Lenny Breau: general concensus?

[Blackguard53]

Big fan of Breaus style and technical ability, can easily sound like 2 players at times. Very ahead of his time IMO, don't see alot of talk about him on here though?

[A. Kingstone]

Saw him twice in the 80's. The type of player that could inspire you to play 8 hours a day or throw your guitar in the lake.

[mr. beaumont]

Incredible player, but not the kind of thing I like best. That's all.

[jbernstein91]

Breau on Canadian TV in 1961:

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

His playing evolved over time as he experimented and expanded his taste and interests. Back in the day, he could blow with the greats. I found this video of him with Tal on YouTube. The sound (despite having been "restored", according to the title) is pretty bad. But there's no mistaking his chops. His solo starts at 48 seconds:

And here's a full length (about an hour) video from 1980 of LB and TF talking guitars and music and playing together both on the porch and on stage. The video quality is terrible, and the audio's marginal - but it's interesting and informative, and there are some snatches of great playing in it:

[sgcim]

Still has yet to be surpassed.

[Jimmy blue note]

Constant reminder of what happens when you're true to yourself. Beautiful player who unlocked the guitar in ways that just about no other single player has. His musicality is a constant inspiration to me.

[alpop]

Breau on Canadian TV in 1961:

He was only 20 years old when this was taped! So sophisticated at such a young age.

[deacon Mark]

To me Lenny may be the most underrated great known player. He could play it all. He managed bop, country, classical, and flamingo guitar styles. He could play like Chet Atkins and Joe Pass. Most jazz players cannot do the Atkins thing real great. In the history of jazz guitar there might be more important stylist like Wes, Joe, and Kenny B, but to me no one covered it all like Lenny Breau. A friend of mine Joe Summers who himself a killer jazz player in the Detroit area lived with him for awhile back in the 1970's. He told me Lenny was so good that nobody could really play with him at least another guitarist under most circumstances. Joe of course had no trouble himself but also said Lenny was gifted and completely where no other guitar player was at the time.

I love Joe and Wes and Kenny, but if you ask me right now who I would like to be able to play like and have the chops, I will say Lenny. I never get tired of his playing, and he goes all over the place. Amazing in and of itself he lived a relatively short life. Joe Summers also told me that Lenny was very friendly and probably got into his poor situation at the end because someone took advantage of him.

Also I would be interested if anyone on the forum knows Joe Summers he is in Ypsilanti area and a monster player but have not heard from him in years?

[AllanAllen]

To me Lenny may be the most underrated great known player. He could play it all. He managed bop, country, classical, and flamingo guitar styles. He could play like Chet Atkins and Joe Pass. Most jazz players cannot do the Atkins thing real great. In the history of jazz guitar there might be more important stylist like Wes, Joe, and Kenny B, but to me no one covered it all like Lenny Breau. A friend of mine Joe Summers who himself a killer jazz player in the Detroit area lived with him for awhile back in the 1970's. He told me Lenny was so good that nobody could really play with him at least another guitarist under most circumstances. Joe of course had no trouble himself but also said Lenny was gifted and completely where no other guitar player was at the time.

I love Joe and Wes and Kenny, but if you ask me right now who I would like to be able to play like and have the chops, I will say Lenny. I never get tired of his playing, and he goes all over the place. Amazing in and of itself he lived a relatively short life. Joe Summers also told me that Lenny was very friendly and probably got into his poor situation at the end because someone took advantage of him.

Also I would be interested if anyone on the forum knows Joe Summers he is in Ypsilanti area and a monster player but have not heard from him in years?

If anybody knows about Joe Summers it’ll be forum member Jake Reichbart. Ypsi is right next to Ann Arbor.

[pamosmusic]

I grew up in this tiny town in rural Virginia so obviously no one at all played jazz. But there was this one guy who learned all these Chet Atkins, Jerry Reed, and Lenny Breau arrangements by ear, which was really cool and a little bit terrifying. So he’d come to this open mic and we’d play tunes because he knew all the old American songbook tunes those guys would play. (My dues were always that I’d have to chunk along behind him at the end while he played “The Claw.”)

