Jolana Big Beat, a piece of Futurism

Going back in time, I remember that as children they talked to us about Eastern Europe as a dark place, totally closed to the West and its “deviances”, where there was nothing but poverty and backwardness … so it comes spontaneously ask yourself: where does all this Eastern European rock, funk, jazz music, that has been raging on thematic video channels from years on, come from?

And what about all these instruments with which it was played, not only absolutely Western but even from the USA, but also extremely expensive and difficult to find even in the “free” part of Europe? So, at this point, why be surprised by the existence of manufacturing industries that produced not only electric guitars but even in shapes that did not conform to the gray image that we had been told about those places?

We discover today, with pleasure, that in Czechoslovakia there was a factory called Jolana which produced an absolutely attractive and original instrument, the splendid Big Beat!

The Big Beat bears a big resemblance to Mark Erlewine’s famous Chiquita, a travel guitar made iconic by both ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons (his co-creator) and the movie “Back to the Future“, where the little yellow devil is well visible in a very close up in the famous opening scene:

The full setup consists of the actual guitar and an amplifier connected to it. A small amplifier housed in a portable typewriter case, the Jolana T6 Kombo, was also offered as an option containing the same circuitry as the one connected to the guitar.

The Big Beat present here, which belongs to our friend, the collector Gordy Ramz, is currently in a repair phase, made problematic by the difficulty to find the wiring diagram of this very rare instrument, therefore it was not possible to have a demo of the guitar sound. but as soon as there is a possibility the article will be updated.

UPDATE:

thanks to our friend Mattheus we got hold of the Big Beat amp schematic, they can be found at the end of the article.
Mattheus also informs us that the guitar is extremely rare and expensive and is highly sought after in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Let’s enjoy it for the moment in this excerpt from a film of the time:

The following images are taken from jolana.info

Not much is known about the history of the Jolana Big Beat, except that it was the product of the brilliant mind and work of a very important figure in the development of the Eastern European electric guitar, Mr. Josef Růžička (1928/2004), rightly defined the Czech Leo Fender. Mr. Růžička was responsible for the birth, among others, of the beautiful Resonet Grazioso that we have seen in the hands of George Harrison and Jimmy Page.

A video gallery of the Big Beat and the optional “lunchbag” amplifier.

The schematics that Mattheus kindly provided us