Farnk: I was being corrupted by pervious posters who included guitarist from other styles of music..:-) Actually, the thread title does not limit itself to jazz guitarists... I suppose someone could have included Andres Segovia.

Or Duane Eddy. :-)


"Greatest" is very much a subjective term. I don't respond to single string melodies on guitar (generally speaking) as much as I do to guitarists who use chords generously. (Tal Farlow being an obvious exception for me.) Someone like George Van Epps, whose beautiful use of chords and fingerpicking has always touched me comes from a really old jazz tradition, going back to his father Fred Van Epps, who was considered the greatest of all plectrum bano players. Howard Alden has taken over George's reigns, carrying on the finger-picked style on a seven string guitar... first recording with Van Epps, and now on his own.
This thread made me hungry, so I just put on an album of guitar duets with Alden and Van Epps... mighty tasty stuff..

Jerry