Alex Goodman & Reg Schwager @ Hirut Café, Tuesday

Ace guitarists Alex Goodman and Reg Schwager get together at Hirut Café (2050 Danforth) tonight from 8pm to 10pm. $15 cover. 

Happy 94th Birthday Kenny Burrell

Raising a glass to jazz guitar great Kenny Burrell on his 94th birthday with a couple of performances worth checking. 

Remembering jazz guitarist Tiny Grimes on his birthday

Remembering Tiny Grimes with some rare 1940s performance footage for "Never Too Old To Swing" and more.  

Remembering Alvino Rey on his birthday

Celebrating the birthday of composer/guitarist/producer and inventor Alvino Rey with "The Bat" and some clips. 

Remembering blues guitar slinger Jody Williams on his birthday

Raising a glass to Jody Williams with "Lucky Lou" – the inspiration for Otis Rush's classic "All Your Love" – and a few more gems.

Watch a documentary about New Orleans banjo boss Danny Barker

Here's an informative 25-minute doc on banjo player Danny Barker who worked with Pops Foster, Baby Dodds, Cab Calloway, etc.

Happy Birthday Kenny Burrell

Celebrating the birthday of guitar great Kenny Burrell with a couple of recordings with King Curtis, Blossom Dearie and more.

Happy Birthday Jim Hall!

Remembering Buffalo-born guitar great Jim Hall with a 1989 performance of "Careful" and the Tanganyika album from 1956. 

Happy Birthday Jim Mullen!

Cheers to Glaswegian guitarist Jim Mullen! Here's an interview and some footage w/ Terry Callier, Dick Morrissey & Brian Auger. 

Happy Birthday Robert Ward!

Remembering Ohio Untouchables guitar slinger deluxe Robert Ward (right) with a few classic performances. 

Happy Birthday Oscar Alemán!

Remembering swing-era guitar great Oscar Alemán on his birthday with Hernán Gaffet's 2002 documentary Vida Con Swing. 

R.I.P. Jimmy Johnson, 1928-2022

Sadly, Chicago blues guitar great Jimmy Johnson has passed away at the age of 93. He'll be greatly missed. 

That time Lenny Breau played bass with Terry Hawkeye's Quintet in 1961

Here's a rare audio clip of guitar great Lenny Breau playing bass in drummer Terry Hawkeye's combo at Edmonton's Yardbird Suite.

Here's the scoop...

In 1961 drummer Terry Hawkeye hired Lenny Breau to play bass in a band featuring trumpeter Michael Downs who had recently performed and recorded with Philly Joe Jones. Dale Hillary, the alto sax player on this gig, had also worked with Jones and Downs and had brought Downs back to Canada from San Francisco the previous year. Downs played often in Edmonton and Vancouver over the next few years.

Hawkeye had probably met Lenny through his good friend and mentor pianist Bob Erlendson who was a well known figure in the Western Canadian jazz scene. Lenny and Bob had been working six nights a week at the Stage Door in Winnipeg with Lenny often playing Bob's 1957 Hofner "Violin Bass", which he used on the Yardbird Suite gig. This instrument later became known as the Beatle Bass when Paul McCartney began using it on early Beatles albums and performances. In 1961, it was virtually unheard of to perform jazz on an electric bass so Lenny was something of a pioneer in this regard.

The band performed their two week gig at the Yardbird Suite in Edmonton, Alberta, one of Canada's premier and longest running jazz clubs. The show was broadcast live to air by the University of Alberta's CKUA radio with CBC host Glen Buick announcing. The station recorded two tunes on an acetate disc: 'Spontaneous Combustion' and 'Blue'n Boogie'. Lenny takes a solo on the first tune at 07:27.

Although Lenny played bass often with groups between 1960 and 1964 and was highly regarded for his playing on the instrument, this is the only known recording of him playing bass.

00:15      announcer intro

00:50      Spontaneous Combustion

10:03      announcer patter

10:43      Blue 'n Boogie

Listen below. For more rare Lenny Breau clips, check out The Lenny Breau Archives channel on YouTube right here. 

