PAUL
VERNON CHESTER
Manouche Maestro
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Manouche Maestro |
 
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Django's
Selmer Guitar
Django Reinhardt secured an endorsement deal with Selmer, so many Selmer guitars passed his hands (he sold or gave away a lot of them). There are 2 guitars that we are sure of belonged to Django more permanently No.503 and No.704 as he never valued guitars that came free other than for playing on and he had the choice of the Selmer Workshop. No.503 came in Django's possession in 1940 and he played it until his death in 1953. The guitar was on display in the Musée Instrumental de Paris, (See Ade Holland anecdote). No.704 came into his possession in 1948, just before a tour in Italy. The top was crushed during that tour and replaced by an Italian Luthier. Django Reinhardt used very light silk-and-steel strings ( .010 to .046) on his guitar generally from Argentina. Django liked to use the thickest guitar picks he could find, most of the time using natural tortoise shell. Selmer stopped producing guitars in 1952. The large D-Holes were the first of the Maccaferri domed soundboard design which generated a much louder sound with steel Strings, The large soundhole was there to accommodate and reflect the the sound from the unique patent resonator also introduced by Maccaferri for increased Volume. But alas in practice they quickly became the source of buzzing and detachment and were discarded by the musicians. Selmer then introduced the oval Soundhole which Django readily adopted. After Mario Maccaferri had left the Selmer factory, Selmer continued making guitars. They made some changes like introducing the small oval sound hole and the 14th fret neck (67 cm scale length, 21 frets, 14th fret to the body). In this period however they experimented, amongst other things, with the bracing of the top. Obviously they tried to make the top as light as possible. That is probably the reason for leaving out some braces. It is quite unique to find such a ‘transitional model’ and, due to the condition the guitar is in, to have have the opportunity to open it. (#430)
There are definitely some inherent tuning issues with that style of guitar. Sometimes, if you play an octave on the B and the D strings in the middle of the neck, the D string is flat and the B string is sharp. Django definitely developed a style to suit that instrument, although he played other guitars before the Selmer. The Selmer came out in 1932, and he didn’t get his first one until 1934. So his style was already intact at that time. There are stories about when he came to America without a guitar, because he figured the Americans would be lining up to give him guitars to play. Well, they didn’t, so the Duke's tour manager secured a non-cutaway Gibson ES-330 with a P-90 pickup, and he was really bummed out. He wrote back to his manager: “Don’t speak to me about American tin-pot guitars anymore!”
Django,
Allan Hodgkins, Bassist Coleridge Goode, & Jack Llewellyn on Grande Bouche Selmer,
That night we " sketched out " the recording sessions we did for Decca and HMV (His Masters Voice now EMI) for numbers to be released on Delauney's French "Swing" label. In the recording studio Django surpassed himself in the haunting melancholy "Nuages" (which, incidentally. was later published with lyrics as "The Bluest Kind of Blues"). In this session too. was the first Grappelli/Reinhardt recording of another "Nuages" which was re-christened- "Love's Melody " and lyrics added. Coleridge Goode on Nuages Django gave a really breathtaking display of inspired technique in "Liza" and "Tiger Rag' but his version of the French National Anthem was never released unfortunately. Apparently the French Authorities did not take kindly to Reinhardt's "jazzed up" version of their National Anthem so the record was never released. (Till much Later under a different title 'Echoes of France') Whenever I hear the "Marseillaise" played I cannot help getting itchy fingers on Django's behalf! Coleridge Goode on Echoes of France Concerts had been provisionally arranged but Django was taken ill and admitted to the French hospital in London for a not-too-serious operation. His wife (Naguine) and son (Babik) were in London on what I believe was their first visit to this country. Madame Reinhardt seemed rather lost but luckily Delaunay and Grappelli were always at hand to make things easier for her.
On visiting Django in hospital I was pleased to find he was quite cheerful. As usual his eyes were a feature that anyone who met him never missed. On that particular evening he entrusted with me something I will never forget. Django asked me to look after his guitar for him during his stay in hospital and told me he wished me to use the instrument for the BBC broadcast I was to undertake with Grappelli later in the month. If he was "out of action" he said, at least his guitar could be kept going! In these days of big, bright, gaudy be-jewelled guitars I think Django's instrument needs a description. The guitar was not the usual Maccaferri D-shaped soundhole, etc. but a rather shabby, much scratched instrument with exceedingly light gauge strings. The sixth string was approximately the same gauge as a normal fourth. The strings were perfectly balanced so that the first string was similar in gauge to the E string on a violin. The sound hole was narrow and elliptical, with the ellipse running in line with the fingerboard. This unusual instrument had been designed specially for Django by Mario Maccaferri but almost as much as the instrument I remember the case in which Django kept it. It was cheap battered and torn and was kept together by string with a piece of bent wire for a handle. When one remembers that even as early as 1935 Django Reinhardt was already something of a legendary figure, whose free expression and unrivalled technique stood unprecedented in the history of guitar music, this battered tawdry old case becomes the more significant. At sixteen years of age I had wild dreams of the fabulous amazing Django and there I was with the guitar and case of my "God" of the past! I felt truly honoured. Many had been the time when I had sat enthralled, amazed and spellbound at the music that had issued from it. Now, here it was, in my own two hands.
