1. Joe Pass, For Django
Joe Pass is my all-round favourite player, and for me this is undisputedly his best group album. As a tribute to Django that reinterprets 30s and 40s Hot Club classics in a supercool 60s way, it's the absolute epitome of the Massif Central aesthetic. If only my over-bearing father had forced me to practice nine hours a day as a child, then we'd be cooking. I could listen to this record ten times a day and never tire of it.
2. Rene Thomas, The Real Cat
Like Django, Rene Thomas was a Belgian guitar prodigy. In fact, Thomas' prized possession was a signed photo of Django that said "to the next Belgian Django from Django." I can't remember where I read that story, but as I repeat it, it dawns on me that it clearly can't be true, as everyone knows Django was illiterate. Perhaps he'd learnt to draw the words somewhere, but somehow I doubt it.
Anyway, Rene Thomas is a bebop monster in the style of Jimmy Raney (he and Raney met in Paris, and there are those that accuse Rene of merely being a Raney tribute act), playing fast, fluid and intelligent lines over American standards with a continental sensibility. Angular, introvert, and uninterested in pleasing the crowd, the musical equivalent of a Truffaut movie.
3. Rene Thomas, Guitar Groove
Speccy nerd Thomas would be quite easy to beat in a fight so long as you hooked those bottle-lens glasses off early. But there's no way you could ever play guitar better than him. Sonny Rollins said he was the best guitarist he'd ever worked with, and I personally think the myopia look is a big winner.
4. Django, Best of (Blue Note)
I keep going on about Django, so I suppose I should add one of his records. Problem is, the QHCF didn't really do albums, so it's impossible to say what's best to buy. If you're a wealthy completist that loves straining to hear notes through hissing and scratching, then get the Integrale box set in chronological order. Otherwise, there are excellent compilations everywhere, and both the Jazz in Paris series and Blue Note have good ones. Django is the most innately melodic and romantic guitarist ever, such a fast musical mind and infectious sense of swing. Solos like that to "I'll See You in My Dreams" are little masterpieces in their own right, and his own compositions, "Nuages", "Melodie Au Crepuscule" etc., are French perfection. Stick it on on hot summer nights, sidle up to your honey and pretend you're Errol Flynn. Bravo pour Django.
5. Charlie Christian, The Genius of the Electric Guitar
Like Django, an early jazz guitar pioneer, who though dying horribly young and having to deal with the tyrannical ravings of Benny Goodman, made an enormous contribution the style, practically inventing the jazz guitar solo single-handed. Charlie Christian had both the tone and execution players aspire to to this day, but most importantly he structured solos so well - each one had a real sense of development, telling a story from beginning, middle to end. His solo on "Solo Flight" is one of Jim Hall's favourites. I've got this book, and even though I steal a lick from it each week, it'll still take me years to mine all the treasures in it. I particularly like Charlie over uptempo blues changes.
6. Wes Montgomery, Smokin' At the Half Note
Thumbs up, Wes Montgomery. At his first ever gigs, Wes played Charlie Christian solos note for note. I have to admit that I've never gotten into Wes as much as nearly every other jazz guitarist I've either met or corresponded with, and while I think this album is about as near-perfect a classic jazz-guitar record as you could hope to get, I still don't listen to it that much. I'm not that bothered about the octaves, you see. Maybe it'll come.
7. Grant Green, Idle Moments
Grant Green - super extended single-line soloist extraordinaire. Listen to this and a copy of "Standards" back to back, and count how many individual chords he plays in 90 minutes of music. It's about 12. Both "Idle Moments" and "Jean de Fleur" are beautiful, and what is more, this album features oodles of the coolest instrument in the whole of jazz - vibraphone.
8. Jim Hall and Bill Evans, Undercurrent
Jim Hall and Bill Evans - two of the baddest honky jazz aesthetes together? My goodness, this must surely be one of the hippest, chin scratching-est records ever made. And I thought it was supposed to be hard to play guitar with a pianist. Sounds easy to me. But my question is this: did they drown that lady themselves, or was it all just so understated and tasteful that she went mental and had to chuck herself in?
9. Pat Martino, East!
Martino is a living legend, and many things (such as re-teaching himself to play after suffering an aneurysm, and stringing his guitar with fence wire) suggest that he may be from another world. I'm sure there are many better recordings of him than East! but I include this one by virtue of the fact that it's the only CD of his I own. Extraterrestially groovy.
10. Tchan Tchou, La Gitane
Finally, you have to get this one. Paul "Tchan Tchou" Vidal (so called because his oh-so-hilarious mates thought he looked Chinese) is a second generation gypsy jazz player from the south. Less frenetic and shredding than many gypsy-jazzers of the present-day, Tchan Tchou's playing possesses all the authority, grit and lyricism of a well-spoken psychopath. You can practically smell the Marseille docks on this record, and his laid-back "Besame Mucho" has to be the definitive version, even better than Wes' 3/4 one on "Boss Guitar". This is a re-packaging of his long-deleted "Guitare Party" that was floating round the internet for a while. Shame they changed the cover, as the original LP had a topless woman on it wearing skin-tight spotty pink leotard pants. Class.