 

Happy Birthday Wayne Bennett

Remembering guitar great Wayne Bennett with his instrumental version of Ruby Andrews' "Casanova" and part of a clinic. 

R.I.P. Italian guitar great Franco Cerri, 1926-2021

Sadly, guitarist Franco Cerri – the 'gentle jazz man of Milan' – has passed away at the age of 95. He'll be greatly missed. 

Happy Birthday Glenn Branca!

Remembering influential guitarist/composer Glenn Branca with an interview & Ericka Berman's doc 135 Grand St New York 1979.  

135 Grand Street New York 1979 by Ericka Berman

1. Theoretical Girls (w/ Glenn Branca) - Glazened Eyes 

2. Theoretical Girls (w/ Glenn Branca) - Contrary Motion 

3. UT - Sharp's Loose 

4. UT - I-Dog-I 

5. A Band - Sand and Sea 

6. A Band - Mirror, Mirror 

7. Rhys Chatam - Guitar duo

8. Chinese Puzzle - Great Wall of Prague 

9. The Static (w/ Glenn Branca) - The Spectacular Commodity (excerpt) 

10. Morales - Gay Girl In A Gay Bar 

11. Youth in Asia - Talking Heads (pt.1) 

12. Youth in Asia - Amnesia 

13. Steve Piccolo - Superior Genes 

14. Jill Kroesen - Freaks Nature

Guitar picker Rick Deitrick's 70s recordings dug up for Coyote Canyon

The majority of material on Coyote Canyon was taken from Rick Deitrick's solo acoustic home recordings circa 1972-75. 

Here's the scoop from Tompkins Square...

Rick Deitrick's forthcoming Coyote Canyon album (out August 27 via Tompkins Square) is the eighth in a series of reissues spawned from Imaginational Anthem Volume 8: The Private Press, following Conklin/Blum - Jackdaw, Tom Armstrong - The Sky Is An Empty Eye, Rick Deitrick - Gentle Wilderness, Homegrown and River Sun River Moon, Russell Potter - A Stone’s Throw and Neither Here Nor There.

Rick Deitrick discusses the songs:

"Coyote Canyon is a wilderness area behind my daughter's house where coyotes gather and howl before taking off for their nightly foraging. 'Little Tujunga' (pronounced "Tuhunga") is a river running through the Angeles Forest near a house I lived in five decades ago. Half my ideas for this piece came from onshore guitar ruminating. The rest was improvised in studio. 

"'Emma' was my close and sweet companion during this period, a lifelong deep friend. I composed her song one evening at the kitchen table of our place while she was cooking. 'Tumbleweedin'' describes a desert tumbleweed storm. I menaced every inch of the Yamaha, recreating the effect of these windblown monsters screeching along boulders, smacking into cactus and anything else in their way at often impossible speeds, following the whims of the heavy winds. This song was completely improvised at the moment in studio and forgotten. 

"'Roy's Rain' is a tribute to my great good friend and musician killed in a car accident in 1973. I found 'For Marsha' (Version 2) on a well-worn studio tape. It's a variant of the same composition on the Gentle Wilderness album. I like this loose and flowy version. 'Movin' On' has one thing on its mind – getting away fast and now. 'Going Home' is my improvised take on an American root song. The above seven were recorded between 1972-1975. 'Three Sisters' was recorded on a 20-minute studio break in 1999 describing three barren red hills somewhere in the Arizona desert, a cherished location."

You can pre-order a copy of Rick Deitrick's Coyote Canyon album right here. 

Listen to Rick play "Jon's Song" off Gentle Wilderness below. 

Happy Birthday Philip Catherine!

Celebrating Philip Catherine's birthday with "Grelots" from 1967 and sessions with Eero Koivistoinen and Marc Moulin.

R.I.P. Vinnie Bell, 1935-2019

Sadly, session guitarist and electronic effects pioneer Vinnie Bell (shown playing his electric sitar) has passed away – he'll be missed.