Luthier Dunn lives and works in Vancouver, British Columbia and says,
"As a guitarist fascinated by the acoustic jazz of Django Reinhardt's
'Hot Club de France' quintet I developed an interest in the Maccaferri
guitar and the technology of the interior sound-box reflector. My aim
is to maximize the sound-projection abilities of the instrument, while
preserving its authentic 'Django'-tone. ...I tune an individual soundboard
and select all its adjacent components to match that tuning. Hence, no
two instruments are exactly alike. Maximum output from any given set of
parts, personally selected, assembled and tuned is what I strive for...."
We are fortunate to have in stock, for the first time ever, all three
of Dunn's Django series instruments: The Stardust, the Belleville and
The Mystery Pacific. This last model is fitted with an internal sound
box and reflector (also makes a nice shrimp dip utensil) which is combined
with a series of internal ports which would bring a smile to the face
of your pet squirrel, providing unsurpassed top-end projection. Dunn says:
"The higher up on the fingerboard a musician plays, the more the volume
increases." The peghead overlay bears the cathedral pattern of angled
Indian rosewood, below which is a wooden adjustable truss rod cover, and
behind which are 6 black chrome Sperzel tuners. Back and sides are magnificent
multi-hued Indian rosewood with the back bisected and bordered by a single
white maple purfling. Neck (as is the top) appears to be cedar with multiple
scarfings the flattened heel of which bears an unusual ebony button- like
strap pin which matches the pin at the tail block. Fingerboard is extended
and inlaid with ivoroid dots, with 16 frets to the Maccaferri cutaway
and 22 full frets with three foreshortened frets in the treble peninsula
to allow a full two octaves. Bridge is ebony with a bone insert for the
four lowest strings, having a movable (and thus intonatable) center section.
String length is 25 3/16" terminating in a tailpiece of brushed golden
chrome with the 2 1/4" rosewood Hershey Bar insert. The soundhole rosette,
with its nearly uncountable number of alternating colored rings, measures
over 7 inches edge to edge, bordering the D-shaped soundhole into which
you don't want to drop your Rolex. Although older Mystery Pacific guitars
were French Polished, Dunn is now able to produce them in a durable high-gloss
lacquer finish.
Fitted with an internal soundbox and reflector, this guitar was developed from the original 1930 patented design by Mario Maccaferri. A lead guitarist's dream, this instrument has unsurpassed top-end projection. The higher up on the fingerboard a musician plays, the more the volume increases. String Length: 640mm (25 3/16"). The two guitars above are built with Indian Rosewood with spruce tops. The model on the top has a slotted head. On the left is a close up shot of the heads. We refer to this lovingly as the "Crocodile Dunn-D" because: a) it recalls the great Maccaferri D-soundhole guitar design of l930, and b) it eats the competition for breakfast. We find it to be a serious contender for best-sounding Maccaferri interpretation discovered to date,with tremendous, machine-gun like, single note capability. An internal sound box and reflector acts as a ported resonator which emerges, as seen through the soundhole, in alternating black-white wood ribs (is this Japanese setting-sun motif the "Pacific" in the title?). It has a 27-ring (count 'em) wood rosette in the shaped soundhole, a scalloped nut, a wide, flat classical-like neck, long ebony Maccaferri style bridge, attached ebony and felt string-mute behind the bridge, ebony body binding, and ebony hand-carved strap buttons. Luthier Dunn says this is "a lead guitarists' dream, [having] unsurpassed top-end projection. The higher up on the fingerboard a musician plays, the more the volume increases." There's no mystery about it, it is one very exciting instrument.
Our Price..... $3400
Stardust
East Indian rosewood and cedar, three-piece back, slotted peghead and
gold Waverlys. Inspired by the immortal designs for Selmer of Paris by
the redoubtable (and late) Mario Maccaferri, Michael Dunn crafts the world's
most affordable authentically Hot Club-style guitars. Away up there in
Vancouver he draws his inspiration from the great '30s designs but adds
touches of his own. We are fascinated by the double X-braced three-piece
back, the borders of the middle section of which follow the curved grain
of the outside rosewood panels. Said panels are outlined with a single
thin light-wood purfling strip and the overall effect is extremely artistic.
Bindings are rosewood and set off by the same thin wood purfling and,
along the top, this is joined by an inner black purfling strip. The lemon-sucker
soundhole, not unlike the 1956 Edsel grille, is decorated with a half-inch
wide multicolored wood purfling rosette and the center portion of the
9" wide bridge is moveable for intonation's sake. The Maccaferri style
tailpiece is of engine-turned brass decorated with a beveled purple heart
block. The scale length from the scalloped nut to the bridge is 25 3/16
which, for Michael Dunn, passes for short scale. This guitar's tone is
possessed of the singular dry, penetrating and percussive Hot Club sound
of the gypsy jazzers signature instruments. It is built to modern standards
of first class materials by a consummate craftsman. .....
Our Price $3000
Django Reinhart's defunct, but fortunately inspired artisians like Michael Dunn of New Westminster (near Vancouver), British Columbia, Canade keep the torch lit and the tradition alive. This guitar will fulfill every fantasy you ever had of time-traveling back to wartime Paris and playing with the Hot Club of France, but without the high cost of either time travel or of having to purchase an original Selmer-Maccaferri guitar for, oh, twenty-five thousand dollars. Every element of this classic makes one employ both the "oooo" and the 'ahhh:" from the burled maple woodblock in the brushed-brass quick-string-change Maccaferri based tailpiece, to the simple-but-effective string dampener which contacts all six strings with three little felt pads to prevent unwanted resonances from vibrations below the bridge (tell me when you can't feel it any more), to the 9 1/4" long three-part carved rosewood bridge, to the 3 1/4" tall vertical oval soundhole, bordered by no less than twenty rings of alternating colored wood, to the 16 1/8" expanse of perfectly straight grained cedar, you may find, just from two months of ownership that you can suddenly speak French. The purfling, and the three-piece back is built of two matching pieces of milk chocolate brown and one center strip of dark Lady Godiva, mitered and bordered in light maple. The fretboard holds 21 frets, and the tuners on the solid, pointy peghead are six black brushed chrome Sperzels. The scale length, a comfortable 26 3/8", hovers like an aura over an ebony fingerboard which is 1 7/8" (bearing 8 creme ivoroid dotmarkers) and the bone nut (bless its bumpy heart) is scalloped. This remarkable instrument will actually change the way you play guitar. Our Price..... $3000
