Instruments

A violin & guitars ca.1720-1950

The musical instruments assembled here were picked up over many years. The Balestrieri (possibly) violin came first, then the Gibson, followed by about a dozen guitars all designed for the musical genre most popularised but not originated by Django Reinhardt, Gypsy Jazz. My interest in gypsy music followed on a book I wrote as a student “Walking Good: Travels to Music in Romania and Hungary”  (Weidenfeldt & Nicolson, 1970), and a BBC radio programme, “Music from Romania” made around the same time. If you are interested in knowing more please write to me, there is an enquiry form below.

Bernabé Busato 1943​

1943 Bernabé Busato before and after restoration by Martin Tremblay, Montreal.

Restoration

Sonora, 1930s

Sonora guitars were made in the Busato workshop for a music shop in Paris. These were economy models, using cheaper woods, cheaper tuners, but sometimes Bernabé Busato himself would step in and take on an instrument.

Restoration

Siro Burgassi 1939

Siro Burgassi and Gino Papiri made less than a dozen guitars from around the early 1930s to wartime. One of them worked in Busato’s atelier and married Busato’s daughter. The woods on these instruments are sometimes rudimentary, sometimes spectacular, as wiith this instrument. The sound is terrific, again rounder than a regular Busato but with distinct Busato touches. All original features are here, including the faux tortoise-shell scratch plate. Original Delaruelle tuners. Completely restored, like almost all the instruments here, by Martin Tremblay of Montreal, who is playing on most of the demos here.

Restoration

Busato “Jazz” archtop, early 1950s

The bejeweled fingerboards between the plates flagged this as one of Busato’s experimental “Jazz” models. Throughout his career, Busato was partial to certain tones of red and green decoration on frets, machine heads and starfish patterns on scratch plates, and you can see these in the Sonora and with the rhinestone inlays on this instrument. Martin Tremblay did a lot of work on this instrument. This was a Bernabé Busato after all, spotted by sheer luck in poor light outside a supermarket in northern France, but a Busato nevertheless, with all its original tuners, a body that had certainly been round the block and the promise of a sunburst if you looked hard enough. Martin unglued the entire fretboard, nivelled the neck, and reglued the neck and the six decorated inlays.  Busato glued his necks flush to the soundboard with a simple butt joint and a generous splash of glue straight from the pot, not a hint of a dovetail. Martin stripped the old finish, refilled, repaired and veneered all cracks and kinks, renewed the finish and the sunburst and refretted the entire board with bevelled ends. He put in a new bone saddle, polished up the cordier, scratch plate and tuners like new, and replaced the original knobs on the tuners with repros, just to épater les bourgeois, of whom there are far too many in the gypsy jazz world, for these are works of art that function, not museum pieces. Too bad the finish spotted up again.

Restoration
Tommaso Balestrieri
(1735-ca.1790s)

Label reads:
Balestrieri Cremonensis fecit Mantua 17-

It was definitely a Balestrieri, according to my grandfather, who could really play it it, and whose family of armament manufacturers could certainly afford the real thing. You can see the Hill’s patch from repairs done in the 1940s. Hill’s bow. Big “SS” mark near the violin’s end peg. You can hear it on Good Time Girl / Main Line Lady by Angelo, (UK Records 1973), amplified from a Barcus Berry held in place by Blu Tack. Anyone in doubt about life after death should check Balestrieri’s grave for signs of nocturnal displacement [(c) Damon Runyon]. Except that it might be a Vuillaume. On BBC 1, in his Friday Roundtable show on BBC Radio 1, Emperor Rosko described Angelo’s debut as a “a nothing record” and took a hammer to it after only one play. In the photo gallery below is a photo of the original 45 rpm moments before the Emperor’s heartless verdict. Featuring John Gilston on drums (RIP), John Schofield on bass, and me on the Balestrieri, known to fans of the Innerleithen Sound as Clement Weather and the Wiggers. In the gallery there is a pic of grandpa Steiner’s Slovakian chin-rest.

Fecit Mantua Tomaso Balestrieri  1726
The Michael Dunn Ultrafox

The Michael Dunn Ultrafox

The luthier Michael Dunn of Vancouver made this guitar for me in I think 1996. Because it’s so dark and has a face in the grain of the main wood, African Blackwood, with a cocobolo insert, we called it the Darth Vader. Here you can see the unpolished and the polished instrument, and the ‘face’ on the back. This Ultrafox has a grilled sound port, a radius fretboard and 1950s chrome SB tuners and tailpiece. This was Michael’s 562nd guitar and he didn’t make many more before he retired. Even though it’s now 25 years or so old, this instrument still doesn’t feel completely played in, but when it does pick up it has a rich bubbly tone, and it is very loud. Some of his fellow luthiers seem embarrassed or even appalled by Michael Dunn’s ‘art’ guitars, many of which have a theme, such as ‘Oil Slick’ or ‘Art Deco’ or ‘Double Whiskey’, but I enjoy the look of his instruments and the sheer enjoyment he seems to have taken in their construction, knowing that underneath all that marquetry and design there is always a terrific music machine. One difficulty Michael took on as a luthier was to develop the great contribution of the luthier and guitarist Mario Maccaferri (1900-1993) to guitar design, the interior resonator, working after much trial and error from the guitars Macaferri made with Henri Selmer, whose resonators on the D-hole model often fell off or were removed. You can see the cocobolo resonator on this model in one of the photos here. This Michael Dunn Ultrafox has a long 670mm scale, a 14 fret neck, and a roomy 16 1/2” body. Michael is also a terrific musician. He has mentored many of Canadas greatest luthiers, including Shelley Park, and taught gypsy jazz guitar technique at a university music programme.

The Michael Dunn Ultrafox
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