On the occasion of its 140th anniversary, Maison SELMER looks back at the iconic instruments and legendary musicians who have marked its history. Inseparable from Django Reinhardt, the Selmer guitar is the mythical instrument par excellence. Only 885 pieces were produced before its production ceased in 1952, it remains today the only French guitar to enjoy international renown.
The history of SELMER guitars
The making of Selmer guitars
The beginnings: Selmer-Maccaferri
It all began with the meeting between the stringed-instrument maker Mario Maccaferri and the manager of the Selmer branch in London, Ben Davis, at the very beginning of the 1930s.
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At the end of his collaboration with Selmer, in 1934, he set up a reed manufacturing company and then moved to New York in 1939, where his company 'French American Reed' quickly prospered. Later on, and after a failure in the manufacture of plastic guitars, he would once again experience considerable success with his plastic ukuleles (9 million pieces sold!). |
Mario Maccaferri started out at the age of 11 as an apprentice guitar maker with the master Luigi Mozzani. A few years later, he studied classical guitar at the Music Academy of Siena (Italy). This dual training enabled him to pursue a career as a soloist in the 1920s and, of course, to develop the famous Selmer-Maccaferri guitar with Selmer in the early 1930s.
Mario Maccaferri believed that the vibrations of the guitar body were muffled by contact with the musician's body. Wanting to ensure a better sound output from the instrument, he suggested inserting a second sound box into the main body of the guitar, so that it could vibrate freely.
In Paris, Henri Selmer was won over by the project and gave the guitar maker carte blanche to set up a workshop within the Mantes-la-Ville factory. That was at the end of 1931. Two types of guitars were then manufactured: with gut strings and with metal strings to meet the growing demand for instruments suitable for jazz.
The first Selmer-Maccaferri model with metal strings will be named the Orchestra model, then nicknamed the Jazz model. For this instrument, Maccaferri drew a parallel with the construction of the mandolin, which also has metal strings. The mandolin's soundboard is folded at the bridge, which is not glued but rests on the soundboard. This folding gives the soundboard a tension that seems to optimize its resonance. Maccaferri adapted this construction principle for the Orchestra model, on which the soundboard is therefore folded at the bridge and curved on the bars. It has a bracing made up of 4 small vertical bars and 4 main horizontal bars.
In 1932, Selmer-Maccaferri guitars left for London. They were then distributed exclusively in England, certainly due to an agreement with Ben Davis. The Jazz model was the most produced at that time; it met with some success in England, then in France, when Django Reinhardt discovered it a few years later.
After Maccaferri
The collaboration between Selmer and Maccaferri was in fact short-lived: the contract was terminated by Henri Selmer in January 1933.
The agreement was as follows: Selmer would continue to manufacture guitars, but without the resonator patented by Mario Maccaferri. In fact, the resonator was already criticized and many musicians removed it from their guitars in an attempt to optimize the sound volume.
This change resulted in the transition from the large mouth to the small mouth in the Selmer workshops. The large mouth, which had been designed in the shape of the resonator to allow the sound to come out of the guitar body, became superfluous with its disappearance. At the same time, the neck was lengthened, going from 12 to 14 frets to increase the ambitus.
The first guitars to adopt this configuration – 14-fret neck and small oval mouth – appeared around number 400. The body retains its original shape with its typical cutaway, but the extension of the ambitus modifies the position of the bridge and requires the addition of an extra bar between the bridge and the tailpiece.
From the mid-1930s, sales were essentially national, with a large majority of guitars sold in France . Only a few guitars were exported to Montreux, Brussels or Stockholm. Moreover, production focused almost exclusively on the Jazz model with a 14-fret neck and small oval soundhole.
The timbre, power and precision of this instrument met the requirements of Django Reinhardt, who played in clubs at a time when amplification was almost non-existent. It was this guitar model that he adopted definitively and helped to make world famous.
Given Django's success and the growing demand from musicians, especially after the discontinuation of SELMER guitars in 1952, many guitar makers began to produce “Selmer-type” guitars.
