page_title: Jazz guitar
section_title: 1970s
hierarchical_section_title: Jazz guitar / History / 1970s
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Bildinhalt: John McLaughlin 2008 bei einem Konzert in Limburgerhof Aufnahmeort: Limburgerhof, Deutschland
context_page_description: The term jazz guitar may refer to either a type of electric guitar or to the variety of guitar playing styles used in the various genres which are commonly termed "jazz". The jazz-type guitar was born as a result of using electric amplification to increase the volume of conventional acoustic guitars.
  Conceived in the early 1930s, the electric guitar became a necessity as jazz musicians sought to amplify their sound to be heard over loud big bands. When guitarists in big bands only had acoustic guitars, all they could do was play chords; they could not play solos because the acoustic guitar is not a loud instrument. Once guitarists switched from acoustic guitar to semi-acoustic guitar and began using guitar amplifiers, it made the guitar much easier to hear, which enabled guitarists to play guitar solos. Jazz guitar had an important influence on jazz in the beginning of the twentieth century. Although the earliest guitars used in jazz were acoustic and acoustic guitars are still sometimes used in jazz, most jazz guitarists since the 1940s have performed on an electrically amplified guitar or electric guitar.
context_section_description: As jazz-rock fusion emerged in the early 1970s, many players switched to the more rock-oriented solid body guitars. Other jazz guitarists, like Grant Green and Wes Montgomery, turned to applying their skills to  pop-oriented styles that fused jazz with soul and R&B, such as soul jazz-styled organ trios. Younger jazz musicians rode the surge of electric popular genres such as blues, rock, and funk to reach new audiences. Guitarists in the fusion realm fused the post-bop harmonic and melodic language of musicians such as John Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Ornette Coleman, and Miles Davis with a hard-edged (and usually very loud) rock tone created by guitarists such as Cream's Eric Clapton who had redefined the sound of the guitar for those unfamiliar with the black blues players of Chicago and, before that, the Delta region of the Mississippi upon whom his style was based. With John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, Clapton turned up the volume on a sound already pioneered by Buddy Guy, Freddie King, B.B. King and others that was fluid, with heavy finger vibratos, string bending, and speed through powerful Marshall amplifiers.
  Fusion players such as John McLaughlin adopted the fluid, powerful sound of rock guitarists such as Clapton and Jimi Hendrix. McLaughlin was a master innovator, incorporating hard jazz with the new sounds of Clapton, Hendrix, Beck and others. McLaughlin later formed the Mahavishnu Orchestra, an historically important fusion band that played to sold out venues in the early 1970s and as a result, produced an endless progeny of fusion guitarist. Guitarists such as Pat Martino, Al Di Meola, Larry Coryell, John Abercrombie,  John Scofield and Mike Stern (the latter two both alumni of the Miles Davis band) fashioned a new language for the guitar which introduced jazz to a new generation of fans. Like the rock-blues icons that preceded them, fusion guitarists usually played their solid body instruments through stadium rock-style amplification, and signal processing "effects" such as simulated distortion, wah-wah, octave splitters, compression, and flange pedals. They also simply turned up to full volume in order to create natural overdrive such as the blues rock players.
caption: Jazz fusion pioneer John McLaughlin at a festival in Limburgerhof, Germany, 2008
exif: {"Image Make": "Panasonic", "Image Model": "DMC-FZ18", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Ver.1.0", "Image DateTime": "2008:07:11 20:21:24", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "496", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 50, 53, 48, 0, 0, 14, 0, 1, 0, 22, 0, ... ]", "Image Tag 0xC6D2": "[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, ... ]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Rotated 90 CCW", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "8084", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7525", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/20", "EXIF FNumber": "4", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "200", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2008:07:11 20:21:24", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2008:07:11 20:21:24", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "769/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2448", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3264", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "7888", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Manual", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "468", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "Low gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal"}