The festival, presented by the Maynard Ferguson Institute of Jazz Studies at Rowan University, will be held on February 5, 6 and 7, 2003. The concert will be held on Friday, February 7 at 8:00 p.m. in Pfleeger Concert Hall. Admission is $15. For tickets and information, call (856) 256-4545.
Brecker has helped shape the sound of jazz, R&B and rock for more than two decades. His trumpet and flugelhorn performances have graced recordings by Bruce Springsteen, Charles Mingus, James Taylor, Chaka Khan, Parliament Funkadelics, David Sanborn, Jaco Pastorius and Frank Zappa, among others. His 1996 recording Into The Sun won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Performance.
Born in Philadelphia to a piano-playing father, Brecker attended big band camps and played in local bar bands while in his teens. He studied at Indiana University and, after moving to New York, got one of his first gigs with Clark Terry's big band. Brecker also helped form Blood, Sweat and Tears, working with the group for its first year and playing on their 1968 debut.
Brecker has worked with the Mingus Dynasty Big Bands and Epitaphs, the Horace Silver Quintet, Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers and, with brother Michael and others, the seminal fusion group Dreams. Joining Michael, he formed the influential Brecker Brothers and recorded six albums and garnered seven Grammy nominations from 1975 to 1981. A much-heralded 1992 reunion produced the Grammy nominated The Return of the Brecker Brothers. Their 1994 Out of the Loop won two Grammys.
His other recordings include Amanda (with jazz pianist Eliane Elias), In The Idiom, Live at Sweet Basil and Toe to Toe. He continues to tour and record extensively, as a soloist and with other artists.
The Rowan Jazz Festival is an acclaimed, non-competitive festival that features three days of clinics and workshops on performance and jazz education. Primarily conducted for New Jersey high school instrumentalists, the clinics are free and open to the public.
CONTACT: Dennis Dougherty (856) 256-4537
For more information contact All About Jazz.
