Renowned for his long collaboration with Fats Waller, Al Casey towers alongside the finest acoustic guitarists of the swing era, boasting a subtly powerful presence that flourished in intimate musical contexts. Born September 15, 1915, in Louisville, KY, Casey was a child prodigy who first adopted the violin, briefly moving to the ukulele before... [+] Read More

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When Bireli Lagrene first emerged in 1980 as a 13-year-old who sounded exactly like Django Reinhardt, he was considered a marvel. Born (like Reinhardt) to a gypsy family, he had been playing guitar since he was four. After a few years and several recordings, Lagrene purposely got away from the Reinhardt influence, playing high-powered... [+] Read More

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One of the great guitarists of the 1930s, Carl Kress had a very sophisticated chordal style on acoustic guitar. He originally played banjo before gradually shifting to guitar. Kress played with Paul Whiteman in 1926 and then became a very busy studio musician, recording with all of the top white musicians (including Bix Beiderbecke, Red Nichols'... [+] Read More

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The first jazz guitar virtuoso, Eddie Lang was everywhere in the late '20s; all of his fellow musicians knew that he was the best. A boyhood friend of Joe Venuti, Lang took violin lessons for 11 years but switched to guitar before he turned professional. In 1924 he debuted with the Mound City Blue Blowers and was soon in great demand for... [+] Read More

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Freddie Green was known throughout his long career as the definitive rhythm guitarist. He rarely soloed (briefly on a few records early on), he stuck to acoustic guitar, and was often more felt than heard. Although he had originally played banjo, Green was playing guitar in New York in early 1937 when producer John Hammond heard him and... [+] Read More

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A major player who has always been underrated, George Barnes was one of the first to record on electric guitar (accompanying blues singers) and was a top studio guitarist during much of his career. His style was very much based in the 1930s, and his single-note lines predated Charlie Christian, although he had much less of an impact. A... [+] Read More

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Gypsy Swing Revue is a jazz ensemble that carries on the tradition of Gypsy Jazz created by Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli during their domination of the Paris jazz scene during the 1930’s. The music of Gypsy Swing Revue is the Swinging Jazz of the 30’s and 40’s plus a cross-section of songs from the modern Gypsy Jazz... [+] Read More

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Blues guitar simply would not have developed in the manner that it did if not for the prolific brilliance of Lonnie Johnson. He was there to help define the instrument's future within the genre and the genre's future itself at the very beginning, his melodic conception so far advanced from most of his pre-war peers as to inhabit a plane all his... [+] Read More

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One of jazz music's great comedians (his spontaneous monologs are often hilarious), Marty Grosz is a brilliant acoustic guitarist whose chordal solos bring back the sound of Carl Kress and Dick McDonough of the 1930s, while his vocals are very much in the Fats Waller tradition. It took Grosz a long time to get some visibility. He grew up in New... [+] Read More

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Philip Catherine has been called the "Young Django" by none other than Charles Mingus, and upon hearing his elliptical, rapid-fire, expressively melodic acoustic guitar, there can be no doubt as to whose records he was absorbing as a youth. Born to a Belgian father and English mother living in London during World War II, Catherine went back with... [+] Read More

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Tiny Grimes was one of the earliest jazz electric guitarists to be influenced by Charlie Christian, and he developed his own swinging style. Early on, he was a drummer and worked as a pianist in Washington. In 1938, he started playing electric guitar, and two years later he was playing in a popular jive group, the Cats and a Fiddle. During... [+] Read More

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