Danny Perri also had a career in the USA, and was with Jack Hylton in the UK . For many years he worked as accompanist to Perry Como. EXTRA HAZARD Django's guitar was extremely responsive (I could quite easily raise the fifth and sixth strings a quarter of a tone with finger pressure alone) and during the broadcast this extra hazard, did not help my already nervous feeling about playing on the instrument. Grappelli had assured me that using Django's guitar would inspire me but my own feeling, then as now. was that it was not a good broadcast. In retrospect it may be that this impression was bred by imagination out of over-sensitivity on my part-it is so difficult to be objective when combining the functions of critic and performer. The fact remains that this instrument which performed miracles under Diango's fingers, spoke a different kind of magic for me. More of a personal and psychological feeling, than musical perhaps. I can still remember starting out from home for the BBC Studios, feeling like a person secretly carrying an atom bomb around. This feeling heightened when I passed through the West End on the Underground train. A young fellow had got into the carriage at Piccadilly carrying a guitar. He sat opposite me with his guitar case resting across his knees. And what a case! Shining, Polished and Nickel-Plated fittings positively gleaming in their newness. It put Django's case to shame. I had a strong urge to let him into the secret. for I had noticed he could not completely hide a smile as his eye caught sight of the shabby article in my care. I wanted to shout : " Boy! If You only knew" But I kept it to myself. Selmer Maccaferri is an unusual looking instrument, distinguished by a fairly large body with squarish bouts, and either a "D"-shaped or a longitudinal oval soundhole. The strings are gathered at the tail like an archtop guitar, but the top is formed from thin spruce (like a flat-top or classical) forced into a shallow dome. It also has a wide fingerboard and slotted head like a nylon-string guitar. The loud volume and penetrating tone make it suitable for single-note soloing and it is frequently employed as a lead guitar in Gypsy Swing Archtops - The adoption of 'f -holes' instead of Round draws you back to a time when the archtop acoustic guitar began to reign supreme. The 1950’s archtops introduced a higher level of playability for Jazz Guitarists. With more projection & volume in the low/mids than the more traditional roundhole archtop acoustic guitars, the dynamically rich tone of the archtop made it a dream to play, and it really delivered when amplified. Lloyd Loar of the Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Mfg. Co introduced the Violin/Cello -inspired f-hole design now usually associated with archtop guitars, after designing a style of mandolin of the same type. The typical archtop guitar has a large, deep, hollow body whose form is much like that of a mandolin or violin family instrument. Nowadays, most archtops are equipped with magnetic pickups and are therefore both acoustic and electric. F-hole archtop guitars were immediately adopted upon their release by jazz musicians and have remained popular, usually with flatwound strings. Radio Days
Auditorium - Poste Parisien -116b Avenue des Champs Elysées
English
language commercial radio were beamed from continental stations like Radios
Paris, Post Parisien, and especially Radio Normandy. Roy Plomley
started on Radio Normandy
in April 1936 and moving on at the end of that year to the IBC's Paris-based
station, Poste Parisien. Between mid-1937 and late 1939 he was involved in
writing and production, travelling back and forth between these two IBC stations
in France and the Company's offices and studios in London, while also presenting
the variety programme Radio Normandy Calling, recorded on location in Theatres
at UK seaside resorts and regularly beating the BBC in audience ratings.
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When
the Hot Club of France was in England, (1939) I deputised for one of the
guitarists for a fortnight and so had a unique opportunity of studying Django's
playing and I also heard him broadcasting from Radio Paris on September 22nd
1942 so I, for one, did not believe the story of Reinhardt's death. Four years
later my belief was proven. In January 1946 Django Reinhardt came back to London
after an absence of seven years. It was an extremely exciting occasion for me as
I was to work with Django yet again. A series of broadcasts and concerts had
been arranged to feature the great guitarist and his partner Stephane Grappelli.
The two great French artists were to be accompanied by a British rhythm section
consisting of myself and Jack Llewellyn on guitars and Coleridge Goode
on bass. A meeting with Django was arranged to take place at Grappelli's flat in
Piccadilly and when I arrived at the rendezvous, Charles Delaunay (the Hot Club
of France authority), Grappelli and Django were in the midst of what appeared to
be an exciting and happy conversation. Unfortunately my command of the French
language is limited to "the pen of my aunt" etc. 
There was so much I wanted to say to
Django. Stephane's first words were: "Allan, this is the man!" and with the
help of Grappelli
and Delaunay, we were soon nostalgically discussing so many incidents and people
we had shared and known when the great guitarist was in this country before
(1938 & 39). Even his smile at an almost forgotten name, a half-remembered
place, brought back memories. Conversations we had had on the long train
journeys with Stephane, George Shearing, and other members of the then British
Quintet came back as Django stood facing us and I could not help recalling how
those conversations usually wound up with endless stories of Django's playing,
his personality, etc., and, of course, the endless reminiscences of Stephane and
Django in Paris before the world had heard of the Quintet of the Hot Club of
France.
At
home I found it impossible to pass the guitar without five or ten minutes of
day-dreaming with the instrument in my hands thinking of the wonderful choruses,
bridge passages, modulations and, above all, the original compositions that had
emanated from this shabby grubby amalgam of wood and wires. The thin but
firm strings had with their owner's inspiration lifted the solo jazz guitar away
from its previous limitations to ride along with the clarinet and trumpet as
never before. Django Reinhardt-the one guitarist whose playing had inspired
every guitarist in almost every country in the world. In my possession was a
dirty battered old case, minus its handle-and inside a very second hand-looking
guitar that could come to life with so much sparkle in the brilliant hands of
its owner. I can recall that my wife thought it incredible that such
quality of tone and inspiration had issued from that "old guitar" After playing
it I realised why Django had never liked the big 'cello-built' type of
orchestral guitar. I can remember a night in l938 when Danny Perri (the
Canadian guitarist) offered Django his own super-de-luxe American 'cello-guitar’
to play. With a smile and a polite shake of his head, Django refused. He acted
in the same way later with my own 'cello-built' guitar. Django once explained to
me that the big guitars could not "speak" for him! 
