely of Korina. Set neck, long tenon, rosewood fingerboard, and two Haeussel humbuckers (AlNiCo 3 at the neck and AlNiCo 5 at the bridge). We built it without a commission because we had a nice piece of Korina in the shop and wanted to have a natural JD to show off. It had toured a couple of trade shows; it had even been to Frankfurt, at the MusikMesse. Then it returned and was here in the shop, in the window. During the Salone del Mobile—which attracts a lot of people from all over the world to the Porta Genova neighborhood—we saw quite a few people glue themselves to the glass to look at it. Now, however, it is no longer here: you can find it at Bruno’s. 🙂