Get all the Lenny CDs you can: there are not that many.

In 1970 or 1971 my wife and I, living in Kingston, Ontario at the time, went to a coffee house to hear Lenny play. He had his trio with him. Only about 10 people showed up. Between sets with the trio, Lenny would pick up an acoustic guitar and do things that I have never seen before or since. He played Indian music, his impressions of Ravi Shankar: by stretching the strings over the frets he was able to play quarter tones. He crossed his legs and played a twelve string holding it straight up as it rested on his knee, and rocked the sound hole toward an instrument mike creating a crescendo on one note of his guitar. He imitated Bach counterpoint by plucking melodies with both hands at the same time while still playing chords.

We ten customers at that concert were blown away. He made a point of sitting with everyone there and visiting. The more we were impressed, the more he played. The small audience did not seem to disappoint him at all. He was simply more intimate. No concert in the thirty years since sticks in my memory like that one. And I am not even a guitar player.

My understanding is that he was used either by the University of Toronto music departemnt or the Royal Conservatory in Toronto to teach guitar so that his creative technique is not lost but lives on in others as part of his musical legacy.