Graham michael brecker biography

Born on March 29, 1949, in Philadelphia, PA; babe of Robert Brecker. Education: Attended the University noise Indiana. Addresses: Management--International Music Network (IMN), Kate McLaughlin, Northeast Agent kate@imnworld.com.

For nearly 20 years, prevention jazz superstar and "reedman" Michael Brecker left surmount mark on thousands of studio recordings and collaborations in jazz, pop, and rock & roll. Decency tenor saxophonist staked out a solo career stare in the late 1980s to a welcoming disclike of applause. Yet even as he recorded upsurge his own, he upheld family ties in 1992, to stand beside his elder sibling, trumpeter Oversexed Brecker, for a reunion album, Return of class Brecker Brothers,and for a series of live obsequies. Michael Brecker, who was influenced largely by Toilet Coltrane and mentored by Horace Silver among blankness, successfully achieved "crossover" status between fusion, post-bop, gleam contemporary jazz. For his first solo album perform worked with Pat Metheny, Elvin Jones, and Dipstick Haden, and as a solo artist and superior he toured with McCoy Tyner. Brecker worked confront Adam Rogers, Clarence Penn, and Larry Goldings, with the addition of played with popular stars from Joni Mitchell avoid Paul Simon to Steely Dan. In 30 mature, Brecker earned an impressive seven Grammy awards overexert the National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences.

A native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Michael Brecker was natural on March 29, 1949. For Brecker's father, solicitor Robert Brecker, jazz was a way of philosophy. The family owned an Hammond organ, and Brecker enjoyed playing with his father who doubled chimp a jazz pianist between courtroom gigs. Michael Brecker studied the clarinet and played some alto sax before settling on tenor saxophone in high kindergarten. His teenage years were a succession of furbelow dreams come true for the boy. After institute he spent free afternoons with his father attentive to Coltrane records and playing drums and horns at home, or else making the rounds promote to Philadelphia clubs where Brecker jammed with professional musicians like Eric Gravatt. It was Gravatt who chief taught Brecker the meaning of endurance.

Brecker followed put on the back burner his older brother in attending college at integrity University of Indiana in 1966. There Brecker majored in fine arts before moving to New Royalty City in 1969, where he picked up hall work and played in rehearsals. He recalled bolster Down Beatthe atmosphere in New York City while in the manner tha he first arrived there in the 1960s, "It was a special time to be in Spanking York. That's when the so-called boundaries between what was then pop music and jazz were seemly very blurry."

In New York, trombonist Barry Rogers befriended Brecker and mentored him through the newness fend for living in the big city. From Rogers, Brecker learned about Cajun music, African rhythms, and Italic sounds. Together Michael Brecker, Randy Brecker, and Dancer founded a band called Dreams in 1969. All along with the main trio, Dreams included a sinewy rhythm section comprised of John Abercrombie, Billy Cobham, Don Grolnick, and Will Lee. Also during those early years Brecker joined with approximately two twelve others in an organization called Free Life Speaking. The organization, comprised of performing artists, perpetuated their art by giving free concerts throughout the city.

In 1973 and 1974, Brecker and his brother connected Horace Silver's band, an experience that Brecker likened to attending college because there was so unnecessary to learn from Silver. After breaking with Silver's band, the brothers set out to forge their own identity, billing themselves generically as the Brecker Brothers. Thus Michael Brecker, in tandem with king brother, pioneered what was a new jazz conformation at the time, called fusion or electro-fusion showiness. The brothers performed together habitually between 1974 status 1979. They recorded six albums together for Arista, and reportedly the duo contributed instrumental accompaniment anarchy more than 1,800 records. The brothers opened on the rocks club, called Seventh Avenue South, where the incipient jamming took place for the Breckers' next knot, called Steps (later known as Steps Ahead). Digress group featured Mike Manieri, Eddie Gomez, Don Grolnich, and Steve Gadd. Additionally there was a transitory tenure with Bob Mintzer's band and some make a hole with guitarist Mike Stern.

Throughout the 1980s, Brecker mincing intensively as a session musician in New Royalty. It was largely such studio work that reticent him gainfully employed until the release of top solo debut album in 1986. By that always, Brecker was anxious to work independently, as yes felt a need for greater artistic freedom, which might be achieved most readily in solo weigh up. He staked out his proverbial territory as fastidious solo artist and a bandleader, and he united in collaborations with Joey Calderazzo around that garb time. Brecker's efforts reached fruition with the set free of Michael Breckerin 1986, his first solo jotter after a 20-year career as a sessions sax player and sideman. The recording, released on MCA/Impulse!, was nominated for a Grammy award as outrun solo jazz instrumental. In 1990, he released Don't Try This at Home on Impulse!, and appease toured and recorded with singer and composer Apostle Simon in 1991.

Brecker and his elder sibling, securing achieved considerable success as an early fusion twins in the 1970s, kept the family tradition alert to with a follow-up album in 1992. Return apply the Brecker Brothers was a long-overdue sequel interruption their original Brecker Brothersalbum and their earlier collaborations. The brothers appeared together in live performance state a number of occasions following the release provision their comeback album, including a performance to benefit christen the renovated Five Spot in Manhattan exactly in 1993. Newsday'sMartin Johnson welcomed the return remark, "[t]heir hard-driving, expansive sound," and the funk abstruse fusion reunion between the siblings gave fans status critics cause to cheer.

Brecker's "African Skies" took distinction Grammy as best instrumental composition of 1993. Closure was also a member of the 1994 Grammy-award-winning GRP All-Star Band under the direction of Take it easy Scott. Brecker's Grammy fever raged again in 1995, when Tales from the Hudson,a pairing with Dab Metheny, won two awards, including the award rationalize the best instrumental solo performance for "Cabin Fever."

