The Greatest Jazz Guitarists: 15 Players Who Shaped Jazz Guitar

These are 15 jazz guitarists who changed what the guitar can do in jazz, listed by year of birth from Django Reinhardt (born 1910) to Julian Lage (born 1987), each with the records to start with. The selection rests on influence and recordings, not fame. If you want one name for the greatest, three have the strongest claim: Reinhardt showed in the 1930s that a guitarist could lead a jazz group, Charlie Christian made the electric guitar a solo instrument, and Wes Montgomery won the DownBeat Critics’ Poll for guitar six times in the 1960s.

The 15 Greatest Jazz Guitarists in Order of Birth

1. Django Reinhardt (1910-1953)

Reinhardt was a Romani guitarist born in Belgium who made his career in France. In 1928 a fire in his caravan wagon badly burned the ring and little fingers of his left hand, and he retaught himself to solo with two fingers, using the injured ones only for chords. In 1934 he and violinist Stéphane Grappelli formed the Quintette du Hot Club de France in Paris, an all-string band and one of the first to feature the guitar as a lead instrument. His tunes “Minor Swing” and “Nuages” are gypsy jazz standards, and Wes Montgomery and Charlie Byrd were among the Americans he influenced.

Start with: “Nuages” (1940) and Djangology, from his 1949 sessions with Grappelli in Rome.

2. Charlie Christian (1916-1942)

Christian grew up in Oklahoma City and was playing electric guitar by 1936. John Hammond recommended him to Benny Goodman, and from 1939 to 1941 he played in Goodman’s sextet and orchestra. The Gibson ES-150 is the guitar model most associated with him. His long single-note lines took the guitar out of the rhythm section and made it a solo voice. After hours he jammed at Minton’s Playhouse in Harlem, where bebop was taking shape. He died of tuberculosis in 1942, aged 25.

Start with: Solo Flight: The Genius of Charlie Christian (Columbia, 1972), mostly his sides with Goodman.

3. Tal Farlow (1921-1998)

Farlow, from Greensboro, North Carolina, taught himself guitar, starting at 22; his only professional training was as an apprentice sign painter. He came to attention in 1949 in a trio with vibraphonist Red Norvo and bassist Charles Mingus. He combined speed with an enormous reach, and used artificial harmonics and tapped the guitar’s body for percussion; the historian Stuart Nicholson, in The Wire in 1990, compared his guitar prowess to “Roger Bannister breaking the four-minute mile.” After marrying in 1958 he partly retired to Sea Bright, New Jersey, painting signs again, and returned to regular recording in 1976.

Start with: The Tal Farlow Album (Norgran, 1954).

4. Wes Montgomery (1923-1968)

Montgomery was a welder in Indianapolis when a Charlie Christian record made him take up the guitar at 19; he learned largely by copying Christian’s solos, and Lionel Hampton hired him in 1948. He plucked with the side of his thumb, so he could practice at night without disturbing his neighbors and children, and often built a solo in three stages: single notes, then octaves, then block chords. He won the DownBeat Critics’ Poll for guitar in 1960-63, 1966 and 1967. At Verve he turned to pop instrumentals and won two Grammys, the second after his death from a heart attack in 1968, at 45.

Start with: The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery (Riverside, 1960), in the National Recording Registry since 2017, and Smokin’ at the Half Note (Verve, 1965).

5. Joe Pass (1929-1994)

Pass, born Joseph Passalacqua in New Brunswick, New Jersey, lost much of the 1950s to heroin addiction and prison. He recovered in the Synanon program, and his debut album, Sounds of Synanon (Pacific Jazz, 1962), is named after it. Norman Granz signed him to Pablo in 1973, and the solo album Virtuoso showed one guitar carrying melody, chords and bass lines at once. The Trio, with pianist Oscar Peterson and bassist Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, won the Grammy for Best Jazz Performance by a Group in 1975, and he made six albums with Ella Fitzgerald.

Start with: Virtuoso (Pablo, recorded 1973) and Take Love Easy (1973) with Fitzgerald.

6. Jim Hall (1930-2013)

Hall was born in Buffalo, New York, grew up in Cleveland and made his name in two cool jazz groups with unusual line-ups: Chico Hamilton’s quintet and the Jimmy Giuffre 3, which had no piano or drums. In New York he played on Sonny Rollins’s The Bridge (RCA Victor, 1962), made five albums with Bill Evans and later three duo albums with bassist Ron Carter. His tone was warm and lightly amplified, and he used silence as deliberately as notes. He influenced Pat Metheny, John Scofield and Bill Frisell, who studied with him at Berklee, and the National Endowment for the Arts named him a Jazz Master in 2004.

