I was in London's West End recently, being reminded of what a dearth of shops there are for jazz guitarists. In Denmark Street you see the odd new archtop or American classic at vastly inflated prices. As a 14 year-old, Shaftesbury Avenue, Charing Cross Road and Denmark Street was a mecca - I would spend hours browsing, having spent hours of prep pouring over the back pages of Melody Maker. I bought my first quality classical acoustic in Ivor Mairant's in Rathbone Place. Now, Ivor Mairant's seems to employ staff who really don't care for anything that has to be amplified, and whose customer service is less than satisfactory ("I need to take this (personal mobile) call", I was told mid-conversation).

Which is just as well we have Gillan's guitars, run by Dave Gillan and partner Kim from Perthshire in Scotland. Dave and Kim are jazz guitar enthusiasts, specialising in quality hand-built archtops, mostly from the US (Campellone, Briggs, Comins, Gagnon and more). I first came across the shop when looking for a UK Sadowsky dealer, as I wanted to order the limited-edition Jim Hall model. I waited about a year and then took delivery of this beautiful guitar (pictured left).

I had the chance to meet Dave and Kim at this year's guitar show at London's Excel. I'm not sure they'll be going again. it was impossible to enjoy the guitars and amps with the barrage of sound that came from the on-stand demos. It was like WWIII. They had brought down a Henriksen Jazzamp, a beautiful little amp that seems to have taken the (admittedly small) world of jazz guitar by storm, being used by the likes of Jim Hall, Jimmy Bruno, Joe Diorio and Ronny Jordan.

I now have a guitar and amp combination I am really happy with - high quality, lightweight, responsive, warm. I only wish I can find a good excuse to get up to Scotland to visit Dave and Kim and try out some more of their stock - for market research purposes, of course.