The Selmer Guitar (often called a "Selmer-Maccaferri" or just "Maccaferri" by anglophones, as its inventor's rather than manufacturer's name was stressed in the early British advertising) is an unusual acoustic guitar best known as the favored instrument of Django Reinhardt. It was produced by Selmer from 1932 to about 1952.
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In its archetypal steel-string Jazz/Orchestre form it is quite an unusual-looking instrument, distinguished by a fairly large body with squarish bouts, and either a "D"-shaped or longitudinal oval soundhole. The strings pass over a moveable bridge and are gathered at the tail like a mandolin. The top of the guitar is gently arched or domed — achieved by bending a flat piece of wood rather than by the violin-style carving used in archtop guitars; the top is also rather thin at about 2mm. It has a comparatively wide fretboard (about 47mm at the nut) and a snake-shaped slotted headstock. The back and top are both ladder-braced, which was the norm for French and Italian steel-string guitars of the time (unlike American guitars, which frequently employed X-braced tops by this period).
Other models can be more conventional in appearance and construction, with the Modèle Classique, for example, essentially being a standard fan-braced, flat-top classical guitar.
Early models have a large, D-shaped soundhole (the "grande bouche", or "big mouth"), which was shaped specifically to accommodate an internal resonator invented by luthier Mario Maccaferri - this was designed to increase the volume of the guitar and to even out variations in volume and tone between different strings. The scale, at 640 mm, and fretting of the early guitars was very similar to other contemporary guitars (including the Gibson and Martin guitar designs from which most modern acoustic guitar patterns ultimately derive), but with a wide fretboard more typical of a classical guitar. Many of these guitars, produced during 1932 and 1933, were sold to the UK market via Selmer's London showroom (which also distributed the guitar to regional dealers) and it was during this period that the guitars became known as "Maccaferris" to Britons.
The original Maccaferri-Selmer was one of the earliest guitars with a metal-reinforced neck (or truss rod), a now ubiquitous feature in steel string guitars. It was also the first with a cutaway, still a fairly common feature.[1]
The internal resonator was a less successful innovation and was quickly dropped on Maccaferri's departure. Many of the remaining early instruments have since had the resonator removed. It was prone to buzzing and rattling and made repairs difficult. However, some modern builders of Selmer-style instruments (including Canadian luthier Michael Dunn, who uses his own design) have resurrected the feature.
Maccaferri designed the original guitars and oversaw their manufacture, but his involvement with Selmer ended after 18 months. Over the next few years, the design evolved without his input and, by 1936, the definitive[2] version of the Selmer guitar had appeared. It was officially called the "Modèle Jazz", but also known as the "Petite Bouche" (small mouth) or "Oval Hole". These later guitars have revised internal bracing and a longer scale length of 670 mm. The vast bulk of guitars produced after the Maccaferri period were sold in Selmer's native France; these later guitars are always referred to as "Selmers" (as are the earlier guitars by the French).
While Maccaferri may no longer have been around (and his cherished resonator had been abandoned), the later guitars retain many unusual characteristics of his original innovative design, including the world's first sealed oil-bath machine heads and a top that is bent, mandolin-style, behind the floating bridge - something that contributes to the guitar's remarkable volume when played.
Before the advent of amplification, the Selmer guitar had the same kind of appeal for European players that the archtop guitar did in America: it was loud enough to be heard over the other instruments in a band. The "petite bouche" model has an especially loud and cutting voice, and even today it remains the design preferred by lead players in Django-style bands, while the accompanying rhythm players often use D-hole instruments. (This was the lineup in Django's Quintette du Hot Club de France during its classic period in the late 1930s, and it remains the pattern for bands that emulate it.) Modern exponents of the style often amplify their instruments in concert, but may still play acoustically in small venues and jam sessions. Gypsy jazz players usually couple the guitar with light, silver-plated, copper-wound Argentine strings made by Savarez (or copies of these), and heavy plectrums, traditionally of tortoiseshell.
Today, the Selmer guitar is almost completely associated with Django Reinhardt and the "gypsy jazz" school of his followers. From the 1930s through to the 1950s, however, Selmers were used by all types of performer in France and (in the early days) in the UK. The first Selmers sold to the UK market were used in the standard dance band context and were associated with performers such as Len Figgis and Al Bowlly. In France, the Selmer was the top professional guitar for many years and can be heard in everything from musette to the backing of chansonniers. Leading players ranged from Henri Crolla to Sacha Distel. More recently, the style of guitar (albeit a modification developed by Favino) has been associated with Enrico Macias.
Selmer did not make large numbers of guitars (fewer than 1,000 were ever built), and the company stopped production altogether by 1952, so playable original Selmers are rare and command high prices. Before the current rise in interest in Django and his guitars, other European builders were producing instruments emulating the Selmer design such as Chris Eccleshall.
Common departures from the original designs include omission of the internal resonator, addition of a scratchplate, the use of solid (non-laminated) woods and building D-hole models with a 14th fret neck-join rather than the original 12th fret join.
Tenor, nylon-string, 7-string, f-hole and solid-body variants have also been made.
Only a few Selmers survive in playable condition, and most of them are owned or have been owned by notable musicians:
Although best-known for its steel-string D-hole and oval-hole guitars (known initially as the "Orchestre" and later the "Jazz" model), Selmer - during the Maccaferri period - also made and sold Maccaferri-designed classical guitars, harp guitars, 6- and 7-string Hawaiian guitars, tenor guitars and the "Eddie Freeman Special", a 4-string guitar with the scale-length and body-size of a standard guitar, designed to be used with a special Reentrant tuning that was briefly successful in the UK market. Most of these "other" instruments featured Macaferri's distinctive D-shaped soundhole and many contained the resonator. Production of all but the Modèle Jazz had ended by the mid-1930s.
Maccaferri moved to the US and became interested in plastic manufacturing. He produced plastic classical and steel-string guitars — of similar shape to his Selmer designs, albeit with F-holes — in the 1950s and 60s, along with many musical and non-musical plastic products. Produced first under his own name, and after 1964 under the name "Mastro", the guitars were of short scale, but accurately fretted and intonated. These instruments were not a huge success at the time and are now considered oddities.[16] However, the many variants Maccaferri's plastic ukulele enjoyed a considerable vogue in the 1950s and sold in large numbers.[17]
Maccaferri also produced 440 near-replicas of his original D-hole design in partnership with Ibanez guitars in the late 1970s and early 1980s. They were individually signed by him and are considered quite playable and collectable.