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PAUL VERNON CHESTER

Manouche Maestro

Gibson L5

Django's Gibson ES-300 Archtop

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

Picture from The Cafe Society Engagement                                        

Due to the efforts of Duke Ellington in October 1946, Django made his first and only appearance in the USA, (Oct. 1946-Jan. 1947). Ellington, who first met Reinhardt in 1939, was anxious to have Django return to the States with him then, but the outbreak of war prevented this. It wasn't until seven years later that the fabulous gypsy arrived in NYC. and performed a series of concerts as a guest soloist with the Ellington Orchestra.
Django with what proves to be the Gibson ES-300 and not  a Gibson L5  as shown opposite.  This would eliminate the the Epiphone Story associated with Joe Sinacore a fellow guitarist

Not having brought his trusty Selmer guitar from Europe, Django was obliged to use the Gibson amplified guitar reputedly supplied by Duke's Promoter The William Morris Agency. Recordings made during a concert in Chicago reveal Django to be quite at home with the instrument, even utilising the sustaining power which the amplified guitar possesses.

For recordings and appearances from 1947 through 1950, Django performed intermittently on the amplified guitar, opting at times to use his acoustic instrument. It wasn't until 1951 that he played an amplified instrument (the Selmer with a Stimer pickup), using this louder voice to express his "new" ideas and repertoire in the 1950s world of modern-jazz and small instrumental combos.

Django 'n Duke Live - Honeysuckle Rose With Django on his Amplified guitar showing that he was still developing his technique in this format but giving new direction to both his rhythm and soloing delivery.  Predicting in his recording the future sounds that could be expected from amplified jazz guitar.  It may have been the Gibson E-150 or Epiphone Electar Amplifiers but was it the Gibson ES300 not the Epiphone Zephyr Guitar

Big Band Acoustic - Place de Brouckere

Charlie Christian used a Gibson ES-150 guitar plugged in to a Gibson EH-150 amplifier to create history. It’s a humble rig by the standards of of today;  but then today’s electric guitarists have Gibson and Christian to thank for proving what this instrument, and a great player, could do.

According to interviews in Peter Broadbent's Charlie Christian: The Seminal Electric Guitarist, Minton's manager, Teddy Hill, bought an EH-150 and a bar-pickup equipped ES-150 guitar (similar to the one from Christian's early Goodman days) to keep at the club for his use (more on this later). Check out Charlie Christian - Live Sessions At Minton's Playhouse on the Jazz Anthology label to hear why his playing and the sound of the ES-150 through an EH-150 amp continue to thrill and inspire listeners and players the world over, as they have since 1939. And while his playing surely could have transcended his equipment, the fact he used an EH-150 for a good portion of his career guarantees the model a place in the Vintage Guitar Amplifier Hall Of Fame.
Christian died of TB in 1942 aged 25.

Listen to any of these famous 'Rome Sessions' or the 1950 recording with Andre Ekyan - Reinhardt makes both Grappelli and saxophonist Andre Ekyan sound dated. By this time Django was going exclusively for an electric sound. Ironically it was during this period that he fitted an electric bar pickup to his Maccaferri, and was able to produce a cleaner more archtop type sound. Indeed he once referred to the electric guitars in America as "tinpots". But he wanted the electric/archtop voice power and obviously went out of his way to find it.

Recognise this Levin Guitar which belonged to Fred Guy in Django's hands - Looks like the jacket and tie he wore in Oct 46 at the Aquarium NYC when posing for William P Gottlieb and the scratch plate looks identical.  Duke did use a rhythm guitarist his long standing and former banjo player Fred Guy who later switched to the Gibson L5 and L7 and Acoustic Stromberg. The distinctive Headstock Name obscured by string ends is Levin and is artistically Inlaid.

Django played Selmer guitars throughout most of his recording career. Although he used very light silk-and-steel strings (probably .010 to .046), the thin, slightly arched tops on these guitars made them surprisingly loud and responsive. In the earliest days of the Quintet, Reinhardt played a 12-fret Modèle Jazz with a large D-shaped sound hole, sometimes called a grande bouche or big mouth. In 1934 Selmer redesigned the guitar, lengthening the neck to 14 frets, changing the sound hole to a smaller oval, and making some interior modifications. This is the style of guitar that Reinhardt made famous, and in 1939 Selmer renamed the Modèle Jazz the Modèle Django Reinhardt. In 1940 he took delivery of a guitar with the serial number 503. This is the guitar he was to play until his death in 1953. This guitar was post death in the Musée Instrumental de Paris. Selmer stopped making these guitars in 1952.
Many of the other guitarists, past and present, who play in this style have followed Reinhardt's example in their choice of instruments. Matelo, Sarane, and Baro Ferret played Selmers in the '30s and '40s. After Selmer stopped making guitars, a number of luthiers stepped in to fill the demand. Of these builders the most famous is Jacques Favino. In later years Matelo played one of his guitars, and today Favinos are almost as sought after as the original Selmers. Jacques Favino retired a number of years ago. Stochelo Rosenberg and Boulou and Elios Ferré all play Favinos, although Boulou also sometimes records with a Selmer.

