Influenced by George Benson and Wes Montgomery, Zachary Breaux was a flexible guitarist who could handle soul-jazz, post-bop, and hard bop as well as more commercial pop-jazz and NAC music. Though the jazzman only recorded a handful of albums -- including 1992's Groovin' and 1994's Laidback, both on NYC, and Uptown Groove on Zebra -- he kept busy as a sideman in the 1980s and 1990s and backed such major artists as Stanley Turrentine, Jack McDuff, Donald Byrd, Lonnie Liston Smith, and Dee Dee Bridgewater. It was in 1984 that he met vibist/singer Roy Ayers, who he played with extensively. Signed to Zebra in 1996, Breaux seemed to have a bright future ahead of him, but tragically, the guitarist was only in his thirties when he died in Miami Beach after attempting to save a swimmer in distress on February 20, 1997. ~ Alex Henderson