1 Pat Metheny
Extraordinary achievements down through the decades whether on world tours with the Pat Metheny Group, his own innovations (for instance the pioneering use of guitar synthesizer and his own 'robot' Orchestrion) or with such icons of free music as Ornette Coleman and Derek Bailey and in his interpretations of the music of John Zorn, the Missourian continues a story picked up by Charlie Christian and continued by Wes Montgomery in terms of innovation, new dialects and vocabulary, sheer virtuosity and joy in performance.
2 George Benson
3 John Scofield
4 John McLaughlin
5 Carlos Santana
6 Kenny Burrell
7 Bill Frisell
8 Terje Rypdal
9 Lionel Loueke
10 Eivind Aarset
11 Mary Halvorson
12 Russell Malone
13 Kurt Rosenwinkel
14 Julian Lage
15 Marc Ribot
16 Phil Robson
17 Mike Stern
18 Mike Walker
19 Wolfgang Muthspiel
20 Kevin Eubanks