Jazz Guitar

Yosuke Omuma - Summer Madness (Sony SACD?/CD), contemporary and excellent sound quality recording.

Yosuke Onuma - Summer Madness (Sony SACD?/CD), contemporary and excellent sound quality recording.

I love it when Duane goes off like that! (Mostly 'cause I've never heard of more than half the people he mentions...)

The above responses cover most of the available territory (except I don't think anyone said Jim Hall), so I'll just toss in an iconoclastic statement for the hell of it: I'm a guitar player, though I'm nowhere near good enough to really play jazz. But, with a few exceptions that might 'prove the rule' as they say (Django, Wes), IMO the guitar is essentially an inferior solo instrument for jazz in most respects. I mean this as compared to horns and piano.

Don't get me wrong - I like and listen to plenty of jazz guitar, being a guitar player myself and a jazz lover generally. But I don't think that the guitar is as expressive or unlimited a single-note solo instrument as are horns, nor is it as versatile or complete a chordal-solo instrument as is the piano. I also think the guitar is compromised by its shortcomings as an acoustic instrument (sustain, volume) in the context of trap sets and horns, where its inability to compete has meant a practical resort to electrification which doesn't always suit the pre-fusion music I like best.

I find even the most enjoyable and virturostic jazz guitarists not to be as emotionally expressive soloists - not to *say* as much - within the traditional swing and bop contexts compared to horns or piano, and I'm not a big fan of the post-rock electric jazz to which the electric guitar is naturally better suited (that means I don't prefer electric bass or keys either). I don't mind the acoustic guitar as a rhythm section instrument, its traditional role, and one it still fills fairly well in electrified form but for its incongruousness within an otherwise all-acoustic group setting. And I do like the sound of the standard electric hollowbody archtop through a small amp that graced so many recordings of the 50's and 60's (as long as it's not excessively compressed), but only infrequently do I find the music played through this setup rises to the level of artistic profundity horns and piano are more often capable of evincing. (I could also say the same about most Hammond organ jazz, the format a lot of electric jazz guitar has been featured in.)

Electric guitar is of course wonderfully well-suited to playing city blues and rock and roll. In straight-ahead jazz, if one wants to avoid cliches, mere mechanical virtuosity, or simply sticking close by blues roots, one of the most productive approaches seems to be downplaying the instrument's shortcomings in sustain, volume, and flexibility of single-note line, by turning them into strengths rooted its Spanish and fingerpicked heritage as a polyphonic supporting instrument capable of subtleties of touch, tone, pitch, and percussive effect different from what can be accomplished on the piano.

Zaikesman - interesting commentary. I don't wish to challenge anything you say, however I find that some artists are capable of providing a sound much more embodied than typical. Although probably not considered mainstream or traditional 'jazz' guitarists, Tuck Andress and Michael Hedges are very percussive in their playing and certainly provide a more embodied sound in their solo endeavors. As a guitarist myself, I am often fascinated by the fact that they are playing solo and recording a single track at times. You mention the Hammond organ as well. Jimmy Smith simultaneously utilized his foot pedals to perform bass lines that sounded as if there were a standup player jamming next to him. In short, artists that are/were capable of providing huge sound when soloing.

Slothman: I am a Jimmy Smith fan, though I don't think for a minute that as a soloist, he is an artist on the level of expressiveness of the best-loved horn or even piano players. Andress and Hedges are certainly identifiable and accomplished guitarists, though neither (and particularly Hedges, especially from a sonic standpoint) makes music that is my cup of tea aesthetically. But personal preferences aside, I concede what I think is your main point - that the guitar is an instrument which, in the right hands, can combine elements of single-note melody with both chordal and contrapuntal accompaniment to make a panoramic and rhythmic whole. The primary thrust of my comments was that there are reasons related to the instrument itself why jazz guitarists are not, as a catagory, thought of in quite the same high artistic regard or stylistic significance as horn and piano players.