Custom Electric/Acoustic Guitar

In late August, I was corresponding with my friend Troy Chapman, talking about music, guitars and life in general. Very innocently, he started spitballing about a mythic guitar he had been thinking about:

"A guitar made only to be plugged in. Selmer body size. No Oval hole on top. Just a sound port. Electric pick up. Thinner body (just thick enough for the sound port). Maple back and sides. Flame maple top. Short Scale?"

I was excited about the idea of building a guitar which was essentially the same as what I normally do, but with a number of significant modifications. I began to assault Troy with e-mails regarding the specs for this guitar, and suddenly, I was routing pickup cavities and ordering electric guitar hardware. Before he knew what was happening, I had started drawing up plans and selecting materials.

Over the course of the next few months, I worked on this custom instrument when time allowed with plenty of input from Troy.

I finally put strings on the guitar last week and sent it to Whidbey Island. It is a handsome instrument and that sounds great. I am excited for the rest of the world to see and hear it.

I asked Troy to contribute a few thoughts on the process and the end product. Here is what he wrote:

"How did we get here? Let’s see…

I started with the idea “what would be an ideal instrument for players like me?” Players who have come to gypsy jazz from the straight ahead jazz world or players migrating the opposite direction. I would play some gigs with a Park Montmartre and others with a jazz archtop, but never with both. The different guitars are too far apart in texture and tone. For decades the work around has been to attach a pickup, usually a Stimer, to the top of the guitar and plug into an amp. While this gives an “authentic Django sound” it doesn’t take into consideration that it’s the “Django sound” because he had very few, if any, other choices. Django didn’t chose that sound among all others, he just needed more volume and that was the only option available. There were no humbucking pickups in 1950’s France and very few guitar amps. Django also loved the tone and feel of his Selmer and refused to give it up for a different type of guitar.

I feel the same way.

So instead of doing things the way they were done in 1952 simply because “that’s how it was done in 1952,” Shelley and I began conversations about re-designing a Selmer for 2008. It was an instrument designed to be played through an amp in clubs and for concerts. We wanted an instrument that retained all the qualities of a Selmer guitar – arched top, laddered bracing, floating bridge with moustaches, slotted headstock, tailpiece, scale length, and other details- yet the guitar would be an Electric Jazz Guitar.

Inspiration came from a few different quarters. One inspiration was Steven Andersen’s Little Archie, a small body archtop designed for regular gigging. We also looked at a D’Aquisto Centura CRE, a carved spruce top electric about the size of a Les Paul. And, most importantly, we looked at Shelley’s past work including her use of sound ports.

What we ended up with is a guitar that I think epitomizes the needs and desires of a modern gypsy jazz guitarist. It sounds just as good playing “Naima” through a tube amp with a horn quintet as it does playing “Swing Gitane” through an acoustic guitar amp with a gypsy jazz trio."

Here are the specs for the new guitar: