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Testimonials

From Ben Robertson, guitarist with Swingology, Windsor, Nova Scotia

I purchased a demo Manouche Modele Jazz from Manouche in 2007. I was immediately impressed with both the workmanship and the sound.

It has the look and feel of a high quality instrument, and my luthier was quite impressed with the construction when I showed it to him. Manouche has put a lot of effort into creating an accurate reproduction of the original Selmers. The craftsmanship is excellent, and it is a very handsome guitar to look at.

Of course, sound is where it’s at with gypsy guitars. The Modele Jazz is simply awesome. Very even across the strings, with that characteristic trebly snap that you expect from an oval hole Selmer style guitar, yet it also has a nice growly bass on rhythm. It projects strongly. The neck also feels comfortable and plays easily.

I must comment on the service. Although I bought this guitar used, the dealer treated it as though it was a brand new instrument. Before shipping it, he called to ask me how I wanted it set up.

All in all, this guitar blows away the competition in Asian-made gypsy guitars and more than holds its own very well with higher end luthier built guitars. I'd highy recommend Manouche guitars, an amazingly good value.

Ben Robertson

www.myspace.com/swingology

From John Sandlin, Guitarist with “Le Chat Lunatiqe,” New Mexico, US

I have a Manouche 14 fret D, and a Model Jazz as well. The 14 fret was my first Manouche. I got it about a year ago, at the time it was only one of two in the world. I assume there are more out there now. As soon as I first touched it, I loved it. The guitar is like a cannon, it is so loud and commanding that I have to hold back to not overpower quieter guitars. It’s the perfect instrument for a jam session and/or competing with louder instruments like fiddles, drums and horns. Single notes slice and rhythm rumbles. One of my favorite moments with this guitar was when John Vickers, master luthier for Manouche, was visiting Albuquerque for the New Mexico DjangoFest that I organized. We were at a jam session. He was playing my 14 and I was playing the Model Jazz he had brought from England. At one point we switched back and he exclaimed, "this is incredible, did you hear the racket I was making on this Guitar? " This guitar has major

“cojones.” The good news is, that you don't have to work as hard to be heard, [major bonus]!

One of the other aspects that I love is the range, due to the long neck and the fretboard extension you get 4 octaves plus a whole step. With a 12 fret D, I always feel like I'm gonna fall off the end of the neck, but the 14 gives you the feel of the Model Jazz neck plus a fretboard extension. To me it is the perfect compromise between the two guitars.

While John Vickers and I were swapping leads during the DjangoFest I got to really liking his Model Jazz. It has that silvery tone that is only achieved by the Petite Bouche style. The Model Jazz, like the 14 is loud, by far louder than my *xxxx xxxx. My favorite aspect about this guitar was the tone, very silvery, bright and responsive, but not brittle. It has become my workhorse guitar of choice.

I have mostly talked about volume and tone for these guitars, which is my primary concern. All other aspects, such as feel, craftsmanship, durability, and playability are all excellent.

All in all, I love these guitars and I play and recommend them proudly.

( * other brand name removed)

John Sandlin
guitarist, Le Chat Lunatique
Albuquerque, New Mexico
sandlinjohn@hotmail.com

Product: Manouche Guitars Jazz LEFTY

Submitted 12/15/2006 at 11:51pm by Wolfgang Dada Wehner
Email: paulwehner@hotmail.com

Features : 10

The Manouche Jazz is a 14 fret oval hole Gypsy jazz guitar with a solid spruce top and rosewood laminate back and sides. The dovetail joined neck has 14 frets to the body. It has an ebony gypsy 'mustache' bridge and bone nut. Like original Selmers the interior of the guitar is lightly lacquered. The neck is mahogany and body bindings are ebony and what appears to be two small maple? strips. There is a zero fret as well. It's obvious that great care was taken to replicate the original Selmer design.

