Jazz guitar - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The term jazz guitar may refer to either a type of guitar or to the variety of guitar playing styles used in the various genres which are commonly termed "jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

". The jazz-type guitar

Guitar

The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

was born as a result of using electric amplification to increase the volume of conventional acoustic guitars.

Conceived in the early 1930s, the electric guitar became a necessity as jazz musicians sought to amplify their sound. Arguably, no other musical instrument had greater influence on how music evolved since the beginning of the twentieth century. Although the earliest guitars used in jazz were acoustic

Acoustic guitar

An acoustic guitar is a guitar that uses only an acoustic sound board. The air in this cavity resonates with the vibrational modes of the string and at low frequencies, which depend on the size of the box, the chamber acts like a Helmholtz resonator, increasing or decreasing the volume of the sound...

and acoustic guitars are still sometimes used in jazz, most jazz guitarists since the 1940s have performed on an electrically amplified guitar or electric guitar

Electric guitar

An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...

.

Typically, jazz electric guitarists use an archtop

Archtop guitar

An archtop guitar is a steel-stringed acoustic or semi-acoustic guitar with a full body and a distinctive arched top, whose sound is particularly popular with blues and jazz players.Typically, an archtop guitar has:* 6 strings...

with a relatively broad hollow soundbox, violin-style f-holes, a "floating bridge

Bridge (instrument)

A bridge is a device for supporting the strings on a stringed instrument and transmitting the vibration of those strings to some other structural component of the instrument in order to transfer the sound to the surrounding air.- Explanation :...

", and a magnetic pickup. Solid body

Solid body

A solid-body instrument is a string instrument such as a guitar, bass or violin built without its normal sound box and relying on an electric pickup system to directly receive the vibrations of the strings....

guitars are also used.

Jazz guitar playing styles include "comping

Comping

Comping is a term used in jazz music to describe the chords, rhythms, and countermelodies that keyboard players or guitar players use to support a jazz musician's improvised solo or melody lines....

" with jazz chord voicings (and in some cases walking basslines) and "blowing" (improvising) over jazz chord progressions with jazz-style phrasing and ornaments. Comping refers to playing chords underneath a song's melody or another musician's solo improvisations. When jazz guitar players improvise, they may use the scales, modes, and arpeggios associated with the chords in a tune's chord progression.

1900-mid-1930s

The stringed, chord-playing rhythm instrument typical of jazz ensembles from 1900 until the early 1920s was the banjo

Banjo

In the 1830s Sweeney became the first white man to play the banjo on stage. His version of the instrument replaced the gourd with a drum-like sound box and included four full-length strings alongside a short fifth-string. There is no proof, however, that Sweeney invented either innovation. This new...

, an instrument which was much louder than guitars of the time. The banjo could generate enough sound to be heard in groups which included military band-style instruments such as brass, saxes, clarinets, and drums, such as early jazz groups. As the acoustic guitar became a more popular instrument in the early 20th century, guitar-makers began building louder guitars which would be useful in a wider range of settings.

The Gibson L5, an acoustic archtop guitar

Archtop guitar

which was first produced in 1923, was an early “jazz”-style guitar which was used by early jazz guitarists such as Eddie Lang

Eddie Lang

Eddie Lang was an American jazz guitarist, regarded as the Father of Jazz Guitar. He played a Gibson L-4 and L-5 guitar, providing great influence for many guitarists, including Django Reinhardt.-Biography:...

. By the 1930s, the guitar began to displace the banjo as the primary chordal rhythm instrument in jazz music, because the guitar could be used to voice chords of greater harmonic complexity, and it had a somewhat more muted tone that blended well with the upright bass, which, by this time, had almost completely replaced the tuba as the dominant bass instrument in jazz music.

The next important development in jazz guitar came in the mid to late-1930s with the advent of electrical amplification. Although Gibson was not the first commercial producer to make an electric guitar

Electric guitar

, the company made the first successfully-marketed electric guitar, the ES150 in 1936. It was an acoustic archtop fitted with a guitar pickup, which sensed the vibrations in the metal strings so that they could be amplified by a guitar amplifier. When guitarist Charlie Christian

Charlie Christian

Charles Henry "Charlie" Christian was an American swing and jazz guitarist.Christian was an important early performer on the electric guitar, and is cited as a key figure in the development of bebop and cool jazz. He gained national exposure as a member of the Benny Goodman Sextet and Orchestra...

used the amplified electric guitar to improvise horn-like, single-line melodies in the jazz context, jazz and blues musicians became interested in the potential of the louder, new electric guitar. His playing was heard by millions in the recordings he cut with Benny Goodman

Benny Goodman

Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America...

Late 1930s-1960s

During the late 1930s and through the 1940s—the heyday of big band

Big band

A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with jazz and the Swing Era typically consisting of rhythm, brass, and woodwind instruments totaling approximately twelve to twenty-five musicians...

jazz and swing music—the guitar was an important rhythm section

Rhythm section

A rhythm section is a collection of musicians who make up a section of instruments which provides the accompaniment section of the music, giving the music its rhythmic texture and pulse, also serving as a rhythmic reference for the rest of the band...

instrument. Some guitarists, such as Freddie Green

Freddie Green

Frederick William "Freddie" Green was an American swing jazz guitarist. He was especially noted for his sophisticated rhythm guitar in big band settings, particularly for the Count Basie orchestra, where he was part of the "All-American Rhythm Section" with Basie on piano, Jo Jones on drums, and...

of Count Basie

Count Basie

William "Count" Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. Basie led his jazz orchestra almost continuously for nearly 50 years...

