Great Ukes: The Guckert Jazuke’s Experimental Design Intended to Bring a Banjo-Uke Sound to Jazz Groups

STORY & PHOTOS BY SANDOR NAGYSZALANCZY | FROM THE SPRING 2026 ISSUE OF UKULELE MAGAZINE

It’s interesting when a company brands a product with a name that’s indicative of how it deems it should be used. For example, SlimFast pre-packaged meal replacement shakes, bars, and snacks are obviously intended to help people lose weight quickly. Likewise,
Bubble Wrap is for, well, wrapping things in plastic bubbles. But sometimes a product’s brand name has little to do with how it’s used in the real world. Consider the Fender Jazzmaster electric guitar: Despite its genre-specific moniker, it was never really embraced by jazz musicians, but rather became a staple in surf bands such as the Ventures and the Beach Boys, and later indie rock artists like Thom Yorke of Radiohead and Nels Cline of Wilco. 

Such is also the case with a most unusual and unique instrument known as the “Jazuke” designed by Edward N. Guckert, an Ohio-based musician and teacher who had written a very popular instructional booklet, Chords for the Ukulele, in 1917. Created sometime in the early 1920s, the Jazuke is basically a hybrid banjo ukulele with an odd design: Instead of having a fully round body like other banjo ukes, the Jazuke sports a horseshoe-shaped wooden frame with a squared-off, boxy bottom end. Guckert’s intention was evidently to create an instrument that would project more sound than a standard banjo ukulele, making it suitable for the Jazz Age’s louder bands and ensembles. Unfortunately, banjo ukes of any kind were not often featured in early jazz music, so it’s highly unlikely that Jazukes were actually used to play jazz.  

Once Guckert had designed his unique Jazuke, he patented its design. His 1923 U.S. Design Patent #62,235 shows an instrument that’s very similar to the one Guckert actually built, the main difference being the shape of the bottom end of the body. The patent drawings show the uke with a concave curved bottom, as opposed to the actual instrument which has a flat bottom. My guess is that Guckert realized that a banjo uke with a flat bottom could stand by itself upright on the floor, something you can’t do with a regular round-bodied banjo uke. The patent does show the same unique diamond-shaped headstock as the actual Jazuke, which sports regular “chess piece” Bakelite tuners in lieu of the pointy friction pegs shown in the drawing.

Beyond its unique features, the Jazuke is constructed very much like a regular banjo ukulele. The round portion of the body is comprised of a bent oak wood hoop which supports the metal ring and brackets that secure the instrument’s animal skin head. The Jazuke’s neck is supported by a square rod that goes through the hoop and attaches to the square lower portion of the body.

I was curious to see what effect the Jazuke’s unconventional design had on the tone of the instrument, so I compared it to several similarly-sized vintage banjo ukes from my collection. Volume-wise, the Jazuke did hold its own relative to the loudest open-back banjo uke I tried (a P’Mico Collegiate, also from the 1920s). Subjectively, I didn’t think the Jazuke’s tone was any more pleasant (or, for those who aren’t banjo uke fans, more grating) than just about any other vintage banjo uke. I did find that the odd diamond-pattern configuration of the Jazuke’s tuners made them a bit more difficult to adjust.

Not only did Guckert design and patent his unique banjo uke, but he evidently also manufactured it himself. The paper label pasted inside the uke states that it was made by “Guckert Duplex Banjo Manufacturing Co. in Toledo, Ohio.” Amusingly, the label also refers to the Jazuke as “the instrument of enchantment.” It’s likely that Guckert’s company also manufactured regular banjos, as he had obtained a U.S. utility patented in 1922 (#1,412,239) for an “improved” 5-string banjo that featured two rims around the skin head. He claimed that this design allowed the banjo’s bridge to exert a greater tension on the head, thereby resulting in more sonorous tones.

Sadly, the Jazuke never became a mainstream hit, and surviving examples are extremely rare. But it’s remembered as part of the wave of experimental instrument patents granted during the ukulele’s heyday in the 1910s and 1920s. Guckert’s bold attempt to jazz up the ukulele world with a louder, flashier hybrid didn’t revolutionize music, but left us a fascinating artifact of the era when its inventor tried to merged the ukulele’s charm with the banjo’s sonic punch.