JAZZ GUITAR ~ ITS HISTORY & HEROS

The jazz guitar has a rich and vibrant history, which began rather unceremoniously with the integration of the "difficult-to-hear" acoustic guitar player into some of the jazz bands of the '20s and '30s. The instrument's impact on the jazz world wasn't really felt (or heard) until a young musician from Oklahoma, called Charlie Christian, with his newly electrified Gibson guitar, hit the limelight in 1939 as a featured musician in Benny Goodman's big band — the most popular band in America at the time.

Although Christian may have been the very first electric "guitar hero" (long before Hendrix, Clapton, Vaughan and Van Halen), his success set the stage for the arrival of such legendary 6-string jazz musicians as Wes Montgomery, Joe Pass, Barney Kessel, Jim Hall, and Kenny Burrell — to name just a few.

Today, a new generation of jazz guitarists (whether they play on an iconic hollow-body archtop, acoustic gypsy jazz, or solid-body electric) are impressive in their own way. Pat Metheny continues to add to his already extensive collection of Grammys, while relatively new artists like Stephane Wrembel, Kurt Rosenwinkel and Lionel Louke bring a fresh perspective to jazz-on-a-guitar.

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