’s band, developed a guitar-specific style of accompaniment. Few of the big bands, however, featured amplified guitar solos, which were done instead in the small combo context. The most important jazz guitar soloists of this period included the Manouche virtuoso Django Reinhardt

Django Reinhardt

Django Reinhardt was a pioneering virtuoso jazz guitarist and composer who invented an entirely new style of jazz guitar technique that has since become a living musical tradition within French gypsy culture...

, Oscar Moore

Oscar Moore

Oscar Moore was an American swing jazz guitarist.Moore was an integral part of the Nat King Cole Trio during 1937–1947, appearing on virtually all of Cole's records during the period. A superb and influential guitarist, Moore was himself influenced by Charlie Christian...

who was featured with Nat “King” Cole’s trio, and Charlie Christian

Charlie Christian

of Benny Goodman

Benny Goodman

's band and sextet, who was a major influence despite his early death at 25.

It was not until the large-scale emergence of small combo jazz in the post-WWII period that the guitar took as a versatile instrument, which was used both in the rhythm section and as a featured melodic instrument and solo improviser. In the hands of Kenny Burrell

Kenny Burrell

Kenneth Earl "Kenny" Burrell is an American jazz guitarist. His playing is grounded in bebop and blues; he has performed and recorded with a wide range of jazz musicians.-Biography:...

, Herb Ellis

Herb Ellis

Mitchell Herbert "Herb" Ellis was an American jazz guitarist. Perhaps best known for his 1950s membership in the trio of pianist Oscar Peterson, Ellis was also a staple of west-coast studio recording sessions, and was described by critic Scott Yanow as "an excellent bop-based guitarist with a...

, Barney Kessel

Barney Kessel

Barney Kessel was an American jazz guitarist born in Muskogee, Oklahoma, USA. Generally considered to be one of the greatest jazz guitarists of the 20th century, he was noted in particular for his vast knowledge of chords and inversions and chord-based melodies...

, Jimmy Raney

Jimmy Raney

Jimmy Raney was an American jazz guitarist born in Louisville, Kentucky most notable for his work from 1951–1952 and 1962–1963 with Stan Getz and for his work from 1953–1954 with the Red Norvo trio, replacing Tal Farlow. In 1954 and 1955 he won the Down Beat critics poll for guitar...

, and Tal Farlow

Tal Farlow

Talmage Holt Farlow was an American jazz guitarist. Nicknamed the "Octopus", Farlow's extremely large hands spread over the fretboard as if they were tentacles. He is considered one of the all-time great jazz guitarists. Michael G...

, who had absorbed the language of bebop

Bebop

Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...

, the guitar began to be seen as a “serious” jazz instrument. Improved electric guitars such as Gibson’s ES175 (released in 1949), gave players a larger variety of tonal options. In the 1940s through the 1960s, players such as Wes Montgomery

Wes Montgomery

John Leslie "Wes" Montgomery was an American jazz guitarist. He is widely considered one of the major jazz guitarists, emerging after such seminal figures as Django Reinhardt and Charlie Christian and influencing countless others, including Pat Martino, George Benson, Russell Malone, Emily...

, Joe Pass

Joe Pass

Joe Pass was an Italian-American jazz guitarist of Sicilian descent. He is generally considered to be one of the greatest jazz guitarists of the 20th century...

, and Jim Hall

Jim Hall (musician)

James Stanley Hall is an American jazz guitarist.-Biography:Educated at the Cleveland Institute of Music, Hall moved to Los Angeles where he began to attract national, and then international, attention in the late 1950s...

laid the foundation of what is now known as "jazz guitar" playing.

1970s

As jazz-rock fusion emerged in the early 1970s, many players switched to the more rock-oriented solid body guitars. Other jazz guitarists, like Grant Green

Grant Green

Grant Green was a jazz guitarist and composer....

and Wes Montgomery

Wes Montgomery

, turned to applying their skills to pop-oriented styles that fused jazz with soul and R&B, such as soul jazz

Soul jazz

Soul jazz is a development of jazz incorporating strong influences from blues, soul, gospel and rhythm and blues in music for small groups, often an organ trio featuring a Hammond organ.- Overview :Soul jazz is often associated with hard bop. Mark C...

-styled organ trio

Organ trio

An organ trio, in a jazz context, is a group of three jazz musicians, typically consisting of a Hammond organ player, a drummer, and either a jazz guitarist or a saxophone player. In some cases the saxophonist will join a trio which consists of an organist, guitarist, and drummer, making it a quartet...

s. Younger jazz musicians rode the surge of electric popular genres such as blues, rock, and funk to reach new audiences. Guitarists in the fusion realm fused the post-bop harmonic and melodic language of musicians such as John Coltrane

John Coltrane

John William Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz...

, McCoy Tyner

McCoy Tyner

McCoy Tyner is a jazz pianist from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, known for his work with the John Coltrane Quartet and a long solo career.-Early life:...

