Jazz guitarist

This article is about jazz guitar performers. For the the wide-ranging history of jazz. The early guitar players
musical style, see jazz guitar. For the Ted Dunbar were the great blues singers who accompanied themselves
album, see Jazz Guitarist (album).
on the guitar. By the 1930s, guitarists gained prominence
in jazz and some were even featured performers, such
as Carl Kress (19071965), who recorded in 1927 with
Jazz guitarists are guitar players (guitarists) who play
jazz music on the guitar using an approach to playing Bix Beiderbecke. In Europe, Django Reinhardt (1910
Belgian gypsy jazz guitarist recorded with his
chords, melodies, and improvised solo lines which is 1953), a
Quintette
du Hot Club de France. Beginning in 1939,
called jazz guitar playing. The guitar has fullled the
Charlie
Christian
played with Big Band Swing bandleader
roles of accompanist ("rhythm guitar") and soloist in
Benny
Goodman,
and in the bebop era, Tal Farlow was
small and large ensembles and also as an unaccompanied
notable
for
his
virtuoso
playing.
solo instrument.
In the 1960s, guitarists tended to play in small groups,
such as Jim Hall, who did his best work in duos with Bill
Evans, Ron Carter and others. Wes Montgomery was a
self-taught guitarist who used his right thumb rather than
a plectrum (pick) to produce his unique sound in his late1950s and 1960s hard bop recordings. Joe Pass pioneered
solo guitar with chordal substitutions in his duos with Ella
Fitzgerald. Grant Green was known for his 1960s organ
trio music. Fusion guitarists such as Larry Coryell (1943), John McLaughlin, Pat Metheny, and Allan Holdsworth
combined the sound and energy of rock with jazz-style
improvisation.

In the 1930s, before guitar ampliers were widely used,

it was dicult for jazz guitarists playing acoustic instruments to be heard over drums, piano or horn sections.
As a result, jazz guitarists tended to act as accompanists,
strumming chords as part of the rhythm section. Once the
rst guitar ampliers were developed in the 1930s, electric guitarists such as George Barnes and Charlie Christian were able to project their solo sound over a jazz ensemble.

1 1900s to 1920s
The history of the guitar in jazz is rooted in the great
blues singers who accompanied themselves on the acoustic guitar, such as Blind Lemon Jeerson, Blind Arthur
Blake, Big Bill Broonzy and Huddie "Lead Belly" Ledbetter. The banjo, because of its loud volume, was an
early stringed accompaniment instrument in jazz in New
Orleans and Dixieland music. Banjoists such as Johnny
St. Cyr (18901966) and Bud Scott (18901949) also
played guitar in jazz bands of the 1910s-1920s.[1] Early
jazz guitarists included Eddie Lang (19021933),[2] Nick
Lucas (18971982),[3] Lonnie Johnson (18891970) and
Snoozer Quinn (19071949).[1]

2 1930s
Even as late as the early 1930s sophisticated jazz orchestras such as the Duke Ellington band still used a banjo to
Jazz-rock pioneer John McLaughlin performing at a 2008 festi- provide a rhythmic pulse. During the 1930s, though, guival in Limburgerho.
tarists gained prominence in jazz and some were even featured performers. Carl Kress (19071965)[4] and Dick
The history of jazz guitar has been an integral part of McDonough (19041938)[5] made an early guitar duo
1

4 1950S AND 1960S

because before amplication was available, the guitarist
would just play chords, because single-note melodies
would be inaudible. One of the very rst jazz guitarists to experiment with the electric guitar was Eddie
Durham (19061987) who was playing one as early as
1938.[1] Durham showed the instrument to Charlie Christian (19161942) in 1937 and to Floyd Smith. On March
16, 1939 Smith recorded Floyds Guitar Blues, perhaps the rst hit record featuring electric guitar. But it
was Christian who was to become the central gure of
the electric guitar revolution in jazz, playing with Benny
Goodman after an audition on August 16, 1939. Christian was inuenced by the records of Django Reinhardt,
learning some of his solos note-for-note.

Duke Ellington's big band at the Hurricane Ballroom had a

rhythm section that included a jazz guitarist, a double bass player,
and a drummer (not visible, but who is to the right of the bassist).

3 1940s

recording in 1934. Kress was featured with the Paul

Whiteman Orchestra in 1926 and recorded in 1927 with
Bix Beiderbecke. He initially played banjo and fourstring guitar, changing over to six-string guitar in the
1930s. Kress used an unorthodox tuning that he created
for himself. He played in the 1950s on the Gary Moore
television show and into the 1960s in a duo with George
Barnes. McDonough led radio and performing bands and
performed with many other musicians such as the Dorsey
Brothers.

