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Foreword Back in the 1960s in New York when I was writing a lot of fiction and practicing a lot of guitar, I invented in a short story a guitarist whom I conceived of as using harmony in the manner of Bill Evans. In fact, before it was published (in some now-forgotten magazine), I showed the story to Bill. The problem with this conception was that what Bill did on piano was virtually impossible on the guitar for two (and more) reasons, one of which is that many voicings that are easy on piano are not easy on guitar; the other is that certain of these voicings require seemingly impossible stretches of the left hand and an enormous strength in the fingers. So even in writing the story, I didn’t think it could be done. And along came Lenny Breau and did it. Every great guitarist I have been privileged to know—and the list includes Oscar Castro-Neves, Mundell Lowe, Gene Bertoncini, Ed Bickert, Reg Schwager, the late Emily Remler, and more—has considered Lenny a wunderkind at minimum, even some kind of musical miracle. The universality of Lenny’s interests on the instrument led him to the most total technique on guitar I have ever heard, and my own interests on guitar extend from country-and-western guitarists like Hank Garland and Thumbs Carllile through the great classical guitarists to flamenco players. And Lenny combined it all. When you look over the guitar literature of the past, Sor, Tarrega, the transcriptions of Segovia and more, when you look back down through the instrument’s history to the time before it had six strings, you are compelled to think that more than just maybe, Lenny Breau was the most accomplished guitarist in history. I think so, anyway. Consider only Lenny’s use of harmonics. If you are not familiar with the term, a harmonic is an overtone of a note. If you pluck a vi Foreword vii note and touch the string in a certain way, it kills the “fundamental” and leaves the overtone an octave above it ringing with an odd, ethereal , bell-like sound. There are natural harmonics and false harmonics on the guitar, and Lenny had totally mastered them. Other guitarists will at times play short passages in harmonics, but it is difficult to mix the two kinds of sound. Not for Lenny. He could throw in harmonics seemingly anywhere he felt like, and always to exquisite effect. Lenny could play with a plectrum, or pick. But he became so absorbed with the classical guitar (and his ability to memorize anything he heard is legendary) that he used the full four-finger technique. And sometimes he would use a mixed technique, fingers and thumb pick at the same time. One of the great musicians of our time is Don Thompson, who plays just about every instrument there is, and all superbly. Don used to play bass with Lenny, a duo gig at a Toronto club where I heard them a number of times. Please take my word that Don has a pair of the most incredible ears I’ve every encountered. Don told me, “Because I was standing behind him, I couldn’t see his hands, and I couldn’t figure out how he was doing some of those things.” I suppose Lenny’s work has to be called jazz, but it is beyond that (or any other) category of music. It is a thing unto itself. When I was first shown the manuscript to this book, I realized that its author, Ron Forbes-Roberts, had to be Canadian, because he has so much knowledge of the country and its musical worlds, and that he must also be a guitarist, because his information was so wideranging and accurate. Both turned out to be true. As it happens, I’m Canadian, and Lenny considered himself Canadian, although he was actually born in Maine. You’ll see the reasons for this as you make you way through this most excellent biography. When I first read it, I had a second copy sent to my friend Mundell Lowe. And Mundell thought, as I do, that it’s a book every guitar student should read. Indeed, the ideal for any guitarist would to be to gather up a fair collection of Lenny’s recordings, sit down with them and this book, and just let it all blow your mind. There has never been anyone like Lenny Breau, and...

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