, Ornette Coleman

Ornette Coleman

Ornette Coleman is an American saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter and composer. He was one of the major innovators of the free jazz movement of the 1960s....

, and Miles Davis

Miles Davis

Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...

with a hard-edged (and usually very loud) rock tone created by iconic guitarists such as Cream's Eric Clapton

Eric Clapton

Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...

who'd redefined the sound of the guitar for those unfamiliar with the black blues players of Chicago and, before that, the Delta region of the Mississippi upon whom his style was based. With John Mayall

John Mayall

John Mayall, OBE is an English blues singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, whose musical career spans over fifty years...

's Bluesbreakers, Clapton turned up the volume on a sound already pioneered by Buddy Guy, Freddie King, B.B. King and others that was fluid, with heavy finger vibratos, string bending, and speed through powerful Marshall amplifiers.

Fusion players such as John McLaughlin

John McLaughlin (musician)

John McLaughlin , also known as Mahavishnu John McLaughlin, is an English guitarist, bandleader and composer...

adopted the fluid, powerful sound of rock guitarists such as Clapton and Jimi Hendrix. McLaughlin was a master innovator, incorporating hard jazz with the new sounds of Clapton, Hendrix, Beck and others. McLaughlin later formed the Mahavisnhu Orchestra, an historically important fusion band that played to sold out venues in the early 70s and as a result, produced an endless progeny of fusion guitarist. Guitarists such as Pat Martino

Pat Martino

Pat Martino is an Italian-American jazz guitarist and composer within the post bop, fusion, mainstream jazz, soul jazz and hard bop idioms.-Biography:...

, Al Di Meola

Al Di Meola

Al Di Meola is an acclaimed American jazz fusion and Latin guitarist, composer, and record producer of Italian origin. With a musical career that has spanned more than three decades, he has become respected as one of the most influential guitarists in jazz to date...

, Larry Coryell

Larry Coryell

Larry Coryell is an American jazz fusion guitarist.-Biography:Coryell was born in Galveston, Texas. He graduated from Richland High School, in Richland, Washington, where he played in local bands The Jailers, The Rumblers, The Royals, and The Flames. He also played with The Checkers from nearby...

, John Abercrombie

John Abercrombie (guitarist)

John Abercrombie is an American jazz guitarist, whose work often explores jazz fusion and post bop. Abercrombie has played with Billy Cobham, Jack DeJohnette, Michael Brecker and Randy Brecker...

, John Scofield

John Scofield

John Scofield , often referred to as "Sco," is an American jazz guitarist and composer, who has played and collaborated with Miles Davis, Dave Liebman, Joe Henderson, Charles Mingus, Joey Defrancesco, Herbie Hancock, Pat Metheny, Bill Frisell, Pat Martino, Mavis Staples, Phil Lesh, Billy Cobham,...

and Mike Stern

Mike Stern

Mike Stern is an American jazz guitarist. After playing for a few years with Blood, Sweat & Tears, he landed a gig with Billy Cobham and then broke through with Miles Davis' comeback band from 1981 to 1983, and again in 1985. Since then, he launched a solo career, releasing more than a dozen albums...

(the latter two both allumni of the Miles Davis band) fashioned a new language for the guitar which introduced jazz to a new generation of fans. Like the rock-blues icons that preceded them, fusion guitarists usually played their solid body instruments through stadium rock-style amplification, and signal processing “effects” such as simulated distortion, wah-wah, octave splitters, compression, and flange pedals. In addition, they also simply turned up to full volume in order to create natural overdrive such as the blues rock players.

1980s-2000s

By the early 1980s, the radical experiments of early 1970s-era fusion gave way to a more radio-friendly sounds of smooth jazz

Smooth jazz

Smooth jazz is a genre of music that grew out of jazz fusion and is influenced by R&B, funk, rock, and pop music styles ....

. Guitarist Pat Metheny

Pat Metheny

Patrick Bruce "Pat" Metheny is an American jazz guitarist and composer.One of the most successful and critically acclaimed jazz musicians to come to prominence in the 1970s and '80s, he is the leader of the Pat Metheny Group and is also involved in duets, solo works and other side projects...

mixed the sounds of blues, country, and “world” music, along with rock and jazz, playing both a flat-top acoustic guitar and an electric guitar with a softer, more mellow tone which was sweetened with a shimmering effect known as “chorusing

Chorus effect

In music, a chorus effect occurs when individual sounds with roughly the same timbre and nearly the same pitch converge and are perceived as one...

". During the 1980s, a neo-traditional school of jazz sought to reconnect with the past. In keeping with such an aesthetic, young guitarists of this era sought a clean and round tone and they often played traditional hollow-body archtop guitars which were played without electronic effects.

As players such as Bobby Broom

Bobby Broom

Bobby Broom , birthname Robert Broom, Jr., is an American jazz guitarist, composer and educator born and raised in New York City. Broom performs and records with jazz saxophone legend Sonny Rollins as well as his Bobby Broom Trio and the Deep Blue Organ Trio...

, Peter Bernstein

Peter Bernstein

Peter Bernstein may refer to:*Peter Bernstein , American film and television composer*Peter Bernstein , American jazz guitarist*Peter L. Bernstein , American author, economist and educator...

