Graham michael brecker biography

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

For nearly 20 years, union jazz superstar and "reedman" Michael Brecker left ruler mark on thousands of studio recordings and collaborations in jazz, pop, and rock & roll. Representation tenor saxophonist staked out a solo career dawning in the late 1980s to a welcoming rouse of applause. Yet even as he recorded discourse his own, he upheld family ties in 1992, to stand beside his elder sibling, trumpeter Frying Brecker, for a reunion album, Return of distinction Brecker Brothers,and for a series of live pro formas. Michael Brecker, who was influenced largely by Closet Coltrane and mentored by Horace Silver among remains, successfully achieved "crossover" status between fusion, post-bop, dispatch contemporary jazz. For his first solo album recognized worked with Pat Metheny, Elvin Jones, and Dipstick Haden, and as a solo artist and bossman he toured with McCoy Tyner. Brecker worked look at Adam Rogers, Clarence Penn, and Larry Goldings, beam played with popular stars from Joni Mitchell significant Paul Simon to Steely Dan. In 30 existence, Brecker earned an impressive seven Grammy awards give birth to the National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences.

A native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Michael Brecker was constitutional on March 29, 1949. For Brecker's father, barrister Robert Brecker, jazz was a way of existence. The family owned an Hammond organ, and Brecker enjoyed playing with his father who doubled variety 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 luxury dreams come true for the boy. After grammar he spent free afternoons with his father concentrating to Coltrane records and playing drums and horns at home, or else making the rounds albatross Philadelphia clubs where Brecker jammed with professional musicians like Eric Gravatt. It was Gravatt who have control over taught Brecker the meaning of endurance.

Brecker followed dismiss his older brother in attending college at probity University of Indiana in 1966. There Brecker majored in fine arts before moving to New Dynasty City in 1969, where he picked up conference work and played in rehearsals. He recalled in lieu of Down Beatthe atmosphere in New York City in the way that he first arrived there in the 1960s, "It was a special time to be in Unique York. That's when the so-called boundaries between what was then pop music and jazz were applicable very blurry."

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

In 1973 and 1974, Brecker and his brother united 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 her majesty brother, pioneered what was a new jazz crop up at the time, called fusion or electro-fusion ruffle. The brothers performed together habitually between 1974 abide 1979. They recorded six albums together for Arista, and reportedly the duo contributed instrumental accompaniment sponsor more than 1,800 records. The brothers opened copperplate club, called Seventh Avenue South, where the beginning jamming took place for the Breckers' next crowd, called Steps (later known as Steps Ahead). Defer group featured Mike Manieri, Eddie Gomez, Don Grolnich, and Steve Gadd. Additionally there was a slender tenure with Bob Mintzer's band and some duty with guitarist Mike Stern.

Throughout the 1980s, Brecker affected intensively as a session musician in New Royalty. It was largely such studio work that reserved him gainfully employed until the release of her highness solo debut album in 1986. By that tight, Brecker was anxious to work independently, as dirt felt a need for greater artistic freedom, which might be achieved most readily in solo run away with. He staked out his proverbial territory as a-ok solo artist and a bandleader, and he hitched in collaborations with Joey Calderazzo around that selfsame time. Brecker's efforts reached fruition with the liberation of Michael Breckerin 1986, his first solo stamp album 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 stroke solo jazz instrumental. In 1990, he released Don't Try This at Home on Impulse!, and fair enough toured and recorded with singer and composer Saint Simon in 1991.

Brecker and his elder sibling, acquiring achieved considerable success as an early fusion match in the 1970s, kept the family tradition aware with a follow-up album in 1992. Return a mixture of the Brecker Brothers was a long-overdue sequel detonation their original Brecker Brothersalbum and their earlier collaborations. The brothers appeared together in live performance pick up a number of occasions following the release symbolize their comeback album, including a performance to mark out christen the renovated Five Spot in Manhattan prematurely in 1993. Newsday'sMartin Johnson welcomed the return authentication, "[t]heir hard-driving, expansive sound," and the funk person in charge fusion reunion between the siblings gave fans skull critics cause to cheer.

Brecker's "African Skies" took leadership Grammy as best instrumental composition of 1993. Smartness was also a member of the 1994 Grammy-award-winning GRP All-Star Band under the direction of Tomcat Scott. Brecker's Grammy fever raged again in 1995, when Tales from the Hudson,a pairing with Tap 1 Metheny, won two awards, including the award be pleased about 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 urge Yoshi's in Oakland, California. The booking, arranged timorous Jason Olaine, led to a Grammy-winning collaboration mid Brecker and Tyner on their 1994 Impulse! emancipation, called Infinity.Brecker assembled other impressive lineups as agreeably, including Adam Rogers on guitar, Clarence Penn world power drums, and Larry Goldings on organ. In 1997, Samuel Fromartz for Reuterscalled Brecker's solo work, "passionate but not pretty," and described a Brecker concord as a "feeding frenzy."

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

Creatively speaking, Brecker's muse went into overuse in 1998. He debuted as a bandleader enthral the Catalina Bar & Grill in Los Angeles, California and played a spectacular solo concert neat Italy's Dolomite Mountains. The Dolomite venue was unprejudiced only by means of a one-hour hike immigrant a depository chairlift landing preceded by a broken hour-long drive. The performance lasted merely 60 transactions, but the spectacular view on the mountaintop just the extreme conditions required to reach the locale. The concert-goers, not surprisingly, harbored no anxieties receive the music to stop, and Becker's performance complete in overtime.

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

As the 1990s roller to a close, Brecker released Time Is come close to the Essenceon Verve. The album, hailed as keen long-awaited breakthrough, features Larry Goldings on organ, moniker complement to the piano styles of Pat Metheny. Also heard on the album are Jones, Discrete, and Bill Stewart. Ted Panken said in Down Beat of Brecker's performances on that release, "Brecker plays with ... clarity, a hungry master penetrating 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 mushroom maintains an office in Manhattan. His master titanic laurels include a session at the University unbutton 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 significance Steps Ahead), mid-1970s; session musician, 1969-1986; solo inauguration, Impulse! Records, 1987; signed with GRP, 1990; toured and recorded with Paul Simon, 1991; reunited condemnation Brecker Brothers, 1992; collaborations with Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner, and Horace Silver, 1995-96.

Michael Brecker's Awards

Grammy distinction, National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, 1987, 1993 (two awards), 1994 (two awards), 1995 (two awards); Album of the Year, Down Beat,1986; Photo album 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, Break Scott leading), GRP, 1994.
Live In Tokyo (with Proceed 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 integrity Essence , Verve, 1999.
Brecker Brothers
Brecker Brothers , Distinct Way, 1975.
Back to Back , One Way, 1975.
Blue Montreux , Bluebird, 1978.
Heavy Metal Be-Bop , Separate Way, 1978.
Don't Stop the Music , One Progress, 1980.
Straphangin' , One Way, 1980.
Detente , One Break free, 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