Are we living in the era of the high-performance acoustic guitar? If so, we have players such as Jon Gomm and companies such as Ibanez to thank for it, with the English acoustic virtuoso’s latest signature guitar further hot-rodding the traditional cutaway with locking banjo tuners, custom electronics and a wooden vine inlay that references Steve Vai’s groundbreaking JEM.
Yes, it’s a decorative flourish that Ibanez has applied to other high-profile models – e.g. for Polyphia’s Tim Henson – but Passionflower motif, which graces the Macasser ebony fingerboard from the 10th to the 20th fret, feels like a call back to the JEM, as though to state that this, the JGM11, is something different.
