Simon Jay Harper has a great article today over at AllAboutJazz.com entitled The Story of Jazz Guitar. He included lots of videos/clips of players through the ages including Eddie Lang, Django Reinhardt, Charlie Christian, Joe Pass, George Benson, and more. Good stuff.

While in its early days, jazz guitar was considered a rhythm instrument alongside the banjo of Dixieland, with the innovation of Charlie Christian’s electric instrument, it soon became a lead instrument alongside saxophones, trumpets and other instruments that could acoustically cut through the sound of a piano-bass-drums rhythm section. Here, in a nutshell, is a brief history of jazz guitar and some of its biggest movers and shakers.