Anyway … he told me this story he got from Chet (I think it was Chet) about Lenny Breau. Chet (or whoever) said most of the time playing with Lenny was awesome but kind of normal. But every now and then he’d be comping for Lenny and it would kind of go on for a while and he’d start to get the feeling Lenny had forgotten anyone else was there. So Chet (or whoever) would have to stop playing and kind of pull Lenny out of it and it was eerie and felt like waking up a sleepwalker or something. Anyway … I wish I remembered more of the details, but I always thought that was a cool story. Like the dude would just get THAT deep in it.

[Jim Soloway]

I've almost certainly spent more hours listening to Lenny than any other musician. He was a great player, not so much an innovator but rather someone who expanded his influences a truly remarkable amount. He didn't recognize technical limitations and simply worked compulsively to master what ever he heard in his head. On the other hand he was a deeply troubled and dysfunctional human being who was never able to overcome his weaknesses and was regularly consumed by his demons.

I should add that I consider Cabin Fever to be the greatest guitar album of all time.

[deacon Mark]

I've almost certainly spent more hours listening to Lenny than any other musician. He was a great player, not so much an innovator but rather someone who expanded his influences a truly remarkable amount. He didn't recognize technical limitations and simply worked compulsively to master what ever he heard in his head. On the other hand he was a deeply troubled and dysfunctional human being who was never able to overcome his weaknesses and was regularly consumed by his demons.

I should add that I consider Cabin Fever to be the greatest guitar album of all time.

As a professional cleric his demons where the same as the rest of us.............our passions to push the pleasure button always! But that said I am sure addictions need to be addressed professionally.

[Dave70]

I love Lenny! The Lenny Breau Archives channel on youtube has been posting new stuff almost weekly for a while now.

[QAman]

Many years ago in the early nineties - while hanging out in Jimmy D'Aquisto's shop I asked" who is your favorite guitar player" and without hesitation he said " Lenny Breau".

His sense of contrapuntal movement was astonishing. Just try copying some of his compositions and you’ll quickly realize his mastery of the instrument.

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[sgcim]

I grew up in this tiny town in rural Virginia so obviously no one at all played jazz. But there was this one guy who learned all these Chet Atkins, Jerry Reed, and Lenny Breau arrangements by ear, which was really cool and a little bit terrifying. So he’d come to this open mic and we’d play tunes because he knew all the old American songbook tunes those guys would play. (My dues were always that I’d have to chunk along behind him at the end while he played “The Claw.”)

Anyway … he told me this story he got from Chet (I think it was Chet) about Lenny Breau. Chet (or whoever) said most of the time playing with Lenny was awesome but kind of normal. But every now and then he’d be comping for Lenny and it would kind of go on for a while and he’d start to get the feeling Lenny had forgotten anyone else was there. So Chet (or whoever) would have to stop playing and kind of pull Lenny out of it and it was eerie and felt like waking up a sleepwalker or something. Anyway … I wish I remembered more of the details, but I always thought that was a cool story. Like the dude would just get THAT deep in it.

Surprisingly, Lenny didn't have a good experience with two of his fave pianists.
He auditioned for Oscar Peterson, and Oscar turned him down without a word.
He sat in with probably his greatest influence, Bill Evans, when BE was in Toronto, and people reported there were a lot of chordal clashes between the two.
But others have said that sitting in with the BE trio was a difficult situation. Gary Burton tried to sit in with them at various jazz festivals they appeared on the same bill at, and found he couldn't get in the same groove that the BE trio were in.
Even Marc Johnson had trouble satisfying Evans.
When I heard the trio at the Vanguard, I heard Joe LaBarbera and Johnson talking to each other backstage as I went to the Men's Room.
Johnson was asking LaBarbera, "But what does he want me to do?"
Joe replied, "He wants you to get that floating sound..."

Lenny had no trouble fitting in with Buddy Emmons on "Minors Aloud", so it's not as if he was a slouch as a sideman.

[Cunamara]

[wolflen]

a masters view

[Oscar67]

[Cunamara]

It's really unfortunate that Lenny was so sparsely recorded and often poorly recorded when he was. A lot of the existing stuff is just completely amateur in terms of recording technique and quality, even when the playing is astonishing. It's like listening to a Grateful Dead concert recorded on a Sony Walkman versus a soundboard tape. he was a genius musician.