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Joshua Breakstone

"Fire in velvet. A fitting description of Joshua Breakstone's jazz guitar," wrote Paul Weidman in The Sante Fe New Mexican. "His flowing lines on up-tempo cookers are impeccably clean and fiery, bearing the mark of a first-rate improviser, while his chordal work on heartbreaker ballads is the final word in finesse," has raved Guitar Player magazine. Japan's Jazz Hihyo (aka Jazz Critique) recognizes that "The style in which Joshua develops his fluid single-note solos used to be thought of as the Grant Green school, but now this man leads the school." Downbeat also has written that "There is no shortage of young, knock-out jazz guitarists about us these days. And Joshua Breakstone is among the best of them."

Joshua Breakstone was born July 22, 1955 in Elizabeth, NJ. Through his music loving parents he was exposed to Broadway shows, Broadway show cast recordings, and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. Through his older sisters he was exposed to all kinds of other music- including jazz and rock and roll. "My sister Jill worked for the light show at The Fillmore East where I could hear all the bands regularly, especially my then-favorites Jimi Hendrix and Frank Zappa."

"I picked up the guitar around the time I was 14 and began playing with an interesting high school group called Moon Unit which consisted of guitar, bass, drums, organ, and flute. It wasn't your typical late sixties rock and roll instrumentation. I was exposed to jazz regularly as a kid, but it never caught my ear until I heard Lee Morgan. Lee's sound was exciting and made me want to hear more jazz. The first jazz people who turned me on were trumpet players, then I heard Charlie Parker."

"The fire of Lee Morgan played with grabbed me immediately," he says, "and the way both he and Clifford Brown fully articulated each note has been an ideal toward which I work with regard to the sound I try and get on the guitar. When I heard Bird, I knew I wanted to play like him in the sense of playing things which are meaningful, emotional, and, more than anything else, irresistibly beautiful. The guitar is a real challenge because it tends to be a very visual instrument and lends itself to patterns. In a way, I try and get away from the guitar and into the world where music exists in and of itself, where ideas, articulation and sound exist apart and away from the instrument."

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7
Album Review

The Joshua Breakstone Trio: Children of Art: A Tribute to Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers

Read "Children of Art: A Tribute to Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers" reviewed by Mark Sullivan


When last heard from, guitarist Joshua Breakstone was exploring the music of legendary jazz pianists with his Cello Quartet on 88 (Capri Records, 2016). On this album he is joined by double bassist Martin Wind (whose credits include several recordings with drummer Matt Wilson as well as dates as leader) and drummer Eliot Zigmund (who is known for his tenure with pianist Bill Evans, among others, plus his own albums) for a conventional guitar trio. But the repertoire is anything ...

13
Album Review

Joshua Breakstone/The Cello Quartet: 88

Read "88" reviewed by Mark Sullivan


Veteran guitarist Joshua Breakstone pays tribute to some of his favorite pianist/composers here. He tells a story about a fellow Berklee student (a saxophonist) who asked legendary saxophonist Sonny Stitt if he could sit in. Stitt shut him down with the question “how many keys on a saxophone?" The novice couldn't answer--there are 23--but everyone knows a standard piano has 88 keys. Breakstone sees the piano and the guitar as extended family, with a comparable chordal role in the rhythm ...

1
Album Review

Joshua Breakstone: 2nd Avenue

Read "2nd Avenue" reviewed by Maurizio Zerbo


Come rinverdire il mainstream contemporaneo? Secondo Joshua Breakstone, la risposta a tale quesito risiede nella varietà della disposizione timbrica. Gli arrangiamenti sono stati allestiti per arricchire la tavolozza armonica del canonico trio con chitarra-basso-batteria. Al felice esito del CD in esame contribuisce anche la dimensione melodica del violoncello, impiegato in ben cinque brani. È una piacevole ventata fresca, che all'inizio del secondo brano apporta anche una straniante aura eurocolta. Ne discendono gustosi impasti ritmici al servizio del ...