, Howard Alden

Howard Alden

Howard Alden is an American jazz guitarist born in Newport Beach, California. He has recorded a long series of albums for Concord Records. His performances were dubbed over Sean Penn as 'Emmet Ray' in the 1999 Woody Allen film Sweet and Lowdown...

, Russell Malone

Russell Malone

Russell Malone is an essentially self-taught swing and bebop jazz guitarist. He began working with Jimmy Smith in 1988, and went on to work with Harry Connick, Jr. and Diana Krall throughout the 1990s...

, and Mark Whitfield

Mark Whitfield

Mark Whitfield is an American hard bop and soul-jazz guitarist born in Syosset, New York, probably better known for his recordings as bandleader for both the Verve and Warner Bros. Records record labels...

revived the sounds of traditional jazz guitar, there was also a resurgence of archtop luthierie (guitar-making). By the early 1990s many small independent luthiers began making archtop guitars. In the 2000s, jazz guitar playing continues to change. Some guitarists incorporate a Latin jazz influence, acid jazz

Acid jazz

Acid jazz is a musical genre that combines elements of jazz, funk and hip-hop, particularly looped beats. It developed in the UK over the 1980s and 1990s and could be seen as tacking the sound of jazz-funk onto electronic dance: jazz-funk musicians such as Roy Ayers, Donald Byrd and Grant Green are...

-style dance club music uses samples from Wes Montgomery

Wes Montgomery

, and guitarists such as Bill Frisell

Bill Frisell

William Richard "Bill" Frisell is an American guitarist and composer.One of the leading guitarists in jazz since the late 1980s, Frisell's eclectic music touches on progressive folk, classical music, country music, noise and more...

continue to defy categorization.

Archtop guitars

While jazz can be played on any type of guitar, from an acoustic instrument to a solid-bodied electric guitar

Electric guitar

such as a Fender Stratocaster, the full-depth archtop guitar has become known as the prototypical "jazz guitar." Archtop guitars are steel-string acoustic guitar

Steel-string acoustic guitar

A steel-string acoustic guitar is a modern form of guitar descended from the classical guitar, but strung with steel strings for a brighter, louder sound...

s with a big soundbox, arched top, violin-style f-holes, a "floating bridge" and magnetic or piezoelectric pickups. Early makers of jazz guitars included Gibson

Gibson

Gibson may refer to:* Gibson Amphitheatre* Gibson Appliance* Gibson Girl* Gibson Guitar Corporation* Gibson * Gibson Generating Station-Places:In the United States:* Gibson, Arkansas* Gibson, Georgia* Gibson, Iowa* Gibson, Louisiana...

, Epiphone

Epiphone

The Epiphone Company is a musical instrument manufacturer founded in 1873 by Anastasios Stathopoulos. Epiphone was bought by Chicago Musical Instrument Company, which also owned Gibson Guitar Corporation, in 1957. Epiphone was Gibson's main rival in the archtop market...

, D'Angelico and Stromberg.

The earliest jazz guitars used in were acoustic, later superseded by a typical electric configuration of two humbucking pickups

Humbucker

A humbucker is a type of electric guitar pickup, first patented by Seth Lover and the Gibson company, that uses two coils, both generating string signal. Humbuckers have higher output than a single coil pickup since both coils are connected in series...

. In the 1990s, there was a resurgence of interest among jazz guitarists in acoustic archtop guitars with floating pickups.

The original acoustic archtop guitars were designed to enhance volume: for that reason they were constructed for use with relatively heavy guitar strings. Even after electrification became the norm, jazz guitarists continued to fit strings of 0.012" gauge or heavier for reasons of tone, and also prefer flatwound strings.

The characteristic arched top can be made of a solid piece of wood that is carved into the arched shape, or a piece of laminated wood (essentially a type of plywood) that is pressed into shape. Spruce

Spruce

A spruce is a tree of the genus Picea , a genus of about 35 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the Family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal regions of the earth. Spruces are large trees, from tall when mature, and can be distinguished by their whorled branches and conical...

is often used for tops, and maple

Maple

Acer is a genus of trees or shrubs commonly known as maple.Maples are variously classified in a family of their own, the Aceraceae, or together with the Hippocastanaceae included in the family Sapindaceae. Modern classifications, including the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group system, favour inclusion in...

for backs.

Archtop guitars can be mass produced, such as the Ibanez Artcore series

Ibanez Artcore Series

The Ibanez Artcore series is Ibanez's line of semi and full hollowbody electric guitars.-Background and press:The first Ibanez Artcore models were released by Ibanez in mid-2002 whose goal was to offer an affordable range of full-hollow and semi-hollow body guitars that appealed to entry level...

, or handmade by luthier

Luthier

A luthier is someone who makes or repairs lutes and other string instruments. In the United States, the term is used interchangeably with a term for the specialty of each maker, such as violinmaker, guitar maker, lute maker, etc...

s such as Robert Benedetto

Robert Benedetto

Robert Benedetto is an American luthier. He is best known for founding Benedetto Guitars, Inc. which makes hand-carved archtop guitars. Before the company became a division of Fender Musical Instruments Corporation, Benedetto made each guitar himself...

