Many have influenced me. The ones that spring immediately to mind are: Howard Roberts, Barney Kessel and Larry Carlton.
What kicked me into action was seeing the Burny RFA-75 below in a shop and saying that one day I would like a jazz guitar but not at that price. The owner showed me one with superficial damage to the headstock. As he could neither sell it nor return it he offered it to me for a price I could afford. It sounds wonderful.
I also bought Mark Levine's Jazz Theory Book which should see me through the next year or two and I have been looking at www.jazzguitar.be.
Barney Kessel played with one of my teachers. He'd let me sit in the first half of
each set. One night Kessel was in the crowd and I got shell shocked. He turned
around with a "what the heck is going on" look.
I'm a bassist. 99% of what I play is on the Pollmann bass in my avatar. The rest
is on an old stock Fender P and a Squire Jaco fretless.