Maestros of the jazz guitar

“I’m often compared to Jim Hall, but even though I adore him in reality he only represents 3% of my influences: the rest is 90% Wes and 10% Kenny Burrell”

– Pat Metheny

The current issue of the French Jazz Magazine is headlined “Guitaristes Cultes” which roughly translates to a homage to seven profiled guitarists. I have also recently watched a YouTube interview with UK guitarist Martin Taylor where he picks his 10 all-time great guitarists

Two interesting perspectives from a pro jazz guitarist and an assemblage of jazz aficionados. As you would expect some names crop up through both processes.

Martin Taylor goes for the following musicians

• Pat Metheney – a guitar polymath, heavily invested in new technologies and unusual guitar instrumentation. Still committed to an intensive touring schedule in concert auditoria A band leader for 50 years and a sideman with such luminaries as Gary Burton, Charlie Haden, Joni Mitchell and Ornette Coleman. Metheney has built up a huge range of original material while remaining equally invested in jazz standards.
• Barney Kessell – An early modernist, part of jazz impresario Norman Granz’s stable of touring musicians in the 1950’s who also accompanied Charlie Parker and Billie Holiday before entering LA studio work.
• Jim Hall- the guitarist’s guitarist with an unrivalled approach to providing beautifully configured harmonic accompaniment to such soloists as Sonny Rollins and Art Farmer. Equally impressive as a front line improviser. One of the most distinctive and tasteful guitarists out there
• Charlie Christian – a prodigy who invented the electric jazz guitar through his brief membership of Duke Ellington’s orchestra in the early 1940’s before succumbing to tuberculosis at age 26. Impossible to speculate on what Christian would have gone on to achieve had he lived.
• Django Reinhart – a truly incomparable, burning talent. Totally self-taught from a Belgian/French Manouche background. he co-led the Quintet of the Hot Club of France with violinist Stephane Grapelli in the 1930’s and caught the attention of such visiting American musicians as Duke Ellington and Coleman Hawkins. Most remarkably he adapted to playing with only three fingers on his left hand following a fire which almost killed him in his early teens. After the war Django adapted seamlessly to the electric guitar and toured the USA to huge acclaim.
• George Benson – following his jazz apprenticeships in the 60’s and early 70’s with organists Jack Macduff and Lonnie Smith and trumpet star Freddy Hubbard, his breakout 1976 “easy listening” album Breezin sold millions and launched Benson on a lucrative career way beyond the boundaries of jazz
• Pat Martino – A Philadelphia native, Martino had established his jazz credentials before suffering a brain haemorrhage in 1980 which had an amnesiac effect. He patiently re-learnt the guitar step-by-step before returning to play at an astonishingly high level in the latter phases of his career.
• Kenny Burrell – following early recordings with organist Shirley Scott, Burrell became along with Grant Green the go-to guitarist for the Blue Note stable cutting albums with a strong soul jazz vibe that became mainstays on jukeboxes in the 60’s and helped bankroll the Blue Note label. Burrell was more than capable of playing in multiple jazz genres including bebop.
• Joe Pass – Pass’s early career was blighted by narcotics use.  Following more than two years treatment at the Synanon recovery centre his career took off in the late 60’s most notably as a member of Oscar Peterson’s quartet and as an unrivalled accompanist to Ella Fitzgerald-often in duo format.  His first comeback album in 1962 was entitled Sounds of Synanon His many memorable solo appearances at Ronnie Scott’s in the 70’s and 80’s are firmly etched in my mind.
• Wes Montgomery – the choice of most guitarists as the greatest jazz guitarists of all time. His swing, his unique use of his thumb and his distinctive use of octaves became immediately recognisable components of his technique and style. He was poised, like Benson, to become a breakout star at the point of his death in 1968. Wes continues to exert a giant influence on contemporary practitioners of the jazz guitar.

 All of these featured musicians had or have a continuing influence on contemporary guitarists. All have an instantly recognisable sound and presence and incorporate distinctive dimensions to their improvisational language. All are equally accomplished as front line improvisers as accompanists. And crucially all of them swing like hell.

And it is worth noting that all of them are men!

Jazz Magazine’s seven guitar icons represent a more left field mix comprising.

• Emily Remler – Emily was mentored in her late teens by pianist Hank Jones and bassist John Clayton and was most heavily influenced by Wes Montgomery- her last album East to Wes was a posthumously released homage. Remler struggled with mental health and narcotics addictions throughout her short life and died, tragically at 32. This is how Remler once described herself.

“I resemble a nice young Jewish girl but deep down I’m a beefy black guy of 50 with a big thumb like Wes Montgomery.”

• Pat Martino
• Wes Montgomery
• Pat Metheny
• Hiram Bullock – Born in Osaka the son of military parents Bullock grew up in Baltimore and took lessons from Pat Metheny. He was a distinctive voice in bands led by David Sanborn and Carla Bley, and I caught him a number of times on UK appearances with the semi-chaotic but totally compelling Gil Evans orchestra. Bullock was a force of nature very closely allied to the musical aesthetic of Jimi Hendrix-the guitarist with whom he was most frequently associated.
• Sylvain Luc – new to me. Clearly a major guitar voice on the European jazz scene who died in November 2024. The Jazz Magazine profile describes him as a virtuoso- a good enough recommendation for me!
• George Benson

And four guitarists that I would add

• Bireli Lagrene – another prodigy- he burst on the French jazz scene in his early teens playing in the incomparable style of Django Reinhart, His playing now extends way beyond the Django inheritance.
• Kurt Rosenwinkel – another virtuoso, supremely comfortable right across the jazz range He has an astonishing range of composer credits to his name and tours extensively in both the U.S, and Europe.
• Louis Stewart – now largely forgotten but this Dublin -born guitarist was a mainstay of the London modern jazz scene in the 70’s and 80’s and added a very distinctive voice to Ronnie Scott’s quintets of that era.
• Mary Halvorson – I have been listening to Halvorson a great deal over the last couple of years She nudges against the boundaries of Avant Garde jazz. Profound and carefully considered playing a long way from easy listening.

The Playlist

My playlist offers you a track from each of the named guitarists plus a couple of bonus tracks from Grant Green and the modest Martin Taylor a virtuoso in his own right who regularly appears and performs solo.