Steve Grover Quintet & Denny Breau - The Lenny Breau Project

Sunday, Sept. 18, 2011, 2 pm

Steve Grover 's introduction to Lenny Breau came in the early '70s when he was a young teen doing a gig with Lenny's kid brother (and guitarist) Denny. Steve..."You're good!" Denny..."You should hear my brother!" In the late '70s Steve and Brad Terry toured with Lenny. In 1984 at age 43, Lenny was murdered - still an unsolved crime. Although he was commercially unsuccessful, his impact on guitar players was on a par with that of Miles Davis and John Coltrane in jazz.

Three years ago Steve conceived the Lenny Breau Project. He poured over Lenny's legendary CDs and recast Lenny's arrangements for a jazz quintet. With the invaluable help of Denny and Brad, the Lenny Breau Project came to fruition.. Through these arrangements and associated anecdotes, Lenny comes alive. Noteworthy are the beatiful arrangement of Autumn Leaves and another comfortable jazz standard with [Steve said] 23 key changes. The program is interesting in that, through the combination of music and commentary by loving friends, one has the feeling of being welcomed into the circle.

Please listen to Steve's example of Lenny playing "the notoriously difficult guitar piece, The Claw" ; then visit MPBN's fine documentary/interview with Steve, Lenny Breau's Guitar-Pickin' Genius....

Denny Breau - guitar (1952 - ). As Denny greets concert-goers and shakes hands following his performances, guitar players invariably ask how he performs certain techniques and Denny, who has a passion for teaching, is happy to show them. This is especially true when demonstrating the guitar style of Chet Atkins, who was a family friend and major influence. Shows usually include a “smartly executed Chet Atkins medley by Breau who truly does the late Atkins proud,” according to a review in Dirty Linen magazine.

It is not an exaggeration to say that Denny was born to the instrument. His parents, Hal Lone Pine and Betty Cody, were popular country performers and RCA recording artists beginning in the 1940s. His older brother, the late Lenny Breau, is considered a jazz guitar giant.

Denny started playing guitar when he was 9 years old and was performing professionally by his early teens. During more than 30 years as a full-time musician, he has performed with many well-known artists and picked alongside outstanding guitarists including Bryan Sutton, Harvey Reid, J.P. Cormier, Pat Donohue, Dan Crary and Steve Kaufman. He has long been in demand as a studio musician and has done jingles and sound tracks for radio and television as well as recorded and produced albums for other artists. Denny was a member of roots music trio Turkey Hollow with Tom Rowe and Tom's son Dave starting in 1998. Since Tom's death in early 2004, Denny and Dave have continued to perform as Turkey Hollow on a limited basis. Denny was inducted into the Maine Country Music Hall of Fame in 2004, the youngest inductee in the history of the organization. dennybreau.com

Tony Gaboury, guitar: Tony holds his Master’s degree in Performance from Goddard College, and taught at The Berklee College of Music from 1995-2010. He has performed with many outstanding artists, including George Garzone, Mick Goodrick, Bruce Saunders, and many others. Tony has released three CDs under his leadership; the latest is “Plays The Music of Bill Evans”. Tony lives in Portland, ME. stevegrover.com

Fitz Jenkins, bass: Fitz has been playing and performing since the 1960s. He has performed with Charlie Rouse, Horace Silver, and many other jazz artists, most notably logging roadwork with singer-songwriter Tom Waits in the late 1970s. Since moving to Maine, Fitz has performed with virtually every jazz musician in the state. Currently Fitz leads his own jazz trio at the Pier 77 restaurant in Cape Porpoise.

Brad Terry (1937-), clarinet/whistler: A resident of Bath, ME, Brad Terry is a legendary jazz musician who has lived in Maine since the early ‘70s, with roots in the state that go back to his childhood. Completely self-taught as a clarinet player (and jazz whistler), Brad plays completely by ear. His extraordinary talent as a jazz improviser has put him in the company of such artists as Dizzy Gillespie, Jim Hall, Roger Kellaway, Red Mitchell, Steve Swallow, and Roswell Rudd, among many others. His relationship with the great guitarist Lenny Breau has been documented on the double CD album “The Living Room Tapes” and the recently released DVD “Live At The Maine Festival 1980” on the Art of Life label. Since the early ‘90s Brad has been traveling and touring regularly in Poland, performing and recording with that country’s best jazz musicians. Additionally, Brad has been committed to jazz education for most of career, teaching and mentoring countless young jazz musicians over the last few decades.

Drummer/composer Steve Grover was born February 26, 1956 in Lewiston, Maine. He studied with the excellent local jazz drummer and teacher Dick Demers, and after studying at Berklee and the University of Maine, Steve landed a gig with guitar legend Lenny Breau. Steve worked with him on and off for the next few years, learning the subtleties of small group interplay with a master musician. In 1979, Grover attended a program at The Creative Music Studio...[where] Steve was exposed to the concepts of artists from the world of jazz, new music, and world music.

In 1980 Grover teamed up with clarinetist Brad Terry, saxophonist Charlie Jennison and bassist John Hunter to form a group called The Friends of Jazz, which performed in Maine schools and communities. The group also played host to visiting artists...Dizzy Gillespie, Buddy Tate, Gray Sargent...reconstituting itself with excellent players like ...guitarist Tony Gaboury, and other fine musicians.

In 1985, Steve composed Blackbird Suite, a song cycle setting for the Wallace Stevens poem Thirteen Ways of Looking At a Blackbird...[In 1994] Blackbird Suite won the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz/BMI Jazz Composers Competition [and was performed at the Kennedy Center]. When a CD was finally released in 1997, the reviews were excellent.

From 1984-97 Grover was a faculty member of The Maine Jazz Camp, with a stint as director from 1992-'94. Since 1985 Grover has taught at The University of Maine at Augusta (where he received his degree in music), Bowdoin College and Bates College. As a jazz drummer, Grover has performed with many excellent musicians. He has released an number of CDs featuring his own compositions for which excellent reviews have appeared in Downbeat, JazzTimes, Cadence, and other publications.

In 1996 Steve was a winner in JAZZIZ Magazine’s “Percussion On Fire” talent search. He received an honorable mention in the 2004 Billboard Song Contest, and his composition “Breath” was featured that same year on NPR’s “All Songs Considered”. In 2008 Steve’s original composition “Art Advocate” was chosen as the theme song for the MPBN program “Conversations With Maine”. Steve’s group won “Best Jazz Act of 2009” in The Portland Phoenix Best Music Poll, and was voted one of the “Ten Most Influential Bands of the Last Ten Years” by The Phoenix that same year.

Steve has released nine CDs, with reviews appearing in Down Beat, JazzTimes, and Cadence magazines. Collaborators in these CDs include Brad Terry, Tony Gabory, and fellow UMA faculty member Rick Nelson. “The Garden Above”, a collaborative CD with saxophonist David Wells and guitarist Tony Gaboury, was included in The Portland Phoenix Top Ten CDs of 2006. His latest CD is “Flying”, a collection of jazz versions of Beatles songs. In addition to performing with his own groups and with clarinetist Brad Terry, Steve has performed with Buddy Tate, Jay McShann, Eddie Gomez, Chris Potter, Marvin Stamm, Greg Tardy, Jerry Bergonzi, George Garzone, Kurt Rosenwinkel and many others. Steve lives in Farmingdale, ME. stevegrover.com