George Washington Benson is an American jazz fusion guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He began his professional career at the age of 19 as a jazz guitarist.
John McLaughlin, also known as Mahavishnu, is an English guitarist, bandleader, and composer. A pioneer of jazz fusion, his music combines elements of jazz with rock, world music, Western classical music, flamenco, and blues. After contributing to several key British groups of the early 1960s, McLaughlin made Extrapolation, his first album as a bandleader, in 1969. He then moved to the U.S., where he played with drummer Tony Williams's group Lifetime and then with Miles Davis on his electric jazz fusion albums In a Silent Way, Bitches Brew, Jack Johnson, Live-Evil, and On the Corner. His 1970s electric band, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, performed a technically virtuosic and complex style of music that fused electric jazz and rock with Indian influences.
José Fernández Torres, known as Tomatito, is a Spanish roma flamenco guitarist and composer. Having started his career accompanying famed flamenco singer Camarón de la Isla, he has made a number of collaborative albums and six solo albums, two of which have won Latin Grammy Awards.
Albert Laurence Di Meola is an American guitarist. Known for his works in jazz fusion and world music, he began his career as guitarist with the group Return to Forever in 1974. From 1976 to 1978 he played with Stomu Yamashta in the supergroup Go on three records. The 1970s and 1980s saw albums such as Land of the Midnight Sun, Elegant Gypsy, Casino and Friday Night in San Francisco earn him both critical and commercial success.
Francisco Sánchez Gómez, known as Paco de Lucía, was a Spanish virtuoso flamenco guitarist, composer, and record producer. A leading proponent of the new flamenco style, he was one of the first flamenco guitarists to branch into classical and jazz. Richard Chapman and Eric Clapton, authors of Guitar: Music, History, Players, describe de Lucía as a "titanic figure in the world of flamenco guitar", and Dennis Koster, author of Guitar Atlas, Flamenco, has referred to de Lucía as "one of history's greatest guitarists".
Oscar Lopez is a Chilean-Canadian guitarist, whose signature style blends Latin and jazz styles.
Gibraltar is a British overseas territory with many musical influences. Rock based music is undergoing a renaissance with a multitude of local bands playing original material and covers. Local venues have begun accepting Gibraltarian bands and those from nearby Spain, resulting in a varied mix of live performances every weekend as well as some weekday nights.
Jesse Arnaud Cook is a Canadian guitarist. He is a Juno Award winner, Acoustic Guitar Player's Choice Award silver winner in the Flamenco Category, and a three-time winner of the Canadian Smooth Jazz award for Guitarist of the Year. He has recorded on the EMI, E1 Music and Narada labels and has sold over 1.5 million records worldwide.
Fishtank Ensemble was a world music group from Los Angeles, California, known for their unique, high-energy and virtuosic stage show that blends a wide range of styles including Balkan, Romanian, gypsy, French hot jazz, flamenco, Turkish, Greek, and a little rock 'n' roll.
Antonio Breschi, also known as Antóni O'Breskey is a composer, pianist and trumpet player, singer, writer, poet and music educator. Oliver Sweeney, in the Irish music magazine Hot Press, wrote of him: “He is a genius whose music is without frontiers, and whose originality makes him one of the most innovative artists in the varied musical genres of today.” As composer and pianist he is very original and eclectic, and he composed enormous varieties of music, creating a very personal style: “one of the most exciting sounds we have heard in years" . His compositions for cello and piano and for oboe and piano as well as his world music became soundtracks for films, television programs, theatre and ballets.
Canadian blues is the blues and blues-related music performed by blues bands and performers in Canada. Canadian blues artists include singers, players of the main blues instruments: guitar, harmonica, keyboards, bass and drums, songwriters and music producers. In many cases, blues artists take on multiple roles. For example, the Canadian blues artist Steve Marriner is a singer, harmonica player, guitarist, songwriter and record producer.
Gerardo Núñez Díaz is a Spanish guitarist and composer. His roots are in flamenco but he has played fusion and jazz.
Flávio Augusto Rodrigues Marques is a Brazilian musician, composer, musical director and arranger. He specialized in flamenco music. He is currently living in Madrid.
Ketama is a Spanish musical group in the new flamenco tradition. Fusing flamenco with other musical forms, they created a style that lies somewhere between flamenco and pop salsa. Their music drew as much criticism as praise because purists did not like the change from traditional flamenco, but the group won over the young public. They continued to fuse other music in, and their 2002 album, Dame la Mano, added hip hop and house music.
Thilo Martinho is a German musician, singer, guitarist, and songwriter.
Jerry González was an American bandleader, trumpeter and percussionist of Puerto Rican descent. Together with his brother, bassist Andy González, Jerry Gonzalez played an important role in the development of Latin Jazz during the late 20th century. During the 1970s, both brothers played alongside Eddie Palmieri and in Manny Oquendo's Conjunto Libre, and from 1980 to 2018 they directed The Fort Apache Band. From 2000 to 2018, Jerry González resided in Madrid, where he fronted Los Piratas del Flamenco and El Comando de la Clave. In October 2018, he died of a heart attack after a fire in his home in Madrid.
Amir John Haddad is a German-Spanish flamenco guitarist and multi-instrumentalist, based in Spain since 1997. He was the official oud, bouzouki and guitar player for Radio Tarifa for almost ten years and in that role received a nomination for Best Folk Album at the Latin Grammy Awards of 2004.
Agustin "El Bola" Carbonell is a guitarist and Spanish composer of flamenco and new flamenco music.
Bart John R Stenhouse is an Australian jazz fusion musician and teacher. He fuses jazz with elements of rock, flamenco, blues and Indian classical music. He formed the Bart Stenhouse Group to perform his work. In 2014 he issued a studio album, Blue Benares, with Abe Stewart, a percussionist. Stenhouse followed by in 2015, two further albums with the jazz fusion band, the Bart Stenhouse Group, these were Five Days in Granada and The Best of Times. He also teaches music and is a record producer.
Matteo Mancuso is an Italian jazz and rock guitarist and composer from Palermo, Sicily. Mancuso is known for adapting a quasi-flamenco/classical right-hand technique to the electric guitar and improvised solos without the use of a pick. Steve Vai, Al Di Meola, Joe Bonamassa and others have publicly praised him, with Vai calling him "the future" of electric guitar.