Start with: Undercurrent (United Artists, 1962), a duo with Bill Evans, and The Bridge.

7. Kenny Burrell (born 1931)

Burrell took up the guitar in Detroit at 12 after hearing Charlie Christian and debuted on record in 1951 with Dizzy Gillespie’s sextet. He moved to New York in 1956, recorded his first album as leader for Blue Note within months and from 1957 to 1959 held Christian’s old chair in Benny Goodman’s band. He recorded with John Coltrane, Gil Evans and organist Jimmy Smith, and Duke Ellington called him his favorite guitar player. He later directed the jazz studies program at UCLA and was named an NEA Jazz Master in 2005.

Start with: Midnight Blue (Blue Note, 1963), a hard bop session with Stanley Turrentine, and Guitar Forms (Verve, 1965) with Gil Evans.

8. Grant Green (1935-1979)

Green grew up in St. Louis, and besides Charlie Christian his models were horn players such as Charlie Parker and Lester Young: he played single-note lines like a saxophonist rather than chords. Lou Donaldson heard him in a St. Louis bar in 1959 and introduced him to Blue Note. From 1961 to 1965 Green appeared on more Blue Note albums, as leader or sideman, than anyone else, and in 1962 he was named Best New Star in the DownBeat Critics’ Poll. Wolf Marshall’s book Jazz Guitar Icons describes him as one of the most sampled guitarists. He died of a heart attack in 1979, aged 43.

Start with: Idle Moments (recorded 1963, released by Blue Note in 1965) with Joe Henderson and Bobby Hutcherson.

9. John McLaughlin (born 1942)

McLaughlin, from Doncaster, England, moved to the United States in 1969 to join Tony Williams’ Lifetime. He played on Miles Davis’s In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew, and in 1971 formed the Mahavishnu Orchestra, which set rock volume against complex time signatures and ideas from Indian classical music. In the mid-1970s he turned to acoustic guitar with Shakti, alongside violinist L. Shankar and tabla player Zakir Hussain. His solo on “Miles Beyond” won the 2018 Grammy for Best Improvised Jazz Solo, and Shakti’s This Moment won Best Global Music Album in 2024. His bands are covered in our list of the greatest jazz fusion artists.

Start with: The Inner Mounting Flame (Columbia, 1971) and the acoustic Friday Night in San Francisco (Columbia, 1981) with Al Di Meola and Paco de Lucía.

10. George Benson (born 1943)

Benson cut his first record at nine in Pittsburgh and learned straight-ahead jazz in organist Jack McDuff’s band before his first album as leader in 1964. Miles Davis used him on Miles in the Sky (1968), and at CTI he recorded with Freddie Hubbard and Stanley Turrentine. Then Breezin’ (Warner Bros., 1976) went to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and was certified triple platinum, and his vocal on “This Masquerade” won the Grammy for Record of the Year. He has won ten Grammys and was named an NEA Jazz Master in 2009.

Start with: Beyond the Blue Horizon (CTI, 1971), with Ron Carter and Jack DeJohnette, and Breezin’.

11. Pat Martino (1944-2021)

Martino, born Patrick Azzara in Philadelphia, turned professional at 15, worked with organists such as Jack McDuff and Jimmy Smith, and was influenced above all by Wes Montgomery. He made his first album as leader, El Hombre, for Prestige in 1967. In 1980 a brain hemorrhage and the surgery that followed left him with amnesia: he could not remember his career or how to play, and had to relearn the guitar completely. He did, and his Blue Note albums Live at Yoshi’s and Think Tank received Grammy nominations in 2002 and 2003.

Start with: El Hombre (Prestige, 1967) and Live at Yoshi’s (Blue Note, 2001).

12. Bill Frisell (born 1951)

Frisell was born in Baltimore, grew up near Denver and studied with Jim Hall at Berklee. When Pat Metheny could not make a session, he recommended Frisell to drummer Paul Motian for Psalm (1982), and Frisell became ECM’s house guitarist through the 1980s. He played in Motian’s groups until the drummer’s death in 2011 and in John Zorn’s Naked City. From Have a Little Faith (Nonesuch, 1992) and Nashville (1997) on, he folded country, folk and other American music into jazz. Unspeakable won the 2005 Grammy for Best Contemporary Jazz Album, and he released In My Dreams in 2026.

Start with: Lookout for Hope (ECM, 1988) and Nashville.

