Peerless Martin Taylor Maestro

Peerless is Korea's premiere guitar manufacturer and has been producing high quality jazz guitars since the 70s. Over the years they've built thousands of guitars for Gretsch, Gibson, Fender, Epiphone, and many others. Now a prestigious brand in their own right, Peerless offers instruments that rival the sound and playability of much costlier boutique makers at a fraction of the price.

Designed in conjunction with the British jazz guitar virtuoso Martin Taylor, the Maestro features a carved spruce top, solid maple back and sides, and a maple neck. The fingerboard, pickguard, and cello style tailpiece are made of ebony. Hardware includes a set of gold Grover tuners with ebony buttons and a floating Kent Armstrong humbucker. The overall style of the instrument combines more traditional features like a florentine cutaway, fingerboard dots, and a natural finish with a more modern Benedettoesque cello style tailpiece.

The Martin Taylor Maestro was designed with the fingerstyle player in mind. The petite 15" body, 1 3/4" nut, and short, 24 3/5" scale make complex solo arrangements a breeze. The solid wood body produces a lush unamplified tone and the floating  Kent Armstrong humbucker produces a natural, almost acoustic like tone.

This guitar comes setup with D'Addario 12 gauge roundwounds and fairly low, 2mm action. However, this instrument performs well with many types of setups, including traditional bebop (14 gauge flatwounds and very low action) and swing (higher action) setups.