Jazz Articles about Michael Brecker

The Complete Arista Albums Collection

by John Kelman
December 14, 2012

When fusion first emerged in the late 1960s/early '70s with artists like trumpeter Miles Davis, pianist Chick Corea and guitarist John McLaughlin, the emphasis was on guitar and keyboard heavy lineups like Return to Forever and Mahavishnu Orchestra, with an equally strong predilection for the intensity and volume of rock and a kind of thundering funk that was different than the kind of music coming from R&B and soul artists like Stevie Wonder and Earth, Wind & Fire. Parallel to ...

Michael Brecker: Pilgrimage & Seraphic Light

by Tom Greenland
June 8, 2008

Michael Brecker Pilgrimage Heads Up International 2007 Saxophone Summit Seraphic Light Telarc 2008

Michael Brecker (tenor sax) was a musicians' musician, with jaw-dropping chops and a unique and highly influential harmonic and melodic style. Pilgrimage, his last recording, was made shortly before he passed on Jan. 13th, 2007 from myelodysplastic syndrome. ...

Michael Brecker: Pilgrimage

by Woodrow Wilkins
August 12, 2007

Michael Brecker is said to be the most influential tenor saxophonist in jazz since John Coltrane. A thirteen-time Grammy award winner who has achieved numerous other honors, he was a fixture on the scene from the early 1970s until his death earlier this year. With his brother, trumpeter Randy Brecker, Michael Brecker performed with Horace Silver's quintet before the pair started their own fusion group, The Brecker Brothers. Brecker later joined drummer Steve Gadd in forming Steps ...

Michael Brecker: Pilgrimage

by Samuel Chell
June 26, 2007

If there's any solace to be gained from the dramatic, heart-rending final months of Michael Brecker's life, it's that perhaps some of the attention bestowed upon this towering musician and exemplary human being will be directed to the vital African-American art form that he influenced and contributed to. As recently as 1990, the average life span of jazz musicians was estimated to be 43, with the cases of saxophone legends Charlie Parker (who died at the age of 34) and ...

Michael Brecker: Pilgrimage

by Troy Collins
May 29, 2007

Tenor saxophonist Michael Brecker lost his ongoing bout with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), a rare bone marrow cancer, in January 2007. Pilgrimage provides one last chance to hear him in the company of like-minded souls. Joined by a who's who of mainstream jazz royalty, guitarist Pat Metheny, pianists Herbie Hancock and Brad Mehldau, bassist John Patitucci and drummer Jack DeJohnette accompany the saxophonist on this superlative session.

Brecker began his career as a session player in the early 1970s, ...

Michael Brecker: Pilgrimage

by C. Michael Bailey
May 24, 2007

The importance of saxophonist Michael Brecker's final recording, Pilgrimage, is densely multidimensional. The romantically inclined will attach significance to the fact that the nine compositions were conceived and recorded while Brecker was aware of the gravity of his final illness. Pilgrimage falls into an artistic/musical category that includes such disparate music as Mozart's Requiem, Puccini's Turandot, Billie Holiday's Lady In Satin and Johnny Cash's American Recordings, Volumes 5 & 6. All of these examples were conceived during the artists' autumnal ...

Michael Brecker: Pilgrimage

by John Kelman
May 16, 2007

Michael Brecker's tragic death in January 2007, at the age of fifty-seven, robbed the world of perhaps the most influential saxophonist to emerge since the equally untimely passing of John Coltrane. It's easy to forget that he was one of the pop/rock world's most called-upon studio players, recording on hundreds of albums with artists including James Taylor, Paul Simon and Eric Clapton. But it's his prodigious body of work in the jazz realm that will be his most enduring legacy.