Players from different backgrounds started to work in areas with a crossover flavor, producing an eclectic variety of tracks that mixed swing and modal jazz with rock, blues, and fusion. On his album Spaces (1970), with guest John McLaughlin, Larry Coryell (b. 1943) plays an electric solo on the driving title track and swaps fours on the acoustic swing-based "Rene's Theme," using a synthetic modal soloing style with cutting phrases.

One of the most creative and cerebral of improvisers, Pat Martino (b. 1944) mixed standards with fusion, and plays with an insistent metronomic compression over the beat, building a hypnotic intensity. On Desperado (1970), he plays electric 12-string guitar with a distorted edge: "Blackjack" is an open-ended jazz-rock piece in which manic pentatonic and blues licks are mixed with intervallic ideas and long, graceful bebop lines. On "Oleo," based on rhythm changes, Martino plays precisely constructed modern bebop lines, where he swaps fours. His long controlled lines can be heard on "Impressions": here he uses a stream of bluesy minor bebop ideas, intervallic motifs, and repeating cyclical phrases played with great control, and there are no fast flurries and little use of sustain.

Allan Holdsworth

One of the most important and original innovators on the guitar, Allan Holdsworth (b. 1948) virtually created a new way of playing single lines: using long streams of smooth legato, his left hand plays most of the notes through controlled hammer-ons and pull-offs. Shifting cyclical phrases, composed of unusual lines with long stretches on each string, ascend and descend and curl back on themselves, creating a sense of unending creativity. He also uses closed-voiced chords and interesting tonal shifts on sequences with unexpected bass notes and movements.

The album Velvet Darkness (1976) has a heavy Jazz-Rock sound with sustained melodic heads stating the tune, and Holdsworth uses a processed distorted sound, puling notes out of pitch with the tremolo arm. The title track has a lyrical head, and powerful swirling lines, interspersed with slower melodic phrases, Holdsworth shaking sustained upper notes with the tremolo arm. There is an imaginative, complex solo on "Gattox."

On the Allan Holdsworth/Gordon Beck album The Things You See (1980) Holdsworth uses mainly acoustic guitar, notably on "Golden Lakes" with its melodic head and exuberant, flowing solos. "Diminished Responsibility" has fast unison heads and free open passages with modern classical harmonies, and Holdsworth plays an unaccompanied linear passage full of exploratory atonal lines that resolve into melodiousness; a later passage of piano and guitar interplay shows astonishing virtuosity.

Ralph Towner

A unique figure, Ralph Towner (b. 1940) brought modern classical composition and classical-guitar techniques to a chamber-jazz setting, using nylon-string classical and 12-string guitars. From 1970 he worked with the crossover group Oregon, developing a mixture of classical, Brazilian, and Indian flavors. On Ralph Towner with Glen Moore — Trios /Solos (1973), "Brujo" features 12- string guitar with shimmering and percussive staccato chords, inventive voicing and arpeggios, single lines and harmonics. The solo piece "Winter Light" on nylon string has a classical flavor in its angular phrases and deep resonant chords with added harmonics, while "Noctuary" contains shattering percussive, atonal chords with harmonics and sustaining reverb, moving to free-form passages with fast strumming. The dynamics and rumbustious fingerpicking of "Suite 3x12" demonstrate a fusion of many genres including bluegrass and bluesy folk idioms.

Tower's album with Gary Burton, Matchbook (1975), features dreamy, sustained passages where guitar and vibes merge, as in "Drifting Petals" and "Song for a friend," while the intro to the title track demonstrates a muted repeating pattern like African percussion.

Solstice (1975) places Towner's guitar in a quartet that includes saxophonist Jan Garbarek. Towner creates a haunting atmosphere with shimmering arpeggios, and a solo on "Oceanus and Nimbus" reveals airy voicing with harmonics supporting single lines, before breaking into a broad range of surging arpeggios. "Train of thought" provides a variety of textures with Japanese koto-like sounds, tapping, and rattling harmonic colors over murky bass figures and dissonant passages. Solo Concert (1980) features an arrangement of "Nardis," that is played on a nylon-string guitar, creating a classical flavor.