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Randy Brecker with the NDR Big Band - The Hamburg Jazz Orchestra: Rocks

By Roger Farbey

Randy Brecker has been at the forefront of jazz since the late 1960s. His debut album as leader way back in 1969 was Score (Solid State). In addition to numerous albums under his own name he's also recorded with George Benson, Duke Pearson, Dreams and Larry Coryell's Eleventh House, to name just a few. But perhaps he is best known for the albums he produced with his younger brother, the late Michael Brecker as The Brecker Brothers. Lest people forget ...

Randy Brecker Quintet: Live at Sweet Basil 1988

By John Kelman

Randy Brecker Quintet Live at Sweet Basil 1988 MVDvisual2018 Culled from direct-to-two-track digital recordings made on three of Randy Brecker's potent six-night 1988 run at New York City's Sweet Basil, and featuring a particularly top-drawer quintet of musical friends old and new, the original 1989 LP/CD release of Live at Sweet Basil (GNP Crescendo in North America, Sonet elsewhere) has long been out of print. That the original version featured seven broad-ranging Brecker compositions, performed ...

Randy Brecker: Hittin' It with "RandyPOP!"

By Bob Kenselaar

In his 62 years playing music--starting trumpet at eight years old--Randy Brecker has played all kinds of music, but for many years now, he's mostly been known as a solid, top-flight, first-call jazz player, a modern post-bop soloist and bandleader who carries around his old '70s fusion-funk Brecker Brothers fame in his back pocket. So, with a new CD called RandyPOP!, you might think he's changing direction entirely to make a foray into the land of Katy Perry or Justin ...

Randy Brecker: RandyPOP!

By Dan Bilawsky

This album gives new meaning to the idea of rewriting history. Before trumpeter Randy Brecker had ascended to the top rung on the jazz ladder he was making his mark as a hired gun in studios and on stages. His horn can be heard on numerous classic recordings, including those of James Brown, Donald Fagen, Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon, and, of course, Blood, Sweat & Tears. Now, just as Brecker is about to enter the septuagenarian club, he's taken an ...

Randy Brecker with the DePaul University Jazz Ensemble: Dearborn Station

By Edward Blanco

The renowned DePaul University Jazz Ensemble continues a tradition begun more than twenty years ago by performing and recording at the oldest historic jazz club in Chicago, the Jazz Showcase located in the historic 'Printer's Row' district of the Dearborn Station area. The Dearborn Station live recording also maintains another on-going tradition and that is documenting sensational sessions of big band music with an icon of jazz this time, with the phenomenal trumpeter Randy Brecker. Musical Director and renowned trumpeter ...

Randy Brecker with the DePaul University Jazz Ensemble: Dearborn Station

By Jack Bowers

Dearborn Station, the tenth album recorded by the superb DePaul University Jazz Ensemble at Joe Segal's legendary Jazz Showcase (in Chicago's historic Dearborn Station, hence the title), is another bright and rhythmic tour de force for director / trumpeter Bob Lark's intrepid undergrads and their special guest, trumpeter Randy Brecker, whose perceptive solos enhance the first half-dozen of the album's nine tracks. On the last of the six, Lark and Brecker join forces to fan the flames on Tom Matta's ...

Randy Brecker: A Fusion Legacy

By R.J. DeLuke

On stage at the North Sea Jazz Festival in Holland last July, the ubiquitous trumpeter Randy Brecker lowered his horn after playing two joyous and funky numbers on the stage that is one of the festivals largest venues, serving as a hockey arena during the appropriate season. There were throngs of people, sitting and standing, gleefully taking in the music. After wiping his forehead, Brecker formally announced his group: the Brecker Brothers Reunion Band. “We play FUSION," he ...

The Brecker Brothers Band Reunion

By John Kelman

With the tragic passing of Michael Brecker in 2007 at the all-too-young age of 57, it seemed that the flagship group the Brecker Brothers, co-led by the saxophonist with his trumpet-wielding older brother Randy, was also to be a thing of the past. But some things never die; as it was, during the saxophonist's lifetime, the horn-led band that defined the term “downtown funk" and an edgy, urban sound that could only have come from New York City seemed to ...

Randy Brecker: Night in Calisia

By Nicholas F. Mondello

The waters of history significantly bathe Kalisz, Poland's oldest city. Specifically, they source back when Kalisz was an important stop on the Amber Road to Rome. Historical streams of another type also run broadly through this exuberantly satisfying recording offered by the triumvirate of trumpeter, Randy Brecker, pianist/composer Wlodek Pawlik, and the hometown Kalisz Philharmonic.This is a sprawling, beautiful and inspiring performance which, through Pawlik's effusive musical pageantry, Brecker's outstanding playing, and the orchestra's hometown fervor, appropriately helped ...

Randy Brecker with DR Big Band: The Jazz Ballad Song Book

By Andrew J. Sammut

Randy Brecker with DR Big Band The Jazz Ballad Song Book HalfNote Records 2011 On The Jazz Ballad Song Book, trumpeter Randy Brecker, the Danish Radio Big Band and Danish National Chamber Orchestra approach the slow, wistful side of this repertoire as one dimension among others. They expand their view outside of standards to include film works, lesser-known tunes and original compositions. As featured soloist, Brecker displays the colossal tone, impeccable ...

Randy Brecker: Nostaglic Journey: Tykocin Jazz Suite

By Dan McClenaghan

Trumpeter Randy Brecker's jazz credentials are of the highest order. The Brecker Brothers, the group he co-led with younger brother/saxophonist Michael, was one of the most successful jazz/funk/fusion groups of the 1970s and '80s. But jazz snobbery/elitism never ran in the family. Brecker has played and recorded with seemingly everybody, from the original Blood, Sweat and Tears on its debut, Child is Father to the Man (Columbia Records, 1968), to albums by Bruce Springsteen, Lou Reed, Dire Straits and Aerosmith.

Randy Brecker Quintet Honors Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue" at the Kimmel Center

By Victor L. Schermer

Randy BreckerPerelman TheaterThe Kimmel Center for the Performing ArtsPhiladelphia, PAFebruary 7, 2009

Around the time that Miles Davis was recording the iconic album Kind of Blue in 1959, a kid from Philadelphia named Randy Brecker was learning to play trumpet, and not long after that, he entered the firmament of jazz, working with Art Blakey, Charles Mingus, and Horace Silver among others. After several decades in the top echelons of musicians, Brecker returned ...