Jazz guitarists of today are not likely to consider themselves bearers of a long and lively tradition of improvisation that dates back more than 500 years.  When reeling out riffs to a set of changes, one is not likely to consider the cascading and wildly rhythmic inventions of Joan Ambrosio Dalza (Italy, 1508) or the hundreds of pages of anonymous written out improvisations over grounds found in the Marsh Lute Book (England, c.1580).  But it’s a fact that we are the inheritors of a tradition that goes back much farther than Django or Charlie Christian.

The most principal and chiefest kind of music…is the Fancy [fantasia], that is when a musician taketh a point at his pleasure and wresteth and turneth it as he list, making either much or little of it…In this may more art be shewn than in any other music because the composer is tied to…