Other guitars

The Selmer-Maccaferri guitar
Selmer-Maccaferri Guitar
The Selmer Guitar is an unusual acoustic guitar best known as the favored instrument of Django Reinhardt...

is strongly associated with Django Reinhardt
Django Reinhardt
Django Reinhardt was a pioneering virtuoso jazz guitarist and composer who invented an entirely new style of jazz guitar technique that has since become a living musical tradition within French gypsy culture...

and gypsy swing.
The resonator guitar
Resonator guitar
A resonator guitar or resophonic guitar is an acoustic guitar whose sound is produced by one or more spun metal cones instead of the wooden sound board . Resonator guitars were originally designed to be louder than conventional acoustic guitars which were overwhelmed by horns and percussion...

was used (but not exclusively) by Oscar Aleman
Oscar Aleman
Oscar Marcelo Alemán was an Argentine jazz guitarist.He was a singer, dancer, entertainer, and guitarist...

.
Nylon string guitars are associated with Latin jazz
Latin jazz
Latin jazz is the general term given to jazz with Latin American rhythms.The three main categories of Latin Jazz are Brazilian, Cuban and Puerto Rican:# Brazilian Latin Jazz includes bossa nova...

, for instance in the work of Charlie Byrd
Charlie Byrd
Charlie Lee Byrd was a famous and versatile American guitarist born in Suffolk, Virginia. His earliest and strongest musical influence was Django Reinhardt, the famous gypsy guitarist. Byrd became the American guitarist who best understood and played Brazilian music, especially the Bossa Nova genre...

and Laurindo Almeida
Laurindo Almeida
Laurindo Almeida was a Brazilian virtuoso guitaristand composer who made many recordings of enduring impact in classical, jazz and Latin genres...

.
Flat-top steel-string guitars (particularly Ovation guitar
Ovation Guitar
The Ovation Guitar Company, a holding of Kaman Music Corporation, is a guitar manufacturing company based in New Hartford, Connecticut, USA. Ovation primarily manufactures Steel-stringed acoustic guitars....

s) have been used in the "acoustic shredding
Shred guitar
Shred guitar or shredding is lead electric guitar playing that relies heavily on fast guitar solos. While some critics argue that shred guitar is associated with "... sweep-picked arpeggios, diminished and harmonic minor scales, finger-tapping and ... whammy-bar abuse", several guitar...

" of John McLaughlin
John McLaughlin (musician)
John McLaughlin , also known as Mahavishnu John McLaughlin, is an English guitarist, bandleader and composer...

, Larry Coryell
Larry Coryell
Larry Coryell is an American jazz fusion guitarist.-Biography:Coryell was born in Galveston, Texas. He graduated from Richland High School, in Richland, Washington, where he played in local bands The Jailers, The Rumblers, The Royals, and The Flames. He also played with The Checkers from nearby...

and Al di Meola
Al Di Meola
Al Di Meola is an acclaimed American jazz fusion and Latin guitarist, composer, and record producer of Italian origin. With a musical career that has spanned more than three decades, he has become respected as one of the most influential guitarists in jazz to date...

.
Solid-body electric guitar
Electric guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...

s have been used in Jazz-rock, for instance by Bill Frisell
Bill Frisell
William Richard "Bill" Frisell is an American guitarist and composer.One of the leading guitarists in jazz since the late 1980s, Frisell's eclectic music touches on progressive folk, classical music, country music, noise and more...

and Stanley Jordan
Stanley Jordan
Stanley Jordan is an American jazz/jazz fusion guitarist and pianist, best known for his development of the tapping technique for the guitar....

. The telecaster in particular has a jazz following, eg.Ed Bickert
Ed Bickert
Edward Isaac "Ed" Bickert, CM is a Canadian jazz guitarist.-Early life:Second youngest of his family, Bickert was born in Hochfeld, Manitoba; his family moved shortly after he was born to Vernon, British Columbia...

and Ted Greene
Ted Greene
Theodore "Ted" Greene was an American fingerstyle jazz guitarist, music columnist, and music educator active in Encino, California.-Early Days:...

.
Synthesizer guitars in jazz-rock and avant-garde jazz, e.g. by Allan Holdsworth
Allan Holdsworth
Allan Holdsworth is an English guitarist and composer. He has released twelve studio albums as a solo artist and played many different styles of music over a period of four decades, but first drew attention for his work in jazz fusion...

and Pat Metheny
Pat Metheny
Patrick Bruce "Pat" Metheny is an American jazz guitarist and composer.One of the most successful and critically acclaimed jazz musicians to come to prominence in the 1970s and '80s, he is the leader of the Pat Metheny Group and is also involved in duets, solo works and other side projects...

.
Seven string guitar w low As by George van Eps
George Van Eps
George Van Eps was an American swing and Mainstream jazz guitarist noted both for his recordings as a leader, and for his work as a session musician. He was also the author of instructional books that explored his approach to guitar-based harmony...

, Bucky Pizzarelli
Bucky Pizzarelli
John Paul "Bucky" Pizzarelli is an American Jazz guitarist and banjoist, and the father of jazz guitarist John Pizzarelli and upright bassist Martin Pizzarelli. Pizzarelli has also worked for NBC as a staffman for Dick Cavett and also ABC with Bobby Rosengarden in...

and Howard Alden
Howard Alden
Howard Alden is an American jazz guitarist born in Newport Beach, California. He has recorded a long series of albums for Concord Records. His performances were dubbed over Sean Penn as 'Emmet Ray' in the 1999 Woody Allen film Sweet and Lowdown...

