Early solo guitar

[Nate Dorward]

It occurred to me, looking at the thread in Record Reviews on Joe Pass's Virtuoso disc, that I wasn't aware of too much solo jazz guitar from before that disc was recorded. This is perhaps partly because a large chunk of the postwar guitar canon seems to be at an odd slant to mainstream jazz history (quick question: if you took a poll of jazz fans about major postwar jazz musicians, how long would it take before someone shouted "Tal Farlow" or "Jimmy Raney" or "Barney Kessel" or "Herb Ellis"?). I can think of a number of solo recordings I've enjoyed by e.g. Django Reinhardt & Eddie Lang, but otherwise I'm mostly drawing a blank before I reach Pass's big pile of solo albums for Pablo in the 1970s & 1980s. Can someone sketch out the intervening history for me? Or did Pass really put the genre on the map, at least as an album-length display of virtuosity rather than the very occasional track on an album or the odd 78?

[shrugs]

Jimmy Raney did a great Xanadu date in '76 titled Solo. and Ted Dunbar has a great Xanadu solo lp titled Jazz Guitarist.
Even the most hardcore jazz fans don't own any Raney, Dunbar or Farlow. And they might have some Kessel as a sideman.

I think Raymond Boni may have recorded some solo stuff in the early 70's. Not sure though. His L' Homme Etoile from '81 is fantastic. I may just have to break out it, the Raney and the Dunbar later on. Throw some Kessel on too! and some Farlow with Eddie Costa!