Check out the book that Michael Horowitz has created at Django Books. This book is turning out to be very necessary for me in my process of becoming a gypsy guitar player.
It was not easy, at first, to figure out how to apply all of the exercises in Michaels book, but after I was shown how each exercise can not only be applied to the open string picking patterns that are shown, but those same patterns can also be applied to other licks higher up on the fingerboard, and when I realized this I felt enlightened and very glad that I bought it.
Sometimes the book exercises can be slightly boring, but when I mix it up by using those picking patterns to try to invent other licks, then its much more interesting to me.

I decided that I am going to need to gather up my own collection of licks and so I am starting to spend some time writing down a bunch of them to keep in my soloing toolbelt. It turns out that most of them are meant to be placed over a ii-V progression. My impression now is that I want to solo using melody variations during the core part of a song and then use one of these licks when I come across a passage with one of those ii-V progressions in it.
I’ve also been spending time learning a Minor Swing solo note for note and it is a real pain to memorize. Its the length of 3 times through the song but it has taken me 4-5 hours of work so far. I have noticed that during this solo, in ii-V passages there is usually a lick which gathers tension on the V chord. I know that tension can be created by using a 6th before the V, making a ii-vi-V. Hopefully I will discover some new things while memorizing this solo.

I am now beginning to grow my memorized song list again. It took me 2 months to memorize my first list of 30 and now I feel that they are intact within my brain. Now I have chosen 14 more songs to my memorized list bringing my soon to be total to 44. My guess is that it will take me at least a month to feel comfortable with these. Hopefully I will be comfortable with them just before I leave for Djangofest. Here are the tunes that I have added:
31 Paprika (in F)
32 Latcho Drom
33 For Sephora
34 Si Tu Savais
35 Blues For Ike
36 Sheik Of Araby
37 Micro
38 Troublant Bolero
39 Manha de carnival
40 Blues Clair
41 Mediterranean Blues
42 Tea For Two
43 Lulu Swing
44 Gypsy Fire
45 Seule ce Soir
I took the month of July and chose to spend it jamming with a new guitar friend that I have made named David. He used to be a rock/blues player but it is surprising that he seems to be excited about gyspy jazz as much as I am. It is relieving to find someone who is really into playing music. We have been meeting a few times a week and if everything falls into place, we should have our first band sometime soon, probably sometime after Djangofest.

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The caged system, a subset of the Johnny Smith guitar method with a few new alterations to some of those ideas, is a method for learning chords, scales and arpeggios. The caged system is based off of the “shapes” created by common open chords. For example one of the first open chords we learn is C. Well what if you wanted to use that same “shape” or “voicing” to create another chord such as D? Since the open C chord involves open strings it is impossible to simply move the chord up two frets to D. So we must re-finger the chords in order to keep the “shape” or “voicing” the same.

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I think there are a lot of people out there that are curious about what to look for when examining a Selmer or Macaferri styled guitar. I came up with a list of things that I personally look for. Other people may not agree with me, but at least I hope my comments will help someone when they make a purchase.
1. Look at the top of the guitar and make sure it has arch to it. In rare cases a luthier will “carve” an arched top but most of the time they use braces to create tension in the top. This creates an arch of between 5-20mm of elevation above the sides of the guitar. This is what gives you volume. A carved top might not get you volume, but im not an expert on that. Some guitars may potentially lose some of this arch during their life which may cause the action to lower a few millimeters which may require bridge shimming to fix, but its not that much of an issue. Of course, every guitar a luthier makes is different and sometimes a good luthier will create a guitar with a strong top and other times they can be weaker. I see a lot of “flat tops” for sale and I think those guitars are questionable.
2. Look for neck issues. Look for twist/distortion in the neck. A good guitar will have no distortion or very slight counterclockwise distortion (less than 2mm). I personally consider clockwise distortion to be a flaw because it can lower the action on the high strings. Most gypsy jazz guitars will never ever need a truss rod adjustment and some dont even have a truss rod, but you should at least make sure the truss rod is not loose so that it doesn’t buzz around. Also, you should not see a “bump” in the fretboard where the neck meets the body.
3. Look for cracks in the guitar. Make sure a crack is not in a spot where there is stress being created. Remember that the strings of a guitar create over 150lbs of tension, which can be 25lbs per string!
Last but not least, I have been watching EBay for over 2 years now and I have noticed that guitars with small flaws are usually going for between 50-65% of their retail value. This is how much your guitar will be worth after the market saturates and so I am warning you. It seems that since there is a limited supply of these guitars still, that the luthiers are getting what they ask for and so you should honor their prices completely. On the other hand, I expect that at the current burn rate of gypsy jazz guitars being made at around 25-45 per month, that the market for these guitars will eventually saturate. Given that there are about 1300-3000 gypsy jazz guitar players in the world, I feel that it will take about 3-5 more years for saturation to occur.

I learned Montagne Ste-Genevieve about 6 months ago and it has been a really useful practicing exercise. I have never actually played it with someone but each time I pick up my guitar it happens to be one of the things that I play to warm up.
I believe this was originally an accordion tune from France, but Django made it part of the swing repertoire. I found the transcription in the GypsyGuitarDownload1 Yahoo group. That version, which I used to learn, is the Matelo Ferre version. Mostly it is a great excercise in practicing arpeggios and building speed.
When improvising outside of the standard melody on this tune, I will use G major, E minor, and E harmonic minor. During the chorus, I will fake it using patterns starting on A minor, then to G minor, and finally finish with a B7 or diminished run. My ideas on this are weak at the moment but hopefully I will develop them in the future.