The 503 guitar
While this guitar is closely linked to Django Reinhardt and bears the traces of his playing, it also bears witness to the early days of the electrification of musical instruments in France in the aftermath of the Second World War. When it left the SELMER workshops in 1940, it was a purely acoustic guitar, but today it shows traces of holes that were used to attach magnetic microphones. This is confirmed by a number of photos, including the series of photos taken at Django's home by Hervé Derrien in the early 1950s. |
This is THE Django guitar, the one he adopted and used until his death in 1953. Donated to the
Django Reinhardt, the genius inventor
From musette to jazz
Born in 1910 in Liberchies (Belgium) into a community of travellers, Django Reinhardt spent his childhood crisscrossing Europe and North Africa before settling with his family in Paris.
He made his debut playing musette waltzes in the working-class districts of Paris, mainly accompanying accordionists. An outstanding musician, he quickly came to the attention of the public and recorded his first album in 1928.
That same year, a fire broke out in Django's trailer, seriously injuring his right leg and left hand. He lost the use of two fingers and spent 18 months in hospital. His brother then gave him a new guitar as a rehabilitation tool, and Django relearned to play by developing a new technique and exceptional virtuosity. At the end of his convalescence, he discovered jazz through Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. It was a revelation for Django, who decided to devote his life to this new genre of music.
In 1934, he founded the Quintette du Hot Club de France with violinist Stéphane Grappelli. They proposed a new style of music, only on string instruments, mixing the gypsy heritage and the jazz of the time. Django gradually gained worldwide renown for his dexterity, his talent for improvisation and his musical prowess. Minor Swing, recorded in 1937, is nowadays one of the main standards of gypsy jazz.
When the war broke out, the quintet was on tour in England. Django Reinhardt returned to Paris, while Stéphane Grappelli preferred to stay in London. Django then put together a new quintet, replacing one of the guitars with a drum kit and Grappelli's violin with a clarinet. The group was a great success, and the album Nuages (Clouds) sold several thousand copies.
At the end of the war, he was able to realize one of his great dreams, which was to go on tour in the United States at the invitation of Duke Ellington. There, he discovered the amplification , but also the emerging bebop. These two revelations were to greatly influence his music in the last years of his life, and he was one of the first French people to integrate bebop elements into his compositions.
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We can mention the great Henri Crolla who, alongside his career as a jazzman, accompanied Henri Salvador, Mouloudji, Yves Montand, Brigitte Bardot… René Didi Duprat took over for Yves Montand, and toured with other stars of the chanson: Aznavour, Juliette Greco and even Marlène Dietrich. |
Although the Selmer guitar is inseparable from Django and gypsy jazz, it should be noted that prior to amplification in the 1960s, it was used in many groups playing different musical styles.
In Django's footsteps
By mixing gypsy music, jazz and musette, Django Reinhardt invented a style that did not exist before him and which is today called gypsy jazz, gypsy swing or gypsy jazz.
After his death in 1953, those who knew him continued to play and keep his music alive. At first, they were mainly musicians from gypsy communities: his brother Joseph, his son Babik, but also the Ferret brothers, then later musicians like Angelo Debarre, Stochelo Rosenberg and Romane.
At the same time, fascination with Django Reinhardt spread throughout the world and the Hot Club Quintets were born in San Francisco, the United Kingdom, Norway, Japan, etc.
After a relatively confidential diffusion in the 1960s and 1970s, the craze for Django's music returned at the end of the 1980s, with musicians such as Raphaël Faÿs, Dorado and Tchavolo Schmitt. It then experienced a real boom in the early 2000s in France and internationally, driven in particular by the great Bireli Lagrene. Many variety artists such as Sanseverino or Thomas Dutronc then integrated gypsy jazz into their compositions.
Considered one of the greatest guitarists of the 20th century, Django Reinhardt is also one of the few Europeans to have left their mark on the history of jazz. Many groups and music festivals continue to spring up all over the world to pay tribute to him.
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► Historical Selmer instruments
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All Selmer-Maccaferri and Selmer model guitars are presented with their manufacturing specifications and technical features. They are accompanied by numerous photos of current and period artists, catalogs, advertisements... |
After writing several articles on the history of Selmer-Maccaferri guitars in the international specialist press, François Charle has published a book which retraces for the first time the history of these guitars from their creation to the interruption of their production and the myth which they represent today.