13. Pat Metheny (born 1954)

Metheny grew up in Lee’s Summit, Missouri, and names Wes Montgomery among his biggest influences. At 15 a DownBeat scholarship took him to a jazz camp where Attila Zoller mentored him and introduced him to Jim Hall. He taught at Berklee and joined Gary Burton’s band in 1974. His debut was a trio with Jaco Pastorius and Bob Moses, and the Pat Metheny Group ran from 1977 to 2010. He was among the first jazz guitarists to use the Roland GR-300 guitar synthesizer, plays a 42-string Pikasso guitar built by Linda Manzer, and has won 20 Grammys, the only person to win in ten categories. Side-Eye III+ came out in 2026.

Start with: Bright Size Life (ECM, 1976) and Jim Hall & Pat Metheny (Telarc, 1999).

14. Kurt Rosenwinkel (born 1970)

Rosenwinkel, from Philadelphia, left Berklee after two and a half years to tour with Gary Burton. In New York he played with Paul Motian’s Electric Bebop Band, Joe Henderson and the Brian Blade Fellowship, and in 1995 he won a composer’s award from the National Endowment for the Arts and signed with Verve. He has used a lapel microphone fed into his amplifier to blend his own vocalizing with the guitar line. Heartcore (Verve, 2003) was co-produced by Q-Tip, and in 2016 he started his own label, Heartcore Records.

Start with: The Next Step (Verve, 2001) and Heartcore.

15. Julian Lage (born 1987)

Lage, from Santa Rosa, California, was the subject of the 1996 short documentary Jules at Eight, played at the 2000 Grammy Awards at 12 and joined the faculty of the Stanford Jazz Workshop at 15. He recorded four albums with Gary Burton, and his debut, Sounding Point (EmArcy, 2009), was nominated for a Grammy. Since signing with Blue Note in 2021 he has released Squint, View with a Room (2022), with Bill Frisell on second guitar, Speak to Me (2024) and Scenes from Above (2026).

Start with: View with a Room and his solo acoustic album World’s Fair (2015).

More Jazz Guitarists Worth Hearing

Freddie Green (1911-1987) was the Count Basie Orchestra’s rhythm guitarist for about fifty years and is still the model for big-band comping, explained in our guide to jazz guitar chords. Barney Kessel (1923-2004) recorded with Charlie Parker in 1947 and made the Poll Winners albums with Ray Brown and Shelly Manne; Herb Ellis (1921-2010) replaced him in the Oscar Peterson Trio in 1953. Johnny Smith (1922-2013) recorded “Moonlight in Vermont” with Stan Getz and wrote “Walk, Don’t Run.” Jimmy Raney (1927-1995) followed Farlow in Red Norvo’s trio and won the DownBeat Critics’ Poll for guitar in 1954 and 1955. Charlie Byrd (1925-1999) played a nylon-string classical guitar and arranged Jazz Samba (1962) with Getz. John Scofield (born 1951) joined Miles Davis in 1982. For the instrument itself, see our guide to jazz guitar.

Modern Jazz Guitarists to Follow

Mary Halvorson (born 1980) won Best Guitar in DownBeat‘s International Critics Poll from 2017 to 2019 and received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2019. Peter Bernstein (born 1967) got an early break when Jim Hall hired him for the 1990 JVC Jazz Festival. Israeli-born Gilad Hekselman (born 1983) won the Gibson-Montreux Jazz Festival Guitar Competition in 2005, the year Norway’s Lage Lund (born 1977) won the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition. Pasquale Grasso (born 1988), a former teaching assistant to Barry Harris, won the Wes Montgomery International Jazz Guitar Competition in 2015 and plays bebop with a pianistic approach drawn from Bud Powell.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who are the best jazz guitarists playing today?

Julian Lage, Pat Metheny and Bill Frisell all released new albums in 2026, Kurt Rosenwinkel released an album in 2025, and John McLaughlin received two Grammy nominations in 2026. Among younger players, follow Mary Halvorson, Gilad Hekselman, Lage Lund and Pasquale Grasso.

Who are the best acoustic jazz guitarists?

Django Reinhardt played acoustic Selmer guitars from the mid-1930s. Charlie Byrd played fingerstyle on a nylon-string classical guitar; Jazz Samba, his 1962 album with Stan Getz, reached No. 1 on the Billboard pop albums chart. John McLaughlin played acoustic guitar in Shakti and in his trio with Al Di Meola and Paco de Lucía, and Julian Lage recorded the solo acoustic album World’s Fair (2015). Ralph Towner, who died in January 2026, played 12-string and classical guitar with the group Oregon.

What guitar did Wes Montgomery play?

A Gibson L-5 CES, the electric version of Gibson’s L-5 archtop, introduced in 1951. It is the guitar he holds in his 1960s Verve publicity photos, and Gibson later made a Wes Montgomery version of the L-5 with a single neck pickup. He played it with his thumb instead of a pick.