Search - Lenny Breau :: Last Sessions

The Best Solo Guitar Album Ever

J. Russell | Vancouver | 10/08/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Lenny Breau revolutionized the solo guitar field. More than Leo Kottke, John Fahey, Tuck Andress, or Joe Pass. Breau had all the chops down and could play any style as you will hear on this C.D. "Feelings", and "Paris" are stand outs on this album. The themes, as they are introduced, are reasonably standard but once he gets going no one is as lyrical or technical as Lenny Breau. His use of country, flamenco, jazz, classical, rock, and indian musics all comibined make a sound like no one else. This is a very ethereal approach to guitar and lenny breau, besides being a great musician is also an incredible composer. His improvisation sections are stunning in their fluidity, it never sounds contrived like Tuck Andress' horribly stilted improvisation sections. Breau could truly speak through his guitar. This album is flawless, and yes, there is one song with two guitars but it is credited, and obvious. It was done, I believe, for the sake of adding more harmonics, and for an experiment. This album, remains flawless in my mind and any fan of the musical styles mentioned above, or just great guitar playing, should buy this album. Lenny is the best ever!"

Notes on song credits & compositions

PH-50-NC | Southeast USA | 03/05/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"An earlier reviewer noted the lack of mention of song titles in the "Feelings" medley (identified on the CD only as "Feelings"), and also wondered about the identity of the "Untitled Standard". About the "Untitled Standard", while I'm not 100% sure that Lenny isn't playing an existing composition, I don't think he is; "Untitled Improvisation" would have been more accurate. He starts out with a melody that's very similar to "On Green Dolphin Street", but isn't that tune. He then changes course and throws down a long series of bebop lines, and briefly quotes the "Milestones" from the 1958 Miles Davis record of that name.



Both this CD and "Five O'Clock Bells/Mo' Breau" are on the Genes label, a label based in Silver Springs, MD. that I've never come across before or since (a Gene Rosenthal is listed as Producer on these CDs, so it was probably a labor-of-love project done by him). In 1988, when these were released, there was little or no other Breau CDs on the market, and his Lps weren't that easy to find either. These two discs do have a very homemade presentation, and there are no composer credits listed on "Last Sessions" (which also omits the recording dates, probably because Breau lived another seven years or so before his mysterious death). But, regardless of whether or not the packaging is up to the standards of the Guitarchives releases like "Live at Bourbon St.", the music solid Breau. Breau the free spirit / guitar genius is just playing what he feels like playing on these sessions (particularly on this "Last Sessions" disc, which is more exploratory than the cuts that made it on to "Five O'Clock Bells" and "Mo' Breau") - the disc has a very 1970s feel to it in that respect, although pianist Art Tatum was doing something like this type of rhapsodizing jazz in the 1940s and 1950s.

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