.
Seven string guitar w high As by Lenny Breau
Lenny Breau
Leonard Harold "Lenny" Breau was a musician, guitar player, and music educator. He was known for blending many styles of music including: jazz, country, classical and flamenco guitar...

.

Rhythm

Jazz rhythm guitar often consists of very textural, odd-meter playing that includes generous use of exotic, difficult to fret chords. In 4/4 timing, it is common to play 2.5 beat intervals such as on the 2 and then the half beat or "and" after 4. The chords are typically derived from the 7th tone of its corresponding scale (see Seventh chord

Seventh chord

A seventh chord is a chord consisting of a triad plus a note forming an interval of a seventh above the chord's root. When not otherwise specified, a "seventh chord" usually means a major triad with an added minor seventh...

)and can consist of ii-V-i progressions or improvisational comping.

Harmony

Jazz guitarists use their knowledge of harmony

Harmony

In music, harmony is the use of simultaneous pitches , or chords. The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Harmony is often said to refer to the "vertical" aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic...

and jazz theory to create jazz chord "voicings," which emphasize the 3rd and 7th notes of the chord. Some more sophisticated chord voicings also include the 9th, 11th, and 13th notes of the chord. In some modern jazz styles, dominant 7th chords in a tune may contain altered 9ths (either flattened by a semitone, which is called a "flat 9th", or sharpened by a semitone, which is called a "sharp 9th"); 11ths (sharpened by a semitone, which is called a "sharp 11th"); 13ths (typically flattened by a semitone, which is called a "flat 13th").

Jazz guitarists need to learn about a range of different chords, including major 7th, major 6th, minor 7th

Minor 7th

Minor 7th is an online magazine that reviews non-mainstream acoustic guitar music. It was founded in November 1999 by Alan Fark, who claims to have created the magazine with the goal of "enabling independent or under-recognized acoustic guitarists to receive more wide-spread publicity." The website...

, minor/major 7th, dominant 7th, diminished

Diminished seventh chord

A diminished seventh chord is a four note chord that comprises a diminished triad plus the interval of a diminished seventh above the root. Thus it is , or enharmonically , of any major scale; for example, C diminished-seventh would be , or enharmonically...

, half-diminished

Half-diminished seventh chord

In music theory, the half-diminished seventh chord is created by taking the root, minor third, diminished fifth and minor seventh of any major scale; for example, C half-diminished is . Its consecutive intervals are minor 3rd, minor 3rd, major 3rd...

, and augmented chords. As well, they need to learn about chord transformations (e.g., altered chords, such as "alt dominant chords" described above), chord substitution

Chord substitution

In music theory, chord substitution is the use of a chord in the place of another related chord in a chord progression. Jazz musicians often substitute chords in the original progression to create variety and add interest to a piece. The substitute chord must have some harmonic quality and degree...

s, and re-harmonization techniques. Some jazz guitarists use their knowledge of jazz scales and chords to provide a walking bass-style accompaniment.

Jazz guitarists learn to perform these chords over the range of different chord progression

Chord progression

A chord progression is a series of musical chords, or chord changes that "aims for a definite goal" of establishing a tonality founded on a key, root or tonic chord. In other words, the succession of root relationships...

s used in jazz, such as the II-V-I progression, the jazz-style blues progression, the minor jazz-style blues form, the "rhythm changes

Rhythm changes

In jazz and jazz harmony, "rhythm changes" refers to the chord progression occurring in George Gershwin's song "I Got Rhythm". This pattern, which forms the basis of countless jazz compositions, was popular with swing-era musicians: It is found in "Shoeshine Boy" and "Cotton Tail" written by...

" progression, and the variety of chord progressions used in jazz ballads, and jazz standard

Jazz standard

Jazz standards are musical compositions which are an important part of the musical repertoire of jazz musicians, in that they are widely known, performed, and recorded by jazz musicians, and widely known by listeners. There is no definitive list of jazz standards, and the list of songs deemed to be...

s. Guitarists may also learn to use the chord types, strumming styles, and effects pedals (e.g., chorus effect

Chorus effect

In music, a chorus effect occurs when individual sounds with roughly the same timbre and nearly the same pitch converge and are perceived as one...

or fuzzbox) used in 1970s-era jazz-Latin, jazz-funk, and jazz-rock fusion music.

Melody

Jazz guitarists integrate the basic building blocks of scales and arpeggio patterns into balanced rhythmic and melodic phrases that make up a cohesive solo. Jazz guitarists often try to imbue their melodic phrasing with the sense of natural breathing and legato phrasing used by horn players such as saxophone players. As well, a jazz guitarists' solo improvisations have to have a rhythmic drive and "timefeel" that creates a sense of "swing" and "groove." The most experienced jazz guitarists learn to play with different "timefeels" such as playing "ahead of the beat" or "behind the beat," to create or release tension.

