Jazz Articles about Randy Brecker

About Randy Brecker

Album Review

Alexander Claffy: Music From Big Orange

Read "Music From Big Orange" reviewed by Pierre Giroux

by Pierre Giroux
August 31, 2023

Alexander Claffy has released an impressive album entitled “Music From Big Orange" which showcases his skills as a bassist and composer, and captures the essence of contemporary jazz while paying homage to the rich traditions of the genre. Switching seamlessly from acoustic bass to electric, depending on the sonic flow of any given tune, it is clear that Claffy's bass playing is the foundation upon which the entire album is built. On this orange-coloured vinyl LP, ...

Album Review

Bill O'Connell: Live In Montauk

Read "Live In Montauk" reviewed by Richard J Salvucci

by Richard J Salvucci
August 19, 2023

A rhythm section which includes Santi Debriano and Billy Hart is nothing if not part of a potential dream band. In Craig Handy, one finds a post-bop saxophonist who played with virtually everyone worth hearing over the last third of the twentieth century. For a variety of reasons pianist Bill O'Connell may be a little less well known outside the New York City metropolitan area, but his signal contributions to Latin jazz with Dave Valentin, Jerry Gonzalez and Mongo Santamaria ...

Album Review

Bill O'Connell: Live In Montauk

Read "Live In Montauk" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
August 17, 2023

After years of gigging in the New York City area, while honing his credentials as a first-call contemporary jazz pianist, Bill O'Connell and his family moved to Montauk, the easternmost point on Long Island, where he expressed his appreciation of the area's many wonders by recording this impressive album at the celebrated Gosman's Dock, during the annual Hamptons Jazz Festival in August 2021. It is essentially a quartet date with trumpeter Randy Brecker sitting in on two numbers, ...

Album Review

Marc Jordan: Waiting for the Sun to Rise

Read "Waiting for the Sun to Rise" reviewed by Richard J Salvucci

by Richard J Salvucci
July 8, 2023

Occasionally one comes across a singer-songwriter-musician and wonders just how he or she has managed to evade detection. In this case, the sense of living under a rock is only somewhat assuaged by consulting the artist's website (www.marcjordan.com) only to land on a page entitled “Marc Who?" The text describes Marc Jordan as a singer, songwriter, composer and artist whose songs have been on 35 million CDs. Jordan, who is the proverbial “overnight success," has been at it for over ...

Album Review

Jae Sinnett's Zero to 60 Quartet: Commitment

Read "Commitment" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
May 23, 2023

Commitment, drummer Jae Sinnett's nineteenth album as leader, is a generally admirable session wherein his Zero to 60 Quartet is in fact a Quintet on most numbers thanks to the inclusion of renowned trumpeter Randy Brecker who shares the front line with veteran saxophonist Steve Wilson. The quintet comes out smokin' on Sinnett's “Takin' It There" and pianist Allen Farnham's “Wait for Me," after which Sinnett chooses to slow the tempo and lower the heat, not raising ...

Album Review

Les DeMerle: Once in a Lifetime

Read "Once in a Lifetime" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
May 16, 2023

Drummer Les DeMerle recorded his first album, Once in a Lifetime, when he was a twenty-year-old prodigy in 1967. However, as is sometimes true in the music business, the album was lost in the shuffle at Atlantic Records and sat gathering dust until someone had the good sense to retrieve and release it some fifty-six years later. As the saying goes, better late than never. To share the front line on this dynamic (mostly) studio date, DeMerle ...

Liner Notes

Les DeMerle & Sound 67: Once in a Lifetime

by Scott Yanow
May 14, 2023

Every once in a while, the discovery of a forgotten recording from the past results in the history of jazz being altered. Until now, it was believed that the hard-driving and swinging drummer Les DeMerle made his first recordings in 1969 with his debut as a leader, Spectrum. The first-time release of Once In A Lifetime, which was recorded in 1967, rewrites the history books a bit. At the time, Les DeMerle was 20 and already had quite ...