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The guitar has a long and honorable history in jazz. Historically, the guitar played the same role in jazz as in country music, blues and other forms of folk music, as an instrument easy to acquire financially and easy (enough) to play for an individual performer.

As an instrument in an ensemble, however, the guitar had first to supplant the banjo as the standard "string tenor" rhythm instrument. Even as late as the early 30s such sophisticated orchestras as Duke Ellington's still used a banjo. In the late 30s, however, there were five important developments, or, more accurately, five important individuals:

• Lonnie Johnson, a New Orleans born guitarist, who was the first to play single-string guitar solos. Although best known as a bluesman, Johnson played all forms of music. He had developed his single-string playing while working as a strolling musician in restaurants, accompanying himself as he sang. Although he never achieved great fame, he was a strong influence on the next three guitarists discusssed here.
• Eddie Lang, who hid his virtuoso guitar playing behind a good-time persona in his collaborations with jazz violinist Joe Venuti, the Mound City Blue Blowers and appearances with virutally every important white jazz organization in the 1920s, from Red NicholsErnest Loring "Red" Nichols ( May 8, 1905 June 28, 1965) was a United States jazz cornettist. Nichols was born in Ogden, Utah, the son of a music teacher. By the age of 12 he was playing cornet with his father's brass band. He decided to take up the new s and Bix BeiderbeckeBix Beiderbecke ( March 10, 1903 August 6, 1931) was a notable jazz cornet player. Leon Bix Beiderbecke was born in Davenport, Iowa to a strict middle-class family. As a teenager he would sneak off to the banks of the Mississippi to listen to the bands pl, to Paul WhitemanPaul Whiteman ( March 28, 1890 December 29, 1967) was a popular United States orchestral leader. Whiteman was born in Denver, Colorado. He started out as a classical violinist and violist, then started leading a jazz-influenced dance band which became loc. He also collaborated with Lonnie Johnson.
• Charlie ChristianCharlie Christian ( July 29, 1916 March 2, 1942) was a famous jazz guitarist and is often considered the first electric guitar innovator. Chistian was born in Dallas, Texas and was raised in Oklahoma. In the late 1930s he came to the attention of record p -- Also out of the southwest, from TexasTexas joined the United States of America as its 28th member state in 1845. It has the postal abbreviation TX . The state name derives from a word in a Caddoan language of the Hasinai, tejas meaning friends or allies Spanish explorers mistakenly applied t, Christian showed up in the Benny Goodman Orchestra unexpected by anyone with a full-blown style of electric guitar soloing. In addition to his appearances with Goodman, Christian was a regular after-hours bebop player. The astonished critics of the time called it "single-string" playing because no big-band guitarist before Christian did it (although blues players played single-string obligattos). Now virtually all guitarists do it. Christian's career only lasted a few years and he died young, but his innovation changed the guitar forever.
• Django Reinhardt, one-of-a-kind jazz guitarist, a Belgian Gypsy with limited movement in his hand due to a fire in a gypsy caravan. Reinhardt recorded rarely with a standard jazz group, and recorded most often with either solo or with the peculiar Quintet of the Hot Club of France with violinist Stephane Grappelli. Influential for technique, taste, harmonies, and melodies, with many followers and not a single successor.
• Freddie Green -- In the Count Basie Orchestra out of Kansas City, Missouri, Green was a peerless rhythm guitarist, whose reliable pulse propelled the hardest swinging band in jazz. Green's ascendency pretty much ended the banjo era. Green rarely soloed, even in the modern era, but he remains the apotheosis of the rhythm guitar and the master of chorded accompaniment.