Another aspect of the jazz guitar style is the use of stylistically appropriate ornaments, such as grace notes, slides, and muted notes. Each sub-genre or era of jazz has different ornaments that are part of the style of that sub-genre or era. Jazz guitarists usually learn the appropriate ornamenting styles by listening to prominent recordings from a given style or jazz era. Some jazz guitarists also borrow ornamentation techniques from other jazz instruments, such as Wes Montgomery

Wes Montgomery

's borrowing of playing melodies in parallel octaves, which is a jazz piano technique. Jazz guitarists also have to learn how to add in passing tones, use "guide tones" and chord tones from the chord progression to structure their improvisations.

In the 1970s and 1980s, with jazz-rock fusion guitar playing, jazz guitarists incorporated rock guitar solo

Guitar solo

In popular music, a guitar solo is a melodic passage, section, or entire piece of music written for an electric guitar or an acoustic guitar. Guitar solos, which often contain varying degrees of improvisation, are used in many styles of popular music such as blues, jazz, rock and metal styles such...

ing approaches, such as riff

RIFF

The Resource Interchange File Format is a generic file container format for storing data in tagged chunks. It is primarily used to store multimedia such as sound and video, though it may also be used to store any arbitrary data....

-based soloing and usage of pentatonic and blues scale

Blues scale

The term blues scale is used to describe a few scales with differing numbers of pitches and related characteristics. See: blues.The hexatonic, or six note, blues scale consists of the minor pentatonic scale plus the 4th or 5th degree...

patterns. Some guitarists used Jimi Hendrix

Jimi Hendrix

James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...

-influenced distortion and wah-wah effects to get a sustained, heavy tone, or even used rapid-fire guitar shredding techniques, such as tapping

Tapping

Tapping is a guitar playing technique, where a string is fretted and set into vibration as part of a single motion of being pushed onto the fretboard, as opposed to the standard technique being fretted with one hand and picked with the other...

and tremolo bar bending. Guitarist Al Di Meola

Al Di Meola

, who started his career with Return to Forever

Return to Forever

Return to Forever is a jazz fusion group founded and led by keyboardist Chick Corea. Through its existence, the band has cycled through a number of different members, with the only consistent band mate of Corea's being bassist Stanley Clarke...

in 1974, was one of the first guitarists to perform in a "shred

Shred guitar

Shred guitar or shredding is lead electric guitar playing that relies heavily on fast guitar solos. While some critics argue that shred guitar is associated with "... sweep-picked arpeggios, diminished and harmonic minor scales, finger-tapping and ... whammy-bar abuse", several guitar...

" style, a technique later used in rock and heavy metal playing. Di Meola used alternate-picking to perform very rapid sequences of notes in his solos.

Improvisation

When jazz guitar players improvise

Improvisation

Improvisation is the practice of acting, singing, talking and reacting, of making and creating, in the moment and in response to the stimulus of one's immediate environment and inner feelings. This can result in the invention of new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols, and/or...

, they use the scales, modes, and arpeggios associated with the chords in a tune's chord progression. The approach to improvising has changed since the earliest eras of jazz guitar. During the Swing era, many soloists improvised "by ear" by embellishing the melody with ornaments and passing notes. However, during the bebop era, the rapid tempo and complicated chord progressions made it increasingly harder to play "by ear." Along with other improvisers, such as saxes and piano players, bebop-era jazz guitarists began to improvise over the chord changes using scales (whole tone scale, chromatic scale, etc.) and arpeggios. Jazz guitar players tend to improvise around chord/scale relationships, rather than reworking the melody, possibly due to their familiarity with chords resulting from their comping role. A source of melodic ideas for improvisation is transcribing improvised solos from recordings. This provides jazz guitarists with a source of "licks", melodic phrases and ideas they incorporate either intact or in variations, and is an established way of learning from the previous generations of players.

Big band rhythm

In jazz big band

Big band

s, popular during the 30s and 40s, the guitarist is considered an integral part of the rhythm section (guitar, drum

Drum

The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments, which is technically classified as the membranophones. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with the player's hands, or with a...

s and bass

Double bass

The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...

). They usually played a regular four chords to the bar, although an amount of harmonic improvisation is possible. Freddie Green

Freddie Green

, guitarist in the Count Basie

Count Basie

William "Count" Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. Basie led his jazz orchestra almost continuously for nearly 50 years...

orchestra, was a noted exponent this style. The harmonies are often minimal; for instance, the root note

Root (chord)

In music theory, the root of a chord is the note or pitch upon which a triadic chord is built. For example, the root of the major triad C-E-G is C....

is often omitted on the assumption that it will be supplied by the bassist.

Small group comping

When jazz guitarists play chords underneath a song's melody or another musician's solo improvisations, it is called "comping

Comping

Comping is a term used in jazz music to describe the chords, rhythms, and countermelodies that keyboard players or guitar players use to support a jazz musician's improvised solo or melody lines....

", short for "accompanying" The accompanying style in most jazz styles differs from the way chordal instruments accompany in many popular styles of music. In many popular styles of music, such as rock and pop, the rhythm guitar

Rhythm guitar

Rhythm guitar is a technique and rôle that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with singers or other instruments; and to provide all or part of the harmony, ie. the chords, where a chord is a group of notes played together...

ist usually performs the chords in rhythmic fashion which sets out the beat or groove of a tune. In contrast, in many modern jazz styles within smaller, the guitarist plays much more sparsely, intermingling periodic chords and delicate voicings into pauses in the melody or solo, and using periods of silence. Jazz guitarists commonly use a wide variety of inversions

Inversion (music)

In music theory, the word inversion has several meanings. There are inverted chords, inverted melodies, inverted intervals, and inverted voices...

when comping, rather than only using standard voicings.