The 1940s saw jazz guitarists become rmly established

as soloists in their own right as well as accompanists.
Playing with Nat King Cole brought Oscar Moore (1916
1981) to prominence in jazz and popular music. Moore
was a pioneer for the role of jazz guitar in the small jazz
ensemble and played with Cole for nearly a decade.[9]
Moore also played with Lionel Hampton and Art Tatum.
Bill DeArango (19212005) played guitar with musicians of the caliber of Coleman Hawkins and Dizzy
Gillespie.[10] Billy Bauer (19152005) was a member of
Woody Herman's rst Herd and also played with Benny
Goodman and Jack Teagarden. Bauer was at the forefront
of bringing the guitar into bebop, playing with Lennie
Tristano and later Lee Konitz.[11]

Other successful jazz guitarists of the period included

George Van Eps (19131998) and Freddie Green (1911
1987), who played rhythm guitar in the Count Basie Orchestra for 50 years.[1] George Van Eps (19131998) began recording as early as 1934 and taped his last records
in 1996.[6]
In Europe, Django Reinhardt (19101953), a Belgian
gypsy jazz guitarist recorded with his Quintette du Hot
Club de France with violinist Stphane Grappelli (1908
1997), a French jazz violinist. Reinhardt was an inuential gure in jazz and among jazz guitarists as a soloist, accompanist and composer.[7][8] The Quintette du Hot Club
de France included Django Reinhardts brother Joseph
Reinhardt as well as several other Gypsy guitarists and
non-Gypsy musicians. Because of international commerce, records featuring Django Reinhardt were heard in
the United States and inspired many future famous jazz
guitarists. Djangos early style was inuenced by the jazz
of the time, including Louis Armstrong and was later inuenced by bebop musicians such as Charlie Parker and
Dizzy Gillespie. In 1946, Duke Ellington brought Django
to the United States for a series of concerts.
Jazz guitar reached a watershed with the development
of amplication using a magnetic pickup and amplier.
With its amplier, an electric guitar could be as loud
as horns, drums, and piano put together. This dramatically changed the way that the instrument could be used,

Bill DeArango (September 20, 1921, Cleveland, Ohio December 26, 2005, Cleveland) was an American jazz
guitarist. Jason Ankeny of Allmusic called him Arguably the most innovative and technically accomplished
guitarist to emerge during the bebop era.[1] DeArango
was an autodidact, and played in Dixieland jazz bands
while attending Ohio State University. He served in the
Army from 1942-44, then moved to New York City,
where he played with Don Byas, Ben Webster, Charlie
Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Sarah Vaughan, Slam Stewart,
Ike Quebec, Ray Nance, and Eddie Lockjaw Davis.

4 1950s and 1960s

In the 1950s, innovators such as Johnny Smith, and other
players carrying over from the 1940s like Joe Puma,
Bucky Pizarelli, Tony Mottola, Jim Raney, Oscar Moore
(of Nat King Cole's trio), Barney Kessel and others including Joe Pass, Herb Ellis, and Tal Farlow, created the
fertile ground for players such as Wes Montgomery and
his progeny who helped to evolve jazz guitar into its most
modern form. Ellis, a protg of Pass and Kessel, accomplished technique and elegant lines that reached a wide
public through the recordings of Oscar Peterson's trio.

3
Ella Fitzgerald or Oscar Peterson sessions and along with
Montgomery, is now one of the most copied jazz guitarists within the genre. Pass can be considered a critical link between old school jazz guitar and the postMontgomery dissonant precursor to fusion within the jazz
guitar genre. Passs instructional videos and books are
among the most popular in the world of jazz guitar.

Jim Hall playing at a seminar in Dayton, Ohio, in 2005

During the same period, Farlows bebop virtuoso playing

did much to make up the ground between the guitar and
the other frontline instruments such as saxophone and
trumpet. Farlow was a direct inuence on many guitarists
such as John McLaughlin.

Kenny Burrell (born 1931), often understated and lyrical, did recordings in the 1950s with Dizzy Gillespie and
John Coltrane and led his own groups. Lenny Breau
(19411984) performed using an ensemble improvisational playing, along with a more orchestral nger-style
solo jazz guitar. He used many diverse elements of
music, including closed voicings, amenco-style guitar,
use of varied rhythms, ngered harmonics, modal jazz
harmony, an intimate knowledge of inversions and tritone substitutions, and a great understanding of bebop.
Burrell was a contemporary of Wes, Joe Pass, Ellis and
Hall but was not as uid as they were in terms of pure
solo guitar. Charlie Byrd (19251999) did nylon-string
guitar recordings with saxophone player Stan Getz which
helped popularize Brazilian bossa nova and samba music
in North America.
George Benson's (born 1943) success as a pop vocalist in
the 1970s made him a household name, but he was an inuential jazz guitarist in the 1960s, particularly with his
organ trio recordings with organist Jack McDu. Bensons early work on Columbia and CTI records demonstrates the strong inuence of Wes with the articulation
of Johnny Smith and Tal Farlow. Grant Green's funky
1970s organ trio music makes him a favorite with 2000sera lounge and club DJs, but much of Greens best jazz
work can be found in his 1960s output. Grant Greens
style was full of groove and tone, and it is hard to replicate. Fusion guitarist Larry Coryell (born 1943) was
among the rst to combine the sound and energy of rock
with jazz lines in the late 1960s.