Babik Reinhardt almost always plays an electric archtop, favouring a Gibson ES-175 cutaway but when he plays acoustically, he plays an Ovation Adamas.

Bireli Lagrene plays an electric archtop or sometimes a Fender Stratocaster. When he plays acoustically, he currently uses a guitar by a young luthier from Cognac named Maurice Dupont. Dupont's guitars (available in the U.S. through Paul Hostetter, 2550 Smith Grade, Santa Cruz, CA 95060) are regarded by many players of jazz Manouche to be the most accurate replicas of the old Selmers.
John Jorgenson recorded his album After You've Gone using a 1941 Selmer. He currently plays a custom-made Dupont with a large D soundhole and a 14-fret neck. Paul Mehling of the Hot Club of San Francisco also plays a Dupont and has the distinction of being the first American to order one. --Michael Simmons

This association would suggest that Django Toured not with the Epiphone Zephyr nor the earlier Gibson L5 but with a Gibson ES-300 as the bindings, twin block parallelogram inlays and Tailpiece are common in this picture taken at the Pla Mor Ballroom in Lincoln.  Note the small amplifier or pre-amp that the jack lead runs to and the open carrying case just in shot - was this device added to a large amplifier to raise Django's sound to compete with the orchestral volume - - ideas anyone??. See the large white box amp in the Syracuse concert photo.

http://reviews.harmony-central.com/reviews/Guitar+Amp/product/Gibson/BR+1+112+Combo/10/1

Electric Guitar in hand for Paul Whiteman - the ES-300 present for the pose as he has no pick. The distinctive trapeze tailpiece on this Electric Archtop. Significantly - no Pick Guard and split parallelogram block inlays.  taken at the Cafe Society Uptown

It now seems clear that Django never toured the USA with an Epihone Zephyr it is more likely that the William Morris Agency accepted the 'No Guitar' problem and approached Gibson for a suitable instrument and a hybrid amplification system to enable Django to be heard alongside the Duke Ellington Orchestral Volume and in Large Auditoriums.

The Solution included -

  • Gibson ES300 Archtop without Pick-guard

  • A Large White Speaker Cabinet

  • A Hybrid Amplifier with a separate pre-amp or voltage regulator which was housed in a striped travelling case which was always present on stage

 

 

The Quest for Volume

The quest for volume started in the 1890s when, influenced by the popularity of mandolin orchestras, guitarists began to replace their gut strings with wire.
The trapeze tailpiece was invented at the same time, to help the guitar's top support the increased tension created by steel strings.
Around the time of World War I, some makers began increasing the size of their guitars; witness Martin's first "dreadnoughts." In the 1920s, the Dopyera brothers' metal-bodied National resonator guitars presented the next solution to the volume dilemma.
While electric guitars first appeared following the invention of electronic recording in 1924 (Stromberg-Voisinet's Electro of 1928 is the first documented, if unsuccessful, electric), the next step in the evolution of the march toward volume was the predominance of the archtop guitar in the 1930s.

Paced by companies such as Gibson and Epiphone and individual luthiers such as New York's John D'Angelico and Boston's Elmer Stromberg, everyone touted their high-volume archtop guitars, including Stromberg-Voisinet, which had become the Kay Musical Instrument Company by the early '30s, and was heavily promoting guitars such as this swell Kay Violin-Style archtop guitar from 1938.

The guitar was a good candidate for amplification due to its acoustic properties and for its potential as a polyphonic solo instrument. The need for an amplified guitar became apparent during the big band era, as orchestras increased in size: particularly when guitars had to compete with large brass sections. The first electric guitars used in jazz were hollow archtop acoustic guitar bodies with electromagnetic transducers. By 1932 an electrically amplified guitar was commercially available.  A common mistake people make is thinking Gibson's ES-150 was the first electric guitar, but ES-150 was the name of the pickup, not the guitar.  Alvino Rey was an artist who took this instrument to a wide audience in a large orchestral setting and later developed the pedal steel guitar for Gibson. An early proponent of the electric Spanish guitar was jazz guitarist George Barnes who used the instrument in two songs recorded in Chicago on March 1, 1938, Sweetheart Land and It's a Low-Down Dirty Shame. Some incorrectly attribute the first recording to Eddie Durham, but his recording with the Kansas City Five was 15 days later. Durham introduced the instrument to a young Charlie Christian, who made the instrument famous in his brief life and would be a major influence on jazz guitarists for decades thereafter.

 

Gibson ES-300

Electric Guitar Django that poses with for Paul Whiteman - but with a cigarette and  no pick.

It appears to be a post-war Gibson ES-300 with original Kluson "f-hole" tailpiece.