Chord-melody and unaccompanied soloing

In this style, the guitarist aims to render an entire song — harmony, melody and bass — in something like the way a classical guitar

Classical guitar

The classical guitar is a 6-stringed plucked string instrument from the family of instruments called chordophones...

ist or pianist

Pianist

A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...

can. Chord roots cannot be left to the bassist in this style. Chords themselves can be used sparsely or more densely, depending on both the individual player and his or her arrangement of a particular piece. In the sparse style, a full chord is often played only at the beginning of a melodic phrase. The denser chordal textures, in contrast, approach chord soloing (see below). A third approach is to maintain a steady, busy bass-line, like a New Orleans pianist. Here, no more than two or three notes are played at a time, and the full harmony is indicated by arpeggiation. Exponents of this style often come from a country

Country music

Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

, folk

Folk music

Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

or ragtime

Ragtime

Ragtime is an original musical genre which enjoyed its peak popularity between 1897 and 1918. Its main characteristic trait is its syncopated, or "ragged," rhythm. It began as dance music in the red-light districts of American cities such as St. Louis and New Orleans years before being published...

background, such as Chet Atkins

Chet Atkins

Chester Burton Atkins , known as Chet Atkins, was an American guitarist and record producer who, along with Owen Bradley, created the smoother country music style known as the Nashville sound, which expanded country's appeal to adult pop music fans as well.Atkins's picking style, inspired by Merle...

,although it is also sometimes employed by straight-ahead jazz

Straight-ahead jazz

Straight-ahead jazz is a term used to refer to a widely accepted style of jazz music playing that can be thought of as roughly encompassing the period between bebop and the 1960s styles of Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock...

practitioners, for instance Martin Taylor. Chord-melody is often played with a plectrum

Plectrum

A plectrum is a small flat tool used to pluck or strum a stringed instrument. For hand-held instruments such as guitars and mandolins, the plectrum is often called a pick, and is a separate tool held in the player's hand...

(see Tal Farlow

Tal Farlow

, George Benson

George Benson

George Benson is a ten Grammy Award winning American musician, whose production career began at the age of twenty-one as a jazz guitarist....

and others); whereas fingerstyle, as practised by Joe Pass

Joe Pass

Joe Pass was an Italian-American jazz guitarist of Sicilian descent. He is generally considered to be one of the greatest jazz guitarists of the 20th century...

, George van Eps

George Van Eps

George Van Eps was an American swing and Mainstream jazz guitarist noted both for his recordings as a leader, and for his work as a session musician. He was also the author of instructional books that explored his approach to guitar-based harmony...

, Ted Greene

Ted Greene

Theodore "Ted" Greene was an American fingerstyle jazz guitarist, music columnist, and music educator active in Encino, California.-Early Days:...

, Lenny Breau

Lenny Breau

Leonard Harold "Lenny" Breau was a musician, guitar player, and music educator. He was known for blending many styles of music including: jazz, country, classical and flamenco guitar...

or hybrid picking

Hybrid picking

Hybrid picking is a guitar-playing technique that involves picking with a pick and one or more fingers alternately or simultaneously. Hybrid picking allows guitar players who use a pick to perform music which would normally require fingerstyle playing. It also facilitates wide string leaps Hybrid...

as practised by Ed Bickert

Ed Bickert

Edward Isaac "Ed" Bickert, CM is a Canadian jazz guitarist.-Early life:Second youngest of his family, Bickert was born in Hochfeld, Manitoba; his family moved shortly after he was born to Vernon, British Columbia...

and others allows for a more complex, polyphonic approach to unaccompanied soloing.

"Blowing" or single-note soloing

Charlie Christian

and Django Reinhardt

Django Reinhardt

are generally held to have initiated the use of the guitar to play melodies and improvisations over other instruments, the former using an early form of amplification, the latter playing forcefully on an acoustic guitar. Over the years, jazz guitarists have been able to solo in standard jazz idioms, such as bebop

Bebop

, cool jazz

Cool jazz

Cool is a style of modern jazz music that arose following the Second World War. It is characterized by its relaxed tempos and lighter tone, in contrast to the bebop style that preceded it...

and so on, while in also absorbing influences from rock guitarists, such as the use of electronic effects.

Chord soloing

Jazz guitar soloists are not limited to playing single notes by their instrument, allowing them to create "chord solos" by adding indicating a melody using the top note of their chord voicings. According to the skill and taste of the player, the melody, harmony or both may be an improvisation on the song. Wes Montgomery

Wes Montgomery

was noted for playing successive choruses in single notes, then octaves and finally a chord solo. This technique can be also be incorporated into unaccompanied soloing: for instance, it features in Django Reinhardt

Django Reinhardt

's "improvisations", as he called his solo pieces.

1900-mid-1930s

Late 1930s-1960s

1970s

1980s-2000s

Archtop guitars

Other guitars

Rhythm

Harmony

Melody

Improvisation

Big band rhythm

Small group comping

Chord-melody and unaccompanied soloing

"Blowing" or single-note soloing

Chord soloing

See also

Further reading