Johnny Smith, whose Moonlight in Vermont and Walk

Don't Run, among the many, especially set the new gold
standard for technique, expanded chord voicings and outside diatonic playing, setting a new bar to be met and
eventually surpassed by Wes Montgomery, who was to
jazz what Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix were to electric
blues. Montgomery was a direct inuence not only on
guitarists but all musicians, with players such as Pat Martino and George Benson being the most noteworthy gui- 5 1970s and 1980s
tarists to carry on Montgomerys legacy of dissonant ris,
arpeggios, passing chords and of course, his hall mark, John McLaughlin pioneered jazz-rock fusion in the
octave solos.
1970s. John Abercrombie has recorded with Billy CobJim Hall, who grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, was a mas- ham, Jack DeJohnette and the Brecker Brothers. He also
terful melodic player, composer, and arranger, who did often explores the parameters of jazz fusion and post bop.
some of his most important work in duos with Bill Evans, Pat Metheny is a Missouri-based guitarist and leader of
Ron Carter and others. Hall had a melody-based, motivic his own band, the Pat Metheny Group with Lyle Mays on
approach to improvisation and is renowned for his more piano. Allan Holdsworth is a fusion virtuoso noted for his
intellectual approach to single-line solos with empha- uid, chromatic, lines and for his distinctive legato guitar
sis on selection, rhythm and intricate harmonies rather technique. Holdsworths inuence can be felt outside of
than speed. Joe Pass stands above all the aforementioned jazz, in heavy rock players such as Edward Van Halen,
players with his ability to improvise an entire composi- Fredrik Thordendal, and Joe Satriani. Ted Greene, a solo
tion without accompaniment, and literally set the tem- guitar performer and music educator inuenced LA guiplate for over all contemporary jazz guitar, combining tarists including Steve Vai and Steve Lukather with his
the technical prowess of Johnny Smith and Django with chord melody work. In 1976 former Return to Forever
the dissonant expressions of Montgomery. He pioneered member Al Di Meola shook up the guitar world with
solo guitar with chordal substitutions in his duos with Land of the Midnight Sun becoming one of the most in-

8 SEE ALSO

uential guitarist of the decade.

7 References

Mike Stern, who came to prominence with Miles Davis

during the 1980s, has a unique take on fusing blues rock
guitar with be-bop lines in extended improvisations. Bill
Frisell introduced folk and bluegrass music into jazz, use
of intervals rather than single lines, combining harmonics
and fretted notes. John Scoeld played and collaborated
with performers such as Miles Davis, and Billy Cobham,
and groups such as Medeski Martin & Wood. At ease
in the bebop idiom, Scoeld is also well versed in jazz
fusion, funk, blues, and soul.

[1] Summereld, Maurice. 1998. The Jazz Guitar: Its Evolution, Players and Personalities Since 1900. United Kingdom: Ashley Mark Publishing.
[2] Eddie Lang
[3] Nick Lucas, The Crooning Troubadour and his Guitar
[4] Classic Jazz Guitar - Guitarists
[5] Classic Jazz Guitar - Guitarists
[6] Classic Jazz Guitar - Guitarists
[7] Delauney, Charles. 1981. Django Reinhardt. United
Kingdom: Ashley Mark Publishing.

1990s and 2000s

[8] Dregni, Michael. 2004. Django: The Life and Music of a

Gypsy Legend. New York: Oxford University Press.
[9] Classic Jazz Guitar - Guitarists
[10] Classic Jazz Guitar - Guitarists
[11] Classic Jazz Guitar - Guitarists

8 See also
List of jazz guitarists

Stanley Jordan soloing using his touch technique playing style.

Stanley Jordan is an American jazz/jazz fusion guitarist,

best known for his development of the touch technique
for playing guitar.
John Pizzarelli is a jazz guitarist, singer, songwriter who
scat sings in unison with his guitar line.
Kurt Rosenwinkel is known for his distinct sound and
style of improvisation that is inuenced by diverse artists.
Royce Campbell, who toured with composer Henry
Mancini for 19 years, is featured on dozens of recordings, both as a leader and as a sideman. Drawing on a
range of inuences from Wes Montgomery to Joe Pass,
Campbell has been noted for his tone and melodic feel.

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