Bound peghead with open-back tuners; dark Brazilian rosewood board with double-parallelogram inlays within frets;1 piece mahogany neck; single original P-90 pickup;

Nicely flamed maple back and birds-eye sides; original rosewood adjustable bridge and base;

Tall gold barrel knobs w/o numerals; and the unusual clef slotted nickel Kluson tailpiece replacing the normal Trapeze..

In late 1945 Gibson introduced the ES-300 with a straight P-90 pickup at the neck position , with bevelled edged pick-guard not present on Django's ES300.

 

 

 

 

A brief history of the origin and development of the Archtop guitar from 1897 to 1949
1897 Around this time Orville Gibson had produced the first Archtop guitar in America with an oval sound hole.
1919 Lloyd Loar joined Gibson and began designing their new guitars.
1923 Gibson released the first f-hole Archtop guitar designed by Lloyd Loar. The Gibson L-5.
1932 John D’Angelico sets up shop at 40 Kenmare Street in New York City and made some of the finest Archtop guitar to date.
1936 Gibson released its first commercially built electric guitar the ES-150 which was played by Charlie Christian.
1949 Gibson releases the ES-175 which sold for $175- This guitar had a laminated top instead of the solid carved top and was designed more as an electric guitar than as an acoustic.

Gibson ES-300 ( 1940-1953 )
The Gibson ES-300 guitar was introduced in mid 1940 as a new upgrade for their electric guitars . The guitar shared much of its features of its predecessor ( ES-250 ) and also had similar style hardware & features of the Gibson L-5 & the L-12 . What made the Gibson ES-300 different from other pre war guitars was the electronics and look of its new style pickups . Gibson made 3 versions of basically the same model with 3 different pickup variations ,

the "ES" refers to 'Electric Spanish' and is still used as the common Gibson classification today. 'Spanish' refers to the upright placement of the instrument on your knee: the way guitars are played today.

1946 ES-300 specs:
P-90 pickup in neck position, laminated bevelled-edge pickguard, bound peghead and fingerboard.
 

The same Sunburst Gibson ES-300 Guitar and a Django Painting and Django's personal wallet copy

The photograph of Django in the hotel room was taken in New York in 1946 probably when Django was playing at Cafe Society Uptown. The woman is the gypsy singer Sonia Dimitrivitch (I have seen several spellings of her surname). Attached a nice quality scan and a copy of the actual photo that Django carried in his wallet. It was found there after he died and given to Alain Antonietto. - Since Django was in new York during January, 1947, it is possible this photo was actually taken in 1947 rather than 1946. From memory, there are three other photos taken at the same time. The official version is that Sonia was modelling for one of Django's paintings (on bed) but the Americans took a very dim view of Django having women in his hotel room.  Roger S Baxter

Danny Cedrone’s solo on Bill Haley and the Comets’ 1955 hit “Rock Around the Clock” is a jaw-dropper. Cedrone—a Philadelphia session guitarist who used a 1946 Gibson ES-300 and a 1x12 Gibson BR-1 combo for the legendary track—opens with a furiously picked line, then suddenly works in some tangy half-step bends and slick, jazzy phrases, and caps it off with an insanely fast chromatic flurry that encompasses all six strings. Cedrone was paid $21 for the solo, and a little over two months later, died after falling down a staircase. He never knew the impact this solo had on the world.

Selmer Maccaferri Versus The Gibson Archtop

Django certainly took a certain risk laying aside his treasured acoustic guitar for the heavier archtops. But his greatness as an artist can be witnessed in the fact that he did not just play electric as he would acoustic but adapted his playing style to electric amplification. Stretched notes and lightning runs in tempo and volume as well as an exploration of the pause and the contrasts of sweet and low on the one hand and the attack and harshness of the loud electric sound on the other. 

But by end of the 1953 electric sessions, Django was largely forgotten or more or less ignored as a musician. When he had a booking or two, three weeks at the Ringside, the future Blue note, he didn’t draw much of a crowd. Some fellow musicians had even the audacity to say that Django was past it, if not finished. It was Eddie Barclay who convinced him to return to Paris to record. In a bust of pride, Django accepted and plugged in the electric guitar with some top notch friend musicians accompanying him. He turned into an unparalleled soloist playing definitive versions of “Nuages”, “Manoir de mes rêves” and “Brazil” among many others.

Nevertheless, from the sleeve notes of the “Peche à la Mouche” album, Pierre Michelot writes of the reception of this album: “Django intended to give his own answer to everyone who thought he was over the hill. He was bringing everyone up to date, but nobody could be bothered to look up at the calendar year.”

When Django turned electric and was ignored by the audience, somebody should have had the guts to say one word back to the former era loving crowds and fans: Judas! 

Django in Nice with a Gibson and an Epiphone Electar Amplifier with Challain Ferret

 

 

 

 
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Last modified: 25/08/2010