3
Album Review

Joshua Breakstone: With the Wind and the Rain

Read "With the Wind and the Rain" reviewed by Maurizio Zerbo


L'atipica formazione, chitarra/basso/batteria con violoncello, potrebbe far pensare a digressioni cameristiche. Si impone invece una gioiosa pratica jazzistica per via del quarto strumento utilizzato con le medesime funzioni di chitarra e contrabbasso. Nel solco di una tradizione che annovera diversi maestri (su tutti Oscar Pettiford), si impone superbamente il contrabbassista Mike Richmond qui impiegato solo al violoncello. Grazie ad energici raddoppi e contrappunti fra i solisti, i timbri gravi di basso e violoncello coprono tutto il fondale dello spazio sonoro, ...

7
Album Review

Joshua Breakstone: With the Wind and the Rain

Read "With the Wind and the Rain" reviewed by Edward Blanco


Prolific recording artist Joshua Breakstone delivers his twentieth album as leader tipping his hat to a major influence in his professional life, the late Japanese promoter and bassist Mitsuru Nishiyama, to whom With the Wind and the Rain, is dedicated. A guitarist of note with at least fifty tours of Japan under his belt, his experience performing in a format where the late bassist played the cello in an essentially expanded rhythm section, left Breakstone with a desire to document ...

259
Album Review

The Joshua Breakstone Trio: No One New

Read "No One New" reviewed by Woodrow Wilkins


The trio is a tried-and-true format for jazz. Every now and then, the form is tweaked a little--instead of piano/organ plus bass and drums, it's guitar, bass and drums. The Joshua Breakstone Trio is part of this sect, and delivers with No One New. The title refers to the leader, who has been a front man for about 30 years. He counts among his influences Lee Morgan, Charlie Parker, and Clifford Brown. Experiences seeing such performers as Jimi ...

343
Album Review

The Joshua Breakstone Trio: No One New

Read "No One New" reviewed by Jerry D'Souza


No One New is a reference to guitarist Joshua Breakstone's long career. Over the last 30 years he has etched an impressive record as a leader with 19 recordings to his credit. It is easy to see why he has been around for so long; his music rises above the mundane with a compact sense for the lyrical that draws out the aura of a composition. His writing is facile and melodic, and opens the door to his technique. He ...

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Performance / Tour

A jazz event 50+ years in the making...

A jazz event 50+ years in the making...

Source: Ken Franckling's Jazz Notes

To say it was long overdue is an understatement. Joshua Breakstone and Don Mopsick grew up in Linden. NJ. Their families knew each other and sometimes hung out together back in the 1960s, long before either man had any designs on a career in music. Guitar modernist Breakstone and Mopsick, best known as the bassist in Jim Cullum's Jazz Band for more than 18 years, performed together for the first time on Friday,. February 17 at a South County Jazz ...

89

Performance / Tour

Jazz Guitarist Joshua Breakstone plays Jazz Central June 29

Jazz Guitarist Joshua Breakstone plays Jazz Central June 29

Source: All About Jazz

Jazz Guitarist Joshua Breakstone plays Jazz Central

Thursday, June 29 at 8pm and 10pm Jazz Central 441 East Washington Street Syracuse, NY 13202

Admission at the door: $10/$8 CNYJAF, JASS, Guitar League $5 w/Student I.D. Seating limited to 75

The event complements Mr. Breakstone's artist residency at the CNYJAF's 5th annual Summer Jazz Workshop, June 26-30th. A Jazz Studies graduate of Boston's Berklee College of Music, he has traveled the ...

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Children of Art: A...

Capri Records
2019

buy

88

Capri Records
2016

buy

2nd Avenue

Capri Records
2015

buy

Eighty-Eight

From: 88
By Joshua Breakstone

2nd Ave: Blues For Imahori

From: 2nd Avenue
By Joshua Breakstone

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