About five or six years ago I had the privilege of taking guitar lessons with the son of Lenny Breau, a guitar great who might have been the best player in his day a la the fictional Emmett Ray in Woody Allen's Sweet and Lowdown...but real, very real.

LENNY BREAU - Lenny's Mode
*Recorded in a cabin in the early 70s.

LENNY BREAU - Indian Love Call
*A sample of his guitar work at the age of 15, shortly before he moved to Winnipeg circa 1960.

Anyway his son Chet (named after Lenny's close friend Chet Atkins) lived a humble life in a basement in Winnipeg. He used to have a show on public access where he taught scales, runs, progressions and ditties.

Anyway, when I took lessons, Chet had his own system, but I brought in a book by Mickey Baker, a must-have guide written in 1955 by a very "psychadelic looking guy", as Chet once said. Right off the bat, the book covers a wide array of modal exercises, bop and blues runs and odd chord progressions. What was really excellent is that it taught how to integrate bop jazz into rock n' roll. This book changed my life and without it, I doubt I'd have the same appreciation for people like The Contortions or Uz Jsme Doma or any of those jazzy punkish bands.

In any case, I neglected to put two and two together...Mickey Baker was one half of the duo Mickey and Sylvia, who wrote and released "Love is Strange" in 1957.

MICKEY AND SYLVIA - Love is Strange

ESB PLAYLIST 3/17/06

WOLFMOTHER - Woman (MSTRKRFT Remix)
CADENCE WEAPON - Black Hand
CADENCE WEAPON - Vicarious
CADENCE WEAPON ft. Magilla Funk Monster - Poulet De Funk
TV ON THE RADIO - Playhouses
TV ON THE RADIO - Wolf Like Me
THEY SHOOT HORSES DON'T THEY - Emptyhead
THEY SHOOT HORSES DON'T THEY - Lowlife
ENVELOPES - Free Jazz
THE FIERY FURNACES - Police Sweater Blood Vow
THE WEATHER - How
THE WEATHER - Wherever There Is
PARTS AND LABOR - A Great Divide
PARTS AND LABOR - A Changing of the Guard
WIZARDZZ - Whispers from Wallface
THE LONG BLONDES - Lust in the Movies