Leonard Harold “Lenny” Breau is perhaps the most advanced harmonic player of all times on the instrument. He’s surely the guitarist who came the closest in achieving to the kind of freedom keyboard players have over chords and voice leading.
He stated himself that he was trying to “play the guitar like a piano”: performing melodies and accompanying himself in the lower register. Some believe that it is why he employed mainly 7-string guitars in his later years. That type of sound can be heard on his solo recordings.
This great jazz guitarist also developed unprecedented techniques in the use harmonics on the guitar. In some cases you have to “see it to believe it” … he said himself that he was playing “stuff that’s supposed to be impossible, but I spent over twenty years figuring it out” …
It’s hard to believe that only one guitar is being played the first time you hear Lenny Breau!
Surprisingly, Lenny Breau not very well known outside of the jazz guitar and fingerstyle circles. That is mainly due to his “yo yo” carreer and his early death, at age 43. More importantly, Lenny was starting to get the respect he deserved when he passed away. His influence has been growing and it’s peaking nowadays. His legacy lives on through the re-releases of some lost and rare out of print recordings
To get an idea of what this legendary guitarist is all about, I highly recommend checking this out: Cabin Fever, a solo recording by Lenny Breau. If it’s your first time, you’ll most likely be blown away. For the readers: Here’s a biography that really does Lenny Breau justice…
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