Praise for Java St. Bagatelles

All Music Guide (full review here ) …Guitarist James Beaudreau, playing both improvised and composed pieces and using editing as a way of making one appear to be the other, or else not, has made an impressive debut with this effectively recorded collection…   Noise effects personal to the instrument—knocking, the previously mentioned squeaks—are enhanced in either mix to the point where firecrackers seem to be going off. It could be a barrage in praise of Beaudreau, since picking like this is always welcome. —Eugene Chadbourne


Paris Transatlantic, November 2006 (full review here - scroll down) These 24 mini-improvs were brewed up in the kitchen of Beaudreau's Brooklyn home, and the domestic ambiance is part of the charm, as the guitarist's musing Nick Drake-meets-Derek Bailey improvisations are momentarily upstaged by a passing plane or a noisy bird, or receive incidental percussion from the house's other residents (including the cat!) …The glorious retro-minimalist mini-LP design, too, is irresistible, making the album look like a previously unknown 1960s folk album. —Nate Dorward


WIRE Issue 270, August 2006 (excerpt) …These improvisations are played in an idiosyncratic style, incorporating terse, epigrammatic phrases—which can't help but evoke the spectre of Derek Bailey—and more lyrical folk stylings. Like Hans Reichel's pieces, they pivot in unusual places, so that "Hare", for instance, takes on a structural slipperiness. …[Java St. Bagatelles] recalls some of Captain Beefheart's guitar pieces, which were transcribed from tapes of his precocious beginner's piano—although Beaudreau's instrumental chops are far more advanced. —Mike Barnes


All About Jazz - New York, October 2006, No. 54 (full review here) …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. There's no frills or pretense in this music, but that doesn't mean it's not rich.
—Flo Wetzel


Tokafi.com, September 7, 2006 (full review here) One of the most astounding between-the-genres album[s] of 2006. (From the introduction to this interview.) These are short pieces, some of them barely a minute long and they are full of an incredible freshness, richness and "realness", of a directness and frankness which comes to you like a sympathetic stranger. On the surface, they appear to be calm, but underneath there is an unchanneled energy and liveliness just waiting to be released. The constantly changing rhythms, themes, motives, harmonic patterns, licks and melodies depict the constantly changing rhythm of life on the streets, their short-lived nature mirrors the ebb and flow of every-day scenes. —Tobias Fischer


Allaboutjazz.com, July 29, 2006 (full review here) Replete with rhythm, melody and harmony, the playing is conventional enough not to scare off those for whom "improvised guitar" may sound alarm bells; but it also has enough pithy quirks to keep guitar and improv freaks coming back for more. —John Eyles


Bagatellen, August 2, 2006 (full review here) … 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. —Brian Olewnick


Downtown Music Gallery, May 26, 2006 Newsletter (full review here) A collection of 24 brief, homespun instrumental acoustic & electric guitar improvisations, with elements of folk, the knottiness of The Old Bailey, and nice occasional touches of Brazilian rhythmic weightlessness. …This is beautiful, deeply felt, PERSONAL music, the exact flipside to the more clinical "we showed up, we played, let's put it out" sort of improv records that've been flooding my eardrums lately and boring me to tears. Highest recommendation! —Mikey IQ Jones