Steven Siro Vai is an American guitarist, songwriter, and producer. A three-time Grammy Award winner and fifteen-time nominee, Vai started his music career in 1978 at the age of eighteen as a transcriptionist for Frank Zappa, and played in Zappa's band from 1980 to 1983. He embarked on a solo career in 1983 and has released eight solo albums to date. He has recorded and toured with Alcatrazz, David Lee Roth, and Whitesnake, as well as recording with artists such as Public Image Ltd, Mary J. Blige, Spinal Tap, Alice Cooper, Motörhead, and Polyphia. Additionally, Vai has toured with live-only acts G3, Zappa Plays Zappa, and the Experience Hendrix Tour, as well as headlining international tours.
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.
Steven Lee Lukather is an American guitarist, singer, songwriter, arranger and record producer, best known as the sole continuous founding member of the rock band Toto. His reputation as a skilled guitarist led to a steady flow of session work beginning in the 1970s that has since established him as a prolific session musician, recording guitar tracks for more than 1,500 albums spanning a broad array of artists and genres. He has also contributed to albums and hit singles as a songwriter, arranger and producer. Notably, Lukather played guitar on Boz Scaggs' albums Down Two Then Left (1977) and Middle Man (1980), and was a prominent contributor to several studio albums by Michael Jackson, including Thriller (1982). Lukather has released nine solo albums, the latest of which, Bridges, was released in June 2023.
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.
Derek Sherinian is an American keyboardist of Armenian descent who has toured and recorded for Alice Cooper, Billy Idol, and Joe Bonamassa, among others. He was also a member of Dream Theater from 1994 to 1999, is the founder of Planet X and also one of the founding members of Black Country Communion, Sons of Apollo, and Whom Gods Destroy. He has released nine solo albums that have featured a variety of prominent guest musicians, including guitarists Slash, Yngwie Malmsteen, Allan Holdsworth, Steve Lukather, Joe Bonamassa, Michael Schenker, Steve Vai and Al Di Meola, and extensively drummer Simon Phillips.
Larry Coryell was an American jazz guitarist.
G3 is a concert tour organized by guitarist Joe Satriani featuring him alongside two other guitarists. Since its inception in 1995, G3 has toured most years and has featured many guitarists, including Steve Vai, Eric Johnson, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Yngwie Malmsteen, John Petrucci, Robert Fripp, Paul Gilbert, Steve Morse, Steve Lukather, Uli Jon Roth, Michael Schenker, Adrian Legg, Phil Collen and many other special guests, including Tony MacAlpine, Johnny Hiland, Keith More, Chris Duarte, Andy Timmons, Neal Schon, Gary Hoey, Brian May, Billy Gibbons, Johnny A, George Lynch, Patrick Rondat, Guthrie Govan, Alejandro Silva, and Eric Sardinas.
Shred guitar or shredding is a virtuoso style of playing the electric guitar, based on various advanced and complex playing techniques, particularly rapid passages and advanced performance effects. Shred guitar includes fast alternate picking, sweep-picked arpeggios, diminished and harmonic scales, finger-tapping and whammy bar use. It is commonly used in heavy metal, where guitarists use the electric guitar with a guitar amplifier and a range of electronic effects such as distortion, which create a more sustained guitar tone and facilitate guitar feedback effects.
Antal (Tony) Pusztai is a classical guitarist who is known as both a jazz musician and a classical guitarist.
Premiata Forneria Marconi (PFM) is an Italian progressive rock band founded in 1970 which continues to the present day. They were the first Italian group to have success internationally. The group recorded five albums with English lyrics between 1973 and 1977. During this period they entered both the British and American charts. They also had several successful European and American tours, playing at the popular Reading Festival in England and on a very popular national television program in the United States.
Giuseppe Daniele, known as Pino Daniele, was an Italian singer, songwriter and musician. His influences covered a wide number of genres, including pop, blues, jazz, and Italian and Middle Eastern music.
Biréli Lagrène is a French jazz guitarist who came to prominence in the 1980s for his Django Reinhardt–influenced style. He often performs in swing, jazz fusion, and post-bop styles.
Roman Maksimovich Miroshnichenko is a Ukraine-born Russian jazz fusion multi-award winning guitarist, composer, producer, recording engineer and filmmaker. He has received numerous accolades, including four The Independent Music Awards, 1st Prize of the USA Songwriting Competition, 1st Prize of the International Acoustic Music Awards, Gold medal of the Global Music Awards and four Hollywood Music in Media Awards nominees. He has worked with musicians such as Steve Vai, Al Di Meola, Mike Stern, Marco Mendoza, Paul Wertico, Jennifer Batten, Heather Headley, Djivan Gasparyan, Dominique DiPiazza during his career. In 2008 - 2017 he toured regularly in a duo with fusion guitarist Larry Coryell.
Carl Verheyen is an American musician best known for being the guitarist of Supertramp, the leader of the Carl Verheyen Band, and as a Los Angeles session guitarist. He was ranked One of the World's Top 10 Guitarists by Guitar Magazine and won the LA Music Awards category of Best Guitarist at their 6th annual awards ceremony. He has recorded with such artists as The Bee Gees, Chad Wackerman, Dolly Parton, Victor Feldman, Richard Elliot, and Stanley Clarke and has played guitar on film soundtracks including The Crow, The Usual Suspects, Ratatouille, and Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, and TV shows Cheers, Seinfeld, and Scrubs.
Sylvain Luc was a French jazz guitarist.
The Infinite Desire is an album by jazz guitarist Al Di Meola that was released in 1998. Pianist Herbie Hancock plays acoustic piano on one pice, guitarist Steve Vai also plays electric guitar on another. Other guests include Pino Daniele on vocals, Mario Parmisano on keyboards, piano and strings and Rachel Z also on keyboards.
Okan Ersan is a Turkish Cypriot jazz fusion guitarist, composer and record artist.
Mario Parmisano, is an Argentinian jazz pianist. He is recognized on the international scene for his work with guitarist Al Di Meola and for his Tango Jazz Trio, performing a unique interpretation about the Music of the Great Tango Master Astor Piazzolla.
Timothy Gerard Landers is an American bassist best known for his contribution to the 1970s-80s jazz-fusion genre and his work with Al Di Meola, Billy Cobham, and Gil Evans. Landers is a session musician and was a member of Tom Scott's band on The Pat Sajak Show.
Gianfranco Continenza is an Italian guitarist from Pescara, Abruzzo.
