David Breskin maintains a low profile for a high-performing record producer. That might be the poet in him. Or it might just be because he prefers to move on the periphery. More than most of us, he’s closely observed the effects of the spotlight. He knows there’s more freedom, and a lot more fun, outside its blinding radius.
Breskin is a known entity in creative circles, but even if you keep up with the scene, you may not be familiar with his name. Or maybe you know him as the wiry journalist who testifies in The Greatest Night in Pop, the 2024 behind-the-scenes documentary about “We Are the World.” If you’re a scholar of Reagan-era music writing, you may remember his award-winning byline from LIFE, Rolling Stone or Musician magazine.
But I introduced him here as a record producer, so those credentials may be in order. Breskin produced my top jazz album of 2024: Breaking Stretch, by vibraphonist and composer Patricia Brennan.1 He also had a hand in my top jazz albums of 2019 (Kris Davis’ Diatom Ribbons), 2017 (Ron Miles’ I Am a Man), and 2016 (Mary Halvorson’s Away with You). Some other Breskin productions — like Chris Lightcap’s Superette and Nels Cline’s Lovers — have fallen a smidge further down on my lists.
This year he produced Ches Smith’s Clone Row, the subject of my previous audio episode; Trio of Bloom, the self-titled debut by a superhero unit of Craig Taborn, Nels Cline and Marcus Gilmore2; and Of the Near and Far, a sparkling new release from Brennan, due out this Friday. Breskin was getting ready to mix that one when we talked over Zoom earlier this year (a lot earlier, on January 16).
We covered a lot of ground as we talked, including David’s childhood in Chicago, where he got early exposure to the AACM, among other miracles. We discussed poetry and basketball, and the poetry in basketball, and how both connect with music. And of course, we delved into the convictions that guide him as a producer, some instinctual and others imparted by far-seeing artists, notably Quincy Jones.
“ I tend to say some of the same things over and over,” David admits at one point in the interview, “and one thing I say is: ‘Beauty is still the sharpest tool you have in the toolbox.’ No matter how avant-garde you want to get, or whether you’ve read all the French deconstructionists, and you’ve got your Foucault and Derrida and your big theory — you know, there’s still beauty. Human beings are still human beings, and we react to a lot of the same stuff that we did a thousand years ago.”
There are brilliant insights in this conversation, and I can almost promise that you’ll hear something that speaks to you. Let me know, will you? And as I mention at the top, I’ll soon be sharing some bonus content: a post for paid subscribers that delves into my personal history with David, going back some 30 years. It was fleeting but it was formative, and I think you’ll enjoy the tale. But first, please enjoy the interview!
Here’s the full list: The Best Jazz Albums of 2024. I have been dragging my feet, but rest assured I’ll soon be compiling the list for 2025.
With the blessing of Breskin and Pyroclastic Records, I broke the news of Trio of Bloom’s debut album at WRTI, back in midsummer. When Hank Shteamer followed up in the fall with a reported piece in the New York Times, he rightly put Breskin at the center of it.