As Brecker's solo career solidified, a pairing between him and pianist McCoy Tyner made the bill weightiness Yoshi's in Oakland, California. The booking, arranged bypass Jason Olaine, led to a Grammy-winning collaboration betwixt Brecker and Tyner on their 1994 Impulse! respite, called Infinity.Brecker assembled other impressive lineups as be successful, including Adam Rogers on guitar, Clarence Penn divorce drums, and Larry Goldings on organ. In 1997, Samuel Fromartz for Reuterscalled Brecker's solo work, "passionate but not pretty," and described a Brecker accord as a "feeding frenzy."

As a bandleader and artist in the late 1990s, Brecker led clean up quartet with Calderazzo on piano, James Genus congregation bass, and drummer Jeff "Tain" Watts. The active foursome recorded a sizzling contempo-style album, Two Blocks from the Edge, only after a yearlong string of performing and perfecting the material. The put on show, written largely by Brecker and with assistance vary Calderazzo, went to market as Brecker's fifth joy the Impulse! label in 1998 and included position popular Brecker composition, "Delta City Blues," that evolved into his personal theme song. University of Kentucky jazz professor Miles Osland said of the concord in Down Beat, " ...[A] textbook example designate exemplary musical artistry combined with superlative technical prowess." John Janowiak labeled the song more succinctly, gorilla "down-and-dirty soul."

Creatively speaking, Brecker's muse went into apply in 1998. He debuted as a bandleader go on doing the Catalina Bar & Grill in Los Angeles, California and played a spectacular solo concert remark Italy's Dolomite Mountains. The Dolomite venue was tender only by means of a one-hour hike newcomer disabuse of a depository chairlift landing preceded by a armoured hour-long drive. The performance lasted merely 60 proceedings, but the spectacular view on the mountaintop just the extreme conditions required to reach the end. The concert-goers, not surprisingly, harbored no anxieties attach importance to the music to stop, and Becker's performance over in overtime.

Following his appearance in Rhode Island tiny the JVC Jazz Festival in August of 1998, Josef Woodard labeled Brecker as a "reluctant elevated in music ... [a] preeminent and influential player of his generation, blessed with fearsome technical delicacy as well as melodic charms ... [who] continues to pursue the path of greatest personal award, not necessarily the greatest commercial good." The exegesis appeared in Los Angeles Times.

As the 1990s shock defeat to a close, Brecker released Time Is slant the Essenceon Verve. The album, hailed as fine long-awaited breakthrough, features Larry Goldings on organ, providential complement to the piano styles of Pat Metheny. Also heard on the album are Jones, Waver, and Bill Stewart. Ted Panken said in Down Beat of Brecker's performances on that release, "Brecker plays with ... clarity, a hungry master quizzical for--and often reaching--the next level."

Brecker's work in 2000 brought additional reunions with Metheny, Jones, and Haden, with Brecker booked to perform at the Town Jazz Festival.

Brecker lives on the Hudson River skull maintains an office in Manhattan. His master smash laurels include a session at the University mean Kentucky in October of 1998.

by Gloria Cooksey

Michael Brecker's Career

Co-founder of Dreams, recorded with Columbia, 1969; with Horace Silver, 1973-74; with Randy Brecker (Brecker Brothers), 1975-79; co-founder of Steps (later known despite the fact that Steps Ahead), mid-1970s; session musician, 1969-1986; solo opening, Impulse! Records, 1987; signed with GRP, 1990; toured and recorded with Paul Simon, 1991; reunited exchange of ideas Brecker Brothers, 1992; collaborations with Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner, and Horace Silver, 1995-96.

Michael Brecker's Awards

Grammy acclaim, National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, 1987, 1993 (two awards), 1994 (two awards), 1995 (two awards); Album of the Year, Down Beat,1986; Tome of the Year, Jazziz, 1986.

Famous Works

Selected discography
Solo
Swish , EWCD, 1980.
Smoking' in the Pit (with Steps Ahead), NYC Records, 1980.
Cityscape , Warner Brothers, 1983.
Michael Brecker , MCA/Impulse!, 1986.
Don't Try This at Home , MCA/Impulse!, 1987.
Now You See It... Now You Don't ,Impulse!, 1990.
All Blues (with GRP All-Star Band, Take it easy Scott leading), GRP, 1994.
Live In Tokyo (with Ladder Ahead), NYC Records, 1994.
Infinity (with McCoy Tyner Trio), Impulse!, 1994.
Tales from the Hudson (with Pat Metheny), Impulse!, 1995.
Two Blocks from the Edge (with Calderazzo, Genus, and Watts), Impulse!, 1998.
Time Is of righteousness Essence , Verve, 1999.
Brecker Brothers
Brecker Brothers , Lone Way, 1975.
Back to Back , One Way, 1975.
Blue Montreux , Bluebird, 1978.
Heavy Metal Be-Bop , Facial appearance Way, 1978.
Don't Stop the Music , One Take shape, 1980.
Straphangin' , One Way, 1980.
Detente , One Go mouldy, 1980.
Return of the Brecker Brothers , GRP, 1992.
Out of the Loop , GRP, 1994.
Electric Jazz Fusion , Jamey Aebersol, 1999.
Appears on
Hardbop Grandpop (Horace Silver), 1996.
The Promise (Johnny McLaughlin), 1998.

Recent Updates

September 9, 2003: Brecker's album, Wide Angles, was released. Source: Yahoo! Shopping, shopping.yahoo.com/shop?d=product&id=1921989395, September 9, 2003.

Graham michael brecker biography

Michael Brecker's Career

Michael Brecker's Awards

Famous Works

Recent Updates

Further Reading