History buffs, can you help with these photos?

Buco · 9:57AM

Last night during the gig (at Bistrot Lepic) a couple was sitting right next to the band. When we started talking during the break, the guy told us that his dad was a guitar player in Paris, during Django's time. The guy we met is Dennis, his dad's name was Arthur Kahn (I didn't even try searching the name prior to posting this...). He sent me two pictures with his dad, see below. He said he never found any info about any of the other people in the photo, and he would like to. Maybe someone here would recognize them? They look like pro musicians based on how they're dressed and how they sort of carry themselves in the photo, but maybe that was a standard for every musician back in that time.

He has a 30s Selmer left to him by his dad and said he'd bring it to one of our future gigs. He thinks the guitar in the photo is a Selmer. But did they make any guitars with no cutout? The talipiece matches the look. His dad is on the left. And look at the guitarist on the right, is he playing a left handed guitar strung up for a righty? That must be a Selmer though, no.

jazzz · 10:48AM

Great photo, thanks for sharing.

Yes there's other non-cutaway 14 frets to-the-body Selmers out there.

Buco · 10:52AM

https://djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/comment/126172#Comment_126172

Yes, please see if you can find the video. Could me Mr Kahn. Dennis thinks it's likely that his dad played with Django but doesn't know for sure. For sure, his dad was telling him that he played with the musicians that ended up with Django in the Hot Club. He also watched his dad sit in with Joe Pass in the concert. So he must've been good player himself.

jazzz · 11:03AM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMxxIAZcB_c

billyshakes · 11:13AM

Cool photos and story, Buco. I knew of 2 regular non-cutaway models that Selmer produced. One was the Hawaienne and the other was the Espagnole. The former was a D-hole and 7-strings. The Espagnole was a classical guitar with a fixed bridge. This appears to be neither. I agree with @jazzz, you can see it is a 14-fret petite bouche in the top photo. Hard to see much detail on the headstock but it almost appears to be a solid, not slotted headstock? But that could just be the low resolution of the photo. At that time, I'm not sure who else was making this petite bouche style guitar.

The bottom photo might be a completely different guitar? That U-shaped cut in the top of the headstock is not really anything I've seen. I've tried to get access to the French forum in the past but no luck. You could post it there if you do? Someone might recognize the violinist (assuming band leader) or perhaps the club?

billyshakes · 11:19AM

Just saw @jazzz update his posts showing the non-cutaway round hole in the airport photo and the Loulou Gaste video. Still not the model here in the top photo though, since those have a straigh cut fretboard above the soundhole, rather than the sympathetic arch to the petite bouche. I don't have the Charle book, so don't know what else is out there. But I know that there are some "transition" models from when Maccaferri left using "bitsa" this and "bitsa" that. Could be the case here?

jazzz · 11:25AM

Correct I incorrectly remembered Loulou Gaste's guitar being a petite bouche. Buco's find is like Selmer 494. See below.

billyshakes · 11:37AM

I forgot to mention the left handed D-hole Selmac, strung as a righty. Anyone know how many leftys were made? Seems crazy that someone that could use the standard righty model, chose the rarer lefty and flipped it with the cutaway up. Gotta be a rhythm player.

Another thing I noted is that the rest of the band has similar white coats, dark shirts, and that regimental stripe necktie. Whereas, the violinist has a dark jacket and bow tie and Arthur has a white jacket, white shirt, and bow tie. Not sure if there is any significance to those differences.