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About Joshua Breakstone

Album Review

The Joshua Breakstone Quartet: Wonderful!

Read "Wonderful!" reviewed by Pierre Giroux

by Pierre Giroux
August 23, 2026

Joshua Breakstone's Wonderful! arrives on CD nearly four decades after its original release. It is a reminder that truly good jazz never worries about expiration dates. Although the original recording came early in his career, Breakstone hardly sounds like a guitarist searching for his voice. The ideas are already in place. Thoughtful, swinging, and melodic, the music is delivered with the quiet confidence of someone who understands that understatement can be as compelling as fireworks. The company Breakstone ...

Album Review

The Joshua Breakstone Quartet: Wonderful!

Read "Wonderful!" reviewed by Neil Duggan

by Neil Duggan
August 17, 2026

This is a reissue of Joshua Breakstone's debut as leader. The recording, which has been out of print for nearly 40 years, dates back to 1984, when the guitarist was 27 years old. It also marks the first time the recording has been available on CD. While many guitarists of a similar vintage built success by forging ahead in jazz-rock, Breakstone followed a more time-honored path, following the trail of Kenny Burrell, Grant Green and Wes Montgomery. He ...

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

by Mark Sullivan
December 21, 2019

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 ...

Album Review

Joshua Breakstone/The Cello Quartet: 88

by Mark Sullivan
October 24, 2016

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 ...

Album Review

Joshua Breakstone: 2nd Avenue

Read "2nd Avenue" reviewed by Maurizio Zerbo

by Maurizio Zerbo
December 8, 2015

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 ...

Album Review

Joshua Breakstone: With the Wind and the Rain

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

by Maurizio Zerbo
January 23, 2015

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, ...

Album Review

Joshua Breakstone: With the Wind and the Rain

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

by Edward Blanco
February 17, 2014

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 ...