Roo hops and swings into guitar mission

BRISBANE musician Roo Friend has been hopping into an interesting project, customising baritone guitars.
Roo has produced prototypes that are fretless under the 5th and 6th and tuned to C, F, Bb, Eb, G and C.
He says the guitars are "very thrilling to use once you get the knack, great for bass-less gigs".
His youtube post at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_tLsjfAx3c proves that thrill.
Roo has a long and deep involvement with music as you can see in a quick google. He says he based his playing style on some Joe Pass theory.
The picture shows a Yamaha Pacifica that is "prototype 3".
While talking about JP: The late Brisbane jazz legend Sid Bromley, who hosted many great players for their Brisbane visits had a close friendship with Joe and told me about it in the 1980s, when I visited his St Lucia home. I have documented this only in recent years on a post on my other site but repeat it here to save readers opening another page:
"Entering Sid's house – 1950s bungalow style – was like a trip into a bebop party room. He had an upright piano and a drum kit set up ready to go.
He took me on a tour of his record collection – wall to wall and so heavy he said he needed to have the foundations underpinned.
We loosened up with a few bottles of XXXX Light, his brew of choice, then he sat at the piano and played some of the most discordant music I have heard, without any clear melody or beat.
After about 10 minutes, Sid broke the welcome silence with a simple statement: "Tea for Two, isn't it great? It virtually plays itself." Sid, a then retired Customs officer, had a long-established routine of a trip to the Big Apple every year to keep up to date with the state of the art, and I guess he was in a neo-bop interpretative mood.
I ASKED who had been in the party room and he said Ella had sat in my chair and Louis had sat 'over there'. Sid's favourite acclamation was "Out of nowhere", which he would use where others would say "gee" or "wow". A few hours later I was saying "out of nowhere" when he showed me a letter from one of my jazz heroes, Joe Pass, dated in the 1960s, carrying Joe's stamped letterhead and thanking Sid for what he had done for him.
SID had read or heard that Joe was out of the scene because of medical reasons (aficionados will know what I am saying here) and had written to him while he was in an institution, appealing to him to get his act together and return to performing. Joe's letter said Sid's expression had been the turning point that had made him realise that if someone in a far away place like Australia cared about him he should indeed lift himself from his low. Joe said he had asked his wife to investigate moving to Australia but all she could get was tourism oriented. Sid said he had met Joe several times since that interchange, which had occurred almost two decades previously. So that's it: Sid Bromley's great gift to jazz has been put into print. I finally have got it off my chest."
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