The Player: Wolfgang Schalk

“I heard Weather Report with Jaco when I was a teenager,” says Wolfgang Schalk. “I was at the very front and this was one of the first concerts I ever saw. Can you imagine? It was like lightning hit me. I never will forget that gig and I’ll carry on that energy forever.”

Schalk was born in Austria, but has since emigrated to the US. “I come from a creative family, though not a jazz house. My father was a very talented artist, but the time and circumstances did not allow him to pursue an artistic career. He was into classical music and did not like jazz at all. So I actually brought jazz into the house in my early teens. My mom totally dug it, and we went to a lot of concerts together. And she had incredible good taste and spirit.“

When Schalk was around the age of 10,his father came home with an accordion and said, "You should learn it".

“I really did not want to play accordion. My brother said, ’go for it, it’s good for you and you’ll learn to read music’.” Schalk’s parents signed him up at the local Musikschule Gleisdorf Local “where I learned to read music, first on the accordion then on the classical guitar for about seven years.

“I practiced guitar a lot and I was also very curious about jazz, and went to a lot of concerts and heard bands like John McLaughlin and Pink Floyd. They had a huge impact on me.”

During this time Schalk was also having private lessons with Franz Posch in Graz. “Franz is an incredible guitarist and teacher. He recognised my talent early on, and greatly expanded my musical horizons”

So, after studying the classical guitar, what was Schalk’s first jazz axe?

“My first really cool guitar was a vintage Gibson ES- 335. A few years after, I bought a Paul Reed Smith. I was not ready for a big jazz box but I was searching for the unknown. I remember during a long rehearsal break with my band in Vienna, I went to Klangfarbe Music to check out some stuff. The first thing I saw was a Gibson Howard Roberts Fusion. I played it for a while almost forgetting about the rehearsal and fell in love right away. I bought it with a down payment and went back to the rehearsal with the guitar. My bass player was like, ‘man you are crazy?’”

So what came next?

“This was the axe I travelled to New York with. Funnily enough the moment I touched ground in NYC I felt like I needed a real jazz box.

"The Gibson 175 was on my radar and when I went to Rudi’s Music Shop in Manhattan, he had a nice 175 from the 1970s at a very fair price, which I bought immediately. This guitar instantly changed my sound and playing. She was my main guitar in NY for about 10 years.”

Schalk moved to LA in 2007, and often visited the vintage section at Guitar Center on Sunset: “One day they had a blond 175 from the late 1950s. It was way too expensive, like $15,000 or so, but they let me play it. What struck me the most was the vibe and the open acoustic sound it had.

"That same night I searched the internet just for the fun of it and saw a blond 175 from 1951 on eBay with a 'Buy It Now' option for $2,500 and a phone number. A guy in Florida picks up immediately and says, ‘I don’t play anymore, so I’m selling it. Would you like to buy it?' I could not believe it… and bought the guitar without thinking. When it arrived I was blown away how amazing it was. It needed new frets but that was about it.”

What about amplification?

"I’d prefer to play without amps but that’s impossible on a band stand. I don’t like how the amps influence the sound of the instrument. I always would say I wish there was a little device that just makes the guitar loud with no amplification. Nice fantasy!”

For touring and recording, Schalk has a few vintage Lab 5 and L11 solid state amps: “They have an ultra-clean sound even when playing loud, and I love that.”

And strings?

“I have an endorsement with Thomastik-Infeld. I use ‘Jazz Swing’ flat wounds for all my arch top guitars.”

Then we’re back to guitars. “It was about 2012 when I called master luthier Ryan Thorell as I knew there was something special about his guitars and I told him what I’m dreaming about. I was like, 'I love my old 175 but I have this fantasy about an archtop with a real acoustic tone. Maybe a kind of 175 meets Gibson L5 in a modern style with a deep vintage vibe but loud'. Ryan was like, ‘man, I love it. Sure I can do that’.

"He immediately had some great ideas. On top of the list was the neck. I tried to describe what I like and he recommended a slightly wider fretboard with less radius, and a few other things. I never thought about the radius before, but this was the key. He totally built my custom made dream guitar.”

This article originally appeared in the November 2024 issue of Jazzwise. Never miss an issue – subscribe today