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Michael Brecker: Pilgrimage
by Woodrow Wilkins
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 ...
Walter Beasley: Ready for Love
by Woodrow Wilkins
For Walter Beasley, the journey began in the 1970s with recordings by Grover Washington Jr. and the dynamic duo of Robert Flack and Donny Hathaway. The former opened his mind and ears to the boundless world of the saxophone. The latter offered Hathaway's voice as an icon for inspiration. With a nod to Earth, Wind & ...
Michael Brecker: Pilgrimage
by Samuel Chell
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 ...
Hiroshima: Little Tokyo
by Jeff Winbush
Something seems to happen to many bands after they enter 20 to 25 years of making music. They seem to run out of new and interesting things to say and pretty soon all they do is recycle the same scant ideas over and over as they become dim parodies of themselves. You see this happen all ...
Spyro Gyra: Good to Go-Go
by Woodrow Wilkins
In a way, Spyro Gyra is the Steely Dan of jazz. For most of their years, The Dan was Donald Fagen, Walter Becker and an ever-changing lineup of session musicians. Spyro Gyra started in similar fashion, with saxophonist Jay Beckenstein and keyboardist Jeremy Wall fronting a band they called Tuesday Night Jams. The duo performed on ...
The Bad Plus: Prog
by Christopher Shoe
Since its appearance on the music scene in 2003, The Bad Plus has been at the forefront of numerous debates within the world of jazz and beyond. Questions of genre placement and definition terminology seem to plague this esoteric band. Its newest disc Prog certainly won't answer these questions or solve these debates. In fact, it ...
Michael Brecker: Pilgrimage
by Troy Collins
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 ...
Michael Brecker: Pilgrimage
by C. Michael Bailey
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, ...
Michael Brecker: Pilgrimage
by John Kelman
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 ...
The Bad Plus: Prog
by Troy Collins
Free from the confines of major label machinery, The Bad Plus returns to its independent roots fully rejuvenated with Prog, its fifth studio album and first on its own Do The Math imprint (distributed by Heads Up). Although a three-album tenure on Columbia Records brought The Bad Plus far greater recognition than its self-titled 2001 debut ...
