Best Jazz Guitarist's Tones

[P.J.]

Bill Frisell - especially volume pedal/SG Bill
Ben Monder
John Abercrombie
Jimmy Raney
Johnny Smith
Barney Kessel
Bill Connors
bazillions of others

[jazzkenny]

Kenny Burrell
René Thomas
Barney Kessel
Jimmy Raney
Doug Raney
Jim Hall
And...others !

[Christian Miller]

I’ve really been digging Adam Rogers tone on the album ‘R&B’

[AllanAllen]

this mix of clean lead with overdriven rhythm.

[citizenk74]

1. jim hall with his daquisto

towner
wes



also. anthony wilson and petter bernstein have very good round solid sound, but not as nuanced as jims

[rpjazzguitar]

Wes
Jim Hall
Django (so expressive)

Joe Beck
This forum's own, Reg (he gets a great sound)
Larry Carleton

And, players, not necessarily jazz, whose equipment I coveted at different times:

Carlos Santana
Mark Knopfler
A friend of mine who played an Eric Johnson Strat through a Victoria amp.
Players on smooth jazz radio whose names I don't know.

[P.J.]

• Bridge pickup/volume pedal/SG playing Bill Frisell
• John Abercrombie - One of the few guitar synth players I could stand.
• Jimmy Raney
• Johnny Smith
• Ed Bickert
• Ben Monder
• Tim Miller
• Later Sonny Sharrock

[Alter]

I love this guy's both tone and playing!

[mr. beaumont]

I love this guy's both tone and playing!

Agreed, absolutely top notch on both fronts.

[Paulie2]

For me "classic" jazz tone cannot be better than KB on Midnight Blue:

Warm, clear, dynamic, articulate. Just perfection.

[Marcel_A]

Richie Blackmore on made in Japan

[itsmyname]

Richie Blackmore on made in Japan

[Marcel_A]

More serious: Pat Metheny on still life talking.

[uschmidtguitar]

Hmm... this is a tough one, so many good tones out there, I would say:


Jimmy Raney
Peter Bernstein
Jesse Van Ruller
Grant Green
Lage Lund
Mike Moreno
Vic Juris


but I probably will have a different answer tomorrow

[Litterick]

Mary Halvorson.

[RayS]

All the ones mentioned so far and this guy from right here on JGBe :

Ray

[radioarc]

same here... especially that time period when he was produced by Rudy Van Gelder and used the Tweed Deluxe that the studio provided. My favorite jazz tone.

[jumpnblues]

Kenny Burrell. Especially his later albums.

Herb Ellis on the live album ("Tenderly") with Oscar Peterson. Beautiful, rich, tone.

Many others...Barney, Johnny, Joe, George (Benson and Pass) to name a few more.

[WarmTubeTone]

I love this video. One day I will see him live. This is my vote... plus all the usual suspects.

[SOLR]

I love this video. One day I will see him live. This is my vote... plus all the usual suspects.

This was quite good , I had never heard Barry in a tune/band playing context, only through his online lessons and yes excellent playing and tone, great trio too .

Thx for posting

S

[jcbgtr]

Some tones I like

- Jimmy Raney on his ES150
- pretty much all Jim Hall but less so his stuff post-1970s
- Wes on Incredible Jazz
- Kurt in the 2000s/early 2010s, check out Jakob Dinesen's recording of 26-2 for a perfect example
- pretty much all Frisell but especially Monk in Motian
- Ben Monder
- Adam Rogers on Time and the Infinite
- Mike Moreno on 3 for 3
- Krantz on 2 drink minimum
- Johnny Smith
- Jesse Van Ruller
- Kenny Burrell on his record with Trane
- Ted Greene

I could go on and on and on and on

[Bob_Ross]

Bridge pickup/volume pedal/SG playing Bill Frisell

We can hang.

(...although didn't Bill's SG only have one pickup? so can you still call it a "bridge pickup"?)


Also:
- Pat Martino
- Wes Montgomery
- George Benson
- Joe Pass
...and pretty much any of the other guys who could get that "pop" on the attack when playing an archtop instrument.

Plus, two outliers:
- James Emery, for his totally acoustic unplugged sound
- David Torn, when he was playing a Steinberger GL-2T through a Pearce rig

[jameslovestal]

We can hang.

(...although didn't Bill's SG only have one pickup? so can you still call it a "bridge pickup"?)


Also:
- Pat Martino
- Wes Montgomery
- George Benson
- Joe Pass
...and pretty much any of the other guys who could get that "pop" on the attack when playing an archtop instrument.

Plus, two outliers:
- James Emery, for his totally acoustic unplugged sound
- David Torn, when he was playing a Steinberger GL-2T through a Pierce rig

For "pop" (I call it snap), check out Cal Collins.

[StormyMonday]

New here (had an old login years ago) but I'd suggest a few songs for tone:

Kenny Burrell - Tin Tin Deo
Pat Martino - Fall (from Starbright on that Koontz guitar!)
George Benson - Body Talk
Julian Lage - Lil Darlin'

Those are the traditional ones, of course some gorgeous stuff has been played on Teles too!

[Bob_Ross]

Mary Halvorson.

So, while I have known Mary's name for half a dozen years or so -- and therefore I know that she can be a very polarizing artist, especially in the eyes of other jazz guitarists -- I only heard her for the very first time last night, watching a youtube video of her dueting with Bill Frisell filmed at Roulette.

I'm not gonna dwell on all those polarizing aspects of her playing (insert smiley emoji), and in a thread about Best Tones I'm gonna do the unthinkable and say I'm also not gonna dwell on all the tone-shaping-via-stompboxes she used in that video.

But if you ignored all the signal processing (more smiley emojis) there were moments when she would play a sparse, unadorned chord or arpeggio and the sound of her Guild Artist Award -- which btw was plugged into a blackface Fender Twin, but also close-mic'd with a Neumann TLM-170i -- was just sublime.

It made me realize that archetypal "Jazz Guitar Tone" doesn't have to be achieved with flatwound strings; (I think) she was using roundwounds, and so there was a bit of that big ol' Gibson Jumbo J-200 acoustic thing going on, crisp without being bright, articulate, three-dimensional. It was almost a revelation to me. Just a gorgeous, big-but-intimate tone. I could easily imagine that exact tone working well for traditional jazz...and a lot of other styles as well. I'd rock it.