Electric guitar has not progressed? I beg to differ to the millionth power. There have been scads of virtuosos since Jimi that surpassed him from every standpoint. Sure he was famous because he played well and died young, but many non-musicians gravitate towards that not realizing his tone was terrible, his intonation was constantly off and by extension his vibrato was frequently out of tune to the point of painful. I'll not even get into the things Jimi simply could not do, like sweep arpeggios, tapping, glistonato, false harmonics, symetrical and non symetrical scales, pedal tones, etc.
I'm a guitar player and I write for Guitar World Magazine, every month dozens of CDs cross my desk with players who far outstrip Jimi from a technical and tonal standpoint. I won't deny his place in history, but it's largely romanticized. Guys like Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Yngwie Malmsteen, Tony Macalpine, Vinnie Moore, George Bellas, Frank Gambale, Allan Holdsworth, Shawn Lane, Rusty Cooley etc have taken the art much further. These players are out there, but many people don't dig below the surface, they go with what's popular and make judgments based upon that ... luckily at the time Jimi was alive what he was play was considered pop-music. Not many people seek out virtuoso guitar music or even real jazz (rather than the r&b they play on the radio and call it a jazz station).
