Listening to the Great Jazz Guitarists

Any jazz guitarist will tell you that you can’t really learn to play this music from a book.  Most of us have spent thousands of hours listening to great players, attending performances, learning tunes and even transcribing and memorizing whole solos from recordings of our favorite jazz guitarists.  But for a new player starting out, this might seem pretty daunting.  But we’ve all been there at one time or other, so I’d like to share a little of my own story and maybe some inspiration to guide you on the path.

I was born in 1955 and started playing guitar in ’63, so when I started playing guitar, my interests were similar to many of my generation; the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and many rock groups that we heard on the radio.  And as the sixties progressed I became interested in guitarists like Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Johnny Winters and Jimi Hendrix.  These guitarists were all heavily influenced by the blues tradition and openly acknowledged that much of what they played came from the likes of Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, and the “Three Kings” (B.B. King, Albert King and Freddie King), and this led me a deeper investigation of their music.

By the 70s, I was feeling a need to expand my musical horizons and started exploring some music on the edges of jazz; mostly fusion music; Miles Davis “Bitches Brew,”  John McLaughlin’s Mahavishnu Orchestra, Billy Cobham, etc.  Then I heard saxophonist Sonny Stitt and it sparked a love of Bebop. I really didn’t know about any of the major jazz guitarists though.  Their music wasn’t played on the radio, wasn’t easy to find in record stores, and nobody in my social circles was into this music.

Then one day I was lucky enough to be introduced to Harvey Pekar.  Harvey was an avid record collector and a jazz critic for Downbeat Magazine (he later became quite famous in the underground comics world as the author of a series called “American Splendor”).  Harvey most graciously invited me to his home and in a single afternoon, gave me an education in what would become my obsession for the past 40 years.  He played me records by dozens of jazz guitarists and I sat there with a notebook scribbling down names of important guitarists and recordings as fast as I could. I was a broke college student, so for the next few years, I’d spend my free time going to libraries and record stores, etc. and just digging through the bins looking anything I could find by these musicians.

Back when I started, it wasn’t so easy to find recordings or information on many of these players, but now with the Internet, we have instant access to almost anything we could want to know.  So in the spirit of generosity which Harvey (and so many others since then) have shown me, and in the interest of “paying it forward” I’ve put together this list of great jazz guitarists spanning nearly 100 years (from the 1920s up to the present day).  When I started compiling it, it was in roughly chronological order, but then I’d think of someone that I’d forgotten to mention and just added them in stream of consciousness manner (so don’t expect it to be totally organized).   I do hope that it will give you some guidance and inspiration on your journey into jazz guitar!  Disclaimer: I know that I’ve omitted many of players who belong on this list, so this is really just meant to be a “starting place.”  I’m sure that as you dive down the rabbit hole, you’ll make a ton of discoveries on your own, and that’s half the fun!

Django Reinhardt

Eddie Lang

Lonnie Johnson

Carl Kress &

Dick McDonough

Johnny Saint Cyr

Charlie Christian

Eddie Durham

Freddie Green

Oscar Moore

Irving Ashby

Tiny Grimes

Eddie Condon

Bill DeArango

Mary Osborne

Barney Kessel

Chuck Wayne

Barry Galbraith

Joe Puma

Jimmy Raney

Tal Farlow

Joe Pass

Wes Montgomery

Grant Green

Hank Garland

George Benson

Pat Martino

Kenny Burrell

Herb Ellis

Charlie Byrd

https://youtu.be/SEUQI5IcyRY (this one’s a triple header Barney Kessel, Herb Ellis and Charlie Byrd)

Laurendo Almieda

Ed Bickert

Lorne Lofsky

Jim Hall

Peter Leitch

John Scofield

Pat Metheny

Bill Frisell

John Abercrombie

Ed Cherry

Bobby Broom

Russell Malone

Mark Whitfield

Tuck Andress

Lenny Breau

https://youtu.be/yPmj30rKjqQ (documentary, long but excellent and worth the time)

Peter Bernstein

Freddie Bryant

Sheryl Bailey

Lage Lund

Gilad Hekselman

Ben Monder

Randy Johnston

Emily Remler

Rene Thomas

Larry Coryell

John McLaughlin

Doug Raney

Jonathan Kreisberg

Peter Mazza

Randy Napolean

Frank Vignola

Howard Alden

Jimmy Bruno

Corey Christiansen

Vic Juris

Yotam Silberstein

Jack Wilkins

Bucky Pizzarelli

Gene Bertoncini

Julian Lage

Kurt Rosenwinkel