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Is there such a thing as a "jumbo" gypsy guitar?
There are of course conventional sizes of older guitar types--parlor, orchestral, dreadnaught, and jumbo guitars, which have a lower bout of 17" or more. Does anyone make a manouche guitar of a similar size?
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Well, Michael Dunn once made a 20"-wide guitar, wider than the widest Stromberg archtops that Freddie Green ever played:
But other than the slightly larger Busato and Favino designs, there isn't the variability that you see in flattop guitar designs.
I make 18" and 17" wide guitars used by some gypzy jazz players, but they're not "regular" gypsy jazz guitars (even less "regular" than Michael Dunn's guitars):
I ask because I have been playing my own songs on a Gitane, and I like the bass and midrange playing with my fingers. But I also have a Tacoma Jumbo, which has a very rich and larger sound. I was curious about whether the two could be married. (Have geneticists studied what happens if you leave a standard guitar alone for a long time with a manuouche guitar, if you provide wine and some romantic music?)
That's kinda what a guitar designed by @pdg does. Not a typical GJ guitar, not a typical flattop but a versatile guitar that serves many situations and some of the best playability among what I tried. They're super fun to play.
That Youtube clip of the guy playing the P D Gruen EQ-18 is interesting and the guitar certainly looks and sounds good but it also illustrates quite clearly a problem some of us have with large guitars; he does look rather uncomfortable. Maybe he likes to play in that position but having the wide lower bout under the right arm like that forcing the shoulder back and the upper arm almost parallel to the collar bone is very painful for me. At the other extreme is the old tradition of the Freddie Green style of playing the big bodied archtops with the guitar almost lying flat in your lap, not something I can do comfortably either.
But specifically for the GJ style there is one good reason why either of these positions don't work, and that is simply because (we are always being told) to get the best tone out of the Selmac type guitar, one has to hold it away from the body allowing the guitar to breathe so that is probably why the 17" has become the standard. We all have slightly different ways to achieve a comfortable playing position but I know I would struggle even with a slightly larger 'Favino' size.
Not mine
https://reverb.com/item/61803602-gypsy-jazz-grande-bouche-guitar-1950-natural
Regarding Gruen, all I can say is Dennis wanted to try it out and wouldn't put it down for several songs. Same thing happened with Joscho, once he saw it, he asked to play it, for novelty probably, and then wouldn't hand it back for several tunes in a jam.