Sound : 10

This thing is *loud*. Gypsy jazz is normally played with a very thick pick and this guitar just boooms. The response is very sensitive. It almost feels like if I breathe across the strings I'll get a tone. I have a National Delphi metal bodied resonator and this guitar is only slightly less responsive. In my opinion the response and output of the Model Jazz puts it closer to a resophonic rather than an acoustic guitar. The guitar uses a special type of string, silver wound on a copper core (either ball or loop end works) and it's not recommended to use regular acoustic strings.

I've never held a Park or Dupont Gypsy Jazz guitar but I have played a Cordoba Gitano O-5 and can say that the Manouche Model Jazz is *far* superior to the Gitano in fit, finish, and tone. There is no comparison. Playing the Gitano is like holding your Grandma's dentures- EEE-yew Yuck. Playing the Manouche is like being hugged by a new lover.

Action, Fit, & Finish : 9

At ordering you have your choice of bridge heights, 19mm, 21mm and 23mm. (The middle of the moustache bridge is free floating). I choose 21mm and the action is low enough for me. After a week of playing and careful observation of every detail my opinion is that fit and finish are perfect. I can see no imperfection in any details on the guitar. The soundboard comes in a warm orange shellac color. I'm told there will be a blond/natural option in the near future as well.
I'm giving this catagory a nine - only because the fingerboard isn't bound and if I gave all 10's the credibility of this review could be written off as fanboy gushing.

[Note, fingerboards are now bound]

Reliability/Durability : 10

Strap buttons are not installed. The guitar seems very well made. With normal acoustic guitar precautions and maintenance I don't see any problem with reliability or durability. The gypsy rhythm style is based on fast percussive flatpicking. There is no pickguard on this guitar so if your style of playing is similiar to Richie Havens' 'acoustic bongo' style you may want to investigate an aftermarket pickguard.
The guitar ships with a Hiscox hard shell case embossed with the Manouche Guitar letter logo. The case is quite well made in my opinion. The interior fabric is a notch above what I usually see in hard shell cases and very well padded. I was very impressed with the workmanship.

Customer Support : 10

I can't afford commissioning a custom made guitar from any of the excellent builders out there. So I'd given up the idea of ever being able to get a LEFTY gypsy jazz guitar so I was immediately excited when I discovered Manouche Guitars was bringing a left handed version to market. The company is based in England, the guitars are made in Korea, and the US dealer is manouchenorthamerica.com.

I dealt with the owner, Robert, and he provided excellent service and followed up via email and phone calls every step of the way. I ordered the guitar on a Monday and it was shipped from England to him within 4 days. He performed an excellent set-up and shipped it to me UPS. The guitar arrived in a well packed box filled with bubble wrap surrounding the case. He communicated when he had placed the order, when it left England, when it arrived at his shop, when he shipped it out, provided me a tracking number, and called me two days after it was delivered to see how I liked it. Very professional and friendly.

Overall Rating : 10

I've been playing 20 years or so. I have played a variety of acoustic and electric guitars. All the guitars I've owned have been special if only because it's been a real hunt searching for left handed instruments. If it were stolen I'd replace it no doubt about it. I love it's sound, playability, and sensitivity. It's design doesn't allow for easy comparisons to other guitars, but Bach's Prelude in G sounds superb on this- as does Minor Swing of course!

As a left handed player I'm limited to researching as much as I can on a guitar model and then ordering something and hoping that the instrument will match my expectations. The guitar is top-notch and very well made but more importantly, the dealer made sure that the whole process went smoothly. I was impressed with the way he runs his business.

Up until now if you were in the market for a gypsy jazz guitar you had two choices - inexpensive and very expensive. Manouche Guitars now brings a mid-market choice with a very well made and impressively sounding Selmer type guitar.

Here's what a well known writer and player of Gypsy Jazz had to say about us:

"In my experience, the best guitars by price range are:

Below 1K: Gitane (I think the DG-320 and DG-330 are the best of these)

Below 2K: Manouche

Below 3K: Dell Arte Hommage

Around 3.5K: Dupont MD50, ALD, and some of the more affordable Luthier built instruments.

When you get to 4K or above there are lots of choices. Park, AJL, vintage Favinos, Collins, Eimers, etc. "

M.H.

You'll have to figure out who this is. ;-)