Charlie Christian wasn’t playing distortion on purpose in the early 40’s - 😆there weren’t any “guitar amps” yet! But in 1969 guitarists were perfectly capable of playing clean! But Miles wanted McLaughlin to play a rock sound. And don’t sleep on Larry Coryell who was right there too…
I guess there’s debate? Charlie Christian was probably the first electric guitarist in jazz, and was often asked to turn it down, recordings sound clean maybe live was different?
But perhaps the better answer is both george benson and mclaughlin playing electric jazz guitar, oft distorted, before this — mclaughlin ended up on the record following tony williams as he was in Lifetime. Montgomery predates this too but he was fairly clean by todays standards.
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