James Beaudreau profile picture

James Beaudreau

New Album Available Now

About Me

"Picking like this is always welcome," says Eugene Chadbourne, writing about James Beaudreau's guitar playing for All Music Guide. It's playing that reveals, he says, "a mind that can be provoked by intervals and melodies seemingly off-kilter with reality." Paris Transatlantic praised Beaudreau's "Nick Drake-meets-Derek Bailey improvistaions." All About Jazz lauded his "impressive inventiveness" and the "delicious ephemeral quality" of the music on his debut CD, Java Street Bagatelles. And Berlin-based website Tokafi.com called that CD "one of the most astounding between-the-genre[s] albums of 2006."

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 8/15/2006
Band Website: jamesbeaudreau.com/
Band Members:
Influences: Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Thelonious Monk, Andrew Hill, Teo Macero, Herbie Hancock, Yes, Muddy Waters, Syd Barrett, Grant Green, Derek Bailey, Howlin' Wolf, Stevie Wonder, Paul Motian, Miles Davis, Tony Williams, Richard Davis, Larry Meyer, Lenny Tristano, Captain Beefheart, Wilhelm Kempff, Joe Lovano, Rosalyn Tureck, Son House, Ludwig van Beethoven, Duke Ellington, Robert Schumann, Erik Satie, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Claude Debussy, Angus Young
Sounds Like: "...Nick Drake-meets-Derek Bailey..." - Paris Transatlantic, November 2006

"...one of the most astounding between-the-genres albums of 2006." - Tokafi.com

"...although each song is unique, the gentle, lace-like melodies weave into a cohesive whole. Beaudreau plays with a refined delicacy that creates its own unique world." - All About Jazz New York, October 2006

"...evokes[s] the spectre of Derek Bailey... [and] recalls some of Captain Beefheart's guitar pieces... enigmatic to say the least." - WIRE, August 2006

"...enough pithy quirks to keep guitar and improv freaks coming back for more." - allaboutjazz.com

"...there are flashes of British folk and classical song, hints here and there of flamenco and tango and tinges of older jazz traditions (Django). Perhaps more than anything, I was reminded of the thoughtful Beefheart instrumentals like "Peon" and "One Red Rose that I Mean", especially insofar as having a structure that seems to want to cohere but insists on fragmenting, or cohering in unsettling ways." - bagatellen.com
Record Label: Workbench
Type of Label: Indie

My Blog

:: NEW ALBUM AVAILABLE NOW ::

Hello friends,My new album, Fresh Twigs, is available now from my website. It's a professionally duplicated CDR release that comes in a custom made mini-LP cardboard sleeve.The album has 10 new track...
Posted by James Beaudreau on Fri, 19 Sep 2008 06:54:00 PST

::Beaudreau at Time of Rivers Festival in October::

I'll be playing at the Time of Rivers Festival in Portland, Maine on October 12. It's a Sunday afternoon show at Dooryard. I'll be playing pieces from Java St. Bagatelles as well as material from the...
Posted by James Beaudreau on Mon, 01 Sep 2008 08:53:00 PST

:: DEERHOOF COVER POSTED ON MYSPACE::

You may have heard that Deerhoof released the first single from their new album last week as SHEET MUSIC. And invited everybody to record a version of it in advance of their own audio release and post...
Posted by James Beaudreau on Thu, 31 Jul 2008 07:50:00 PST

:: TRACKS FROM UPCOMING ALBUM POSTED ::

The new album is finished. Phew! It's called FRESH TWIGS, and it'll be officially released this fall on the Workbench label. The release will be a limited edition of professionally duplicated CDRs in ...
Posted by James Beaudreau on Sun, 20 Jul 2008 09:59:00 PST

The Book Is the Boss

As my friend Jim and I often summarize when discussing our respective working processes (he's a writer), "the book is the boss". Jim introduced me to the phrase, the provenance of which is uncertain ...
Posted by James Beaudreau on Mon, 09 Jun 2008 06:55:00 PST

Some New Album News

The completion of the yet-untitled new album has been pushed back from March to late April or early May. The CD's ten tracks were completed in March, but as I was sequencing them some things came up t...
Posted by James Beaudreau on Fri, 11 Apr 2008 07:00:00 PST

::SOME MORE ALBUM NEWS::

Tobias Fischer of Tokafi.com wrote a short news story on my next album, which will be finished next month. You can read it here....
Posted by James Beaudreau on Sun, 03 Feb 2008 06:30:00 PST

:: SOME NEWS ::

Despite a not insignificant amount of experience as a writer, and a degree in English even, I dread putting my news updates into prose  and so here's an update on the progress of my new album in poin...
Posted by James Beaudreau on Wed, 16 Jan 2008 06:49:00 PST

:: Eugene Chadbourne Reviews Java St Bagatelles ::

Eugene Chadbourne reviews Java St Bagatelles for All Music Guide. The good Dr Chad says, "Guitarist James Beaudreau, playing both improvised and composed pieces and using editing as a way of making on...
Posted by James Beaudreau on Fri, 23 Mar 2007 07:16:00 PST