Great Guitars: Sonny Sharrock

One of the great avant-jazz guitar players, not that there's a lot of 'em, Sonny Sharrock's career divides itself neatly in two parts. Back in the free jazz Sixties and Seventies, his broken-glass style of playing landed him on some ESP sessions, a couple jams in Miles Davis' fusion band playing opposite John McLaughlin, and - most unforgettably - sent him out touring the world with flautist Herbie Mann. After recording a couple solo albums, he disappeared for a decade, re-emerging with a searing jazz-funk-rock sound captured in the above video, where he tears through a Keith Jarrett tune in front of an audience of appreciative Czechoslovakians. Sadly, Sharrock died just a few years into his second coming, but the albums he recorded back then, especially Guitar and Ask The Ages, remain vital and easily accessible.