J'attendrai - The Night Owls

Hi UU,

Haven't posted much here but I would like to share a film I made last week with my band The Night Owls.



Hope you enjoy it...

There maybe one or two people here who know me and notice the new line up of the band. Last year my best friend Jim, who started the group with me and played ukulele, lost his battle with cancer, he features in all the other Night Owls videos on You Tube. Jim was the best musician I ever played with, I still miss him every day.

best
Nipper

BRILLIANT! This has always been my favorite Hot Club of Paris tune, and I love how you pay tribute to that old film of the band playing cards while Django and Stephane noodle. I hope you don't mind if I post the original video below, so everyone understands just how clever your is. Beautifully played and wonderfully entertaining!

Thanks Rich... You are the first to notice our homage to Django. I find a lot of inspiration in those old Hot Club recordings, they were one of the greatest bands and Django was a genius.

That was fun to look at and listen to, guys.

Nipper said:

Thanks Rich... You are the first to notice our homage to Django. I find a lot of inspiration in those old Hot Club recordings, they were one of the greatest bands and Django was a genius.

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Django is one of musical heros, a genuine genius. You guys did him proud.

RichM said:

Django is one of musical heros, a genuine genius. You guys did him proud.

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Thanks Rich.

Rich I notice you have a Maccaferri style tenor... I have been thinking about having a baritone made, how close to the original design is yours? Does it have a grande or petite bouche? Do you have a floating bridge with tailpiece? Does this design sound good as a uke?

Sorry for lots of questions... I have been thinking a lot about this.

Nipper said:

Thanks Rich.

Rich I notice you have a Maccaferri style tenor... I have been thinking about having a baritone made, how close to the original design is yours? Does it have a grande or petite bouche? Do you have a floating bridge with tailpiece? Does this design sound good as a uke?

Sorry for lots of questions... I have been thinking a lot about this.

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Sorry for lots of questions? Man I live to talk about this stuff. I've had several guitars in the Selmer and Maccaferri style (Dell Arte, Bernie Lehmann, Michael Dunn), as well as the late David Hodson's Djangolin (mandolin in the Selmer style). I even had an ongoing conversation with the late great John Pearse about purchasing his original Maccaferri Grand Bouche with the internal resonator still intact (a tremendous bargain for such a historic instrument, but still a check I couldn't write). I have a pretty good appreciation for what makes these guitars unique.

I actually have TWO tenor ukes in the Maccaferri style. They are both excellent ukes, but very, very different. The first is by Michael Dunn:



You can see that this one takes several visual liberties with the style, but is fairly true to the overall contstruction, with a Selmer-style tailpiece and floating bridge. The body is somewhat oversized, both wide and deep, making it a fairly large box for a ukulele. The Dunn has more of that dry, forceful Selmer tone. A uke is never going to have the same tone as a guitar, but I think this one comes closer to what I imagine a Selmer uke sound would be than anything else I've played. And since it's Michael Dunn, it is exquisitely constructed.

The second is by Luis Feu de Mesquita:



As you can probably see, the de Mesquita is more "inspired by" the Maccaferri design than it is a direct copy. The tailpiece and floating bridge is replaced by a fixed bridge (probably more sensible in the long run), but a lot of the visual touches are dead-on. This is a much more modern-sounding uke, with a very big and full voice.

Shelley Park is also currently building Maccaferri-style ukes; I've never tried one, but Shelley is well-known as one of the top Selmer-style luthiers, so I'm intrigued. I have never seen a baritone uke built that way, but given the similarities of the baritone uke to the guitar, I think it would fit quite well.

Hope that helps!

that was very enjoyable!

Just fabulous! Love your style.

Thanks Rich,

Great information. I have seen a Shelley Park guitar and they are wonderful. I really like the Dunn, it is closer to the original and that is what I want. I shall be giving this more thought and saving some pennies over the next year.

It is not just Django that inspires this, Al Bowlly played a Grande Bouche Maccaferri and he is another hero of mine.


Thanks Dave and Myrnauklele

Sorry to hear of the loss of your friend.
This is an absolutely stunning piece of music here- brought a huge smile to my Saturday afternoon. Thank you for sharing it.

TCK said:

Sorry to hear of the loss of your friend.
This is an absolutely stunning piece of music here- brought a huge smile to my Saturday afternoon. Thank you for sharing it.

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Thanks Dave.

I took a look at your YouTubes...like the 8 string thing! I also looked at your podcasts and man they are great... Had a listen to the new year Ska edition and that brought a smile to my day! The first band I was in 20 years ago was a band covering Ska and Rocksteady, we were called "Skaville Train". I only played live with them but here is a track from the LP ... "Ice Water"

Big fan of Django and I really dig your rendition!

Big puddles of drool for Rich's grande bouche ukes.

Really enjoyed your video! Hope to see more in the future!

That's a great video, so well-produced, a lot of work there! And the 20's/30's vibe comes over so well, the music sounds just great, I loved it! But some kind soul will have to educate me - what's a podcast? Signed, Mrs Behind-the-times...!!...