Michael Leonard Brecker (March 29, 1949 – January 13, 2007) was an American
jazz saxophonist and composer. He was awarded 15
Grammy Awards as a performer and composer, received an honorary doctorate from
Berklee College of Music in 2004,[3] and was inducted into the DownBeat Jazz Hall of Fame in 2007.
Early life and education
Brecker was born in
Philadelphia and raised in the local suburb of
Cheltenham Township, Pennsylvania. He was raised in a Jewish—and artistic—family: his father, Bob (Bobby), was a lawyer who played jazz piano and his mother, Sylvia, was a portrait artist.[4] Michael was exposed to
jazz at an early age by his father. He began studying
clarinet at age 6, then moved to the
alto saxophone in the eighth grade, settling on the tenor saxophone as his primary instrument in his sophomore year of high school.
Mrs. Seamon's Sound Band were finalists in the competition at the Spring 1968
Notre Dame Collegiate Jazz Festival, but were disqualified for their interpretation of
The Doors song "
Light My Fire".[6] The band also performed outdoors on campus in a benefit for presidential candidate
Eugene McCarthy in that year’s
presidential election.[7] Following that semester, the band accepted a management offer and moved to
Chicago, where drugs and a love triangle led to a
suicide, which brought
Chicago police to the manager's apartment, where all of the band except Sandke and Brecker, neither of whom were at the scene, were arrested. More trauma followed, and according to Randy Sandke, these events had an adverse psychological impact on Brecker which led to later substance abuse.
During the fall 1968 semester at
Indiana University, Brecker formed a trio, which included the drummer from Mrs. Seamon's Sound Band, and played gigs at a church basement club called The Owl. Some of that was recorded.[8] He dropped out before the end of the semester, spent a month in
Mexico City, then returned to
Philadelphia, where he played with
Eric Gravatt,
Billy Paul, and others.[9]
Brecker moved to
New York City in 1969, where he carved out a niche for himself as a dynamic and exciting jazz soloist. He first made his mark at age 20 as a member of the jazz-rock band
Dreams, a band that included his older brother, trumpeter
Randy Brecker, trombonist
Barry Rogers, drummer
Billy Cobham, keyboardist Jeff Kent and bassist
Doug Lubahn. Dreams was short-lived, lasting only from 1969 through 1972, but
Miles Davis was seen at some gigs prior to his recording
Jack Johnson.[10]
Most of Brecker's early work is marked by an approach informed as much by rock guitar as by R&B saxophone.[citation needed] After Dreams, he worked with
Horace Silver and then
Billy Cobham before once again teaming up with his brother Randy to form the
Brecker Brothers. The band followed jazz-funk trends of the time, but with more attention to structured arrangements, a heavier backbeat, and a stronger rock influence.[citation needed] The band stayed together from 1975 to 1982, with consistent success and musicality. In 1977 he founded the
Seventh Avenue South jazz club with his brother Randy.[11]
During the early 1980s, he was also a member of NBC's
Saturday Night Live Band. Brecker can be seen in the background sporting sunglasses during
Eddie Murphy's
James Brown parody. After a stint co-leading the all-star group
Steps Ahead with
Mike Mainieri, Brecker recorded a solo album in 1987. That eponymously titled debut album marked his return to a more traditional jazz setting, highlighting his compositional talents and featuring the
EWI (Electronic Wind Instrument), which Brecker had previously played with Steps Ahead. In 1987 he featured his new solo album at the JVC Newport Jazz Festival, incorporating the EWI.
Brecker continued to record albums as a leader throughout the 1990s and 2000s, winning multiple
Grammy Awards.
He went on tour in 2001 with a collaborative group, Hancock-Brecker-
Hargrove. This tour was dedicated to jazz pioneers
John Coltrane and Miles Davis. Brecker paid homage to Coltrane by performing Coltrane's signature piece, "
Naima". The concert CD from the tour, Directions in Music: Live At Massey Hall (2002), won a
Grammy in 2003.
Illness and death
While performing at the
Mount Fuji Jazz Festival in 2004, Brecker experienced a sharp pain in his back. Shortly thereafter in 2005, he was diagnosed with the blood disorder
myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS). Despite a widely publicized worldwide search, Brecker was unable to find a matching stem cell donor. In late 2005, he was the recipient of an experimental partial matching
stem cell transplant. By late 2006, he appeared to be recovering, but the treatment proved not to be a cure. He made his final public performance on June 23, 2006, playing with Hancock at
Carnegie Hall. Brecker died from complications of leukemia in a
Manhattan hospital. His funeral was held on January 15, 2007, in
Hastings-on-Hudson, New York.
Instruments
Early in his career, Brecker played a Selmer Super Balanced Action saxophone (serial number 39xxx), later moving to a lacquer-finished
Selmer Mark VI tenor saxophone (serial number 86351, manufactured in 1960)[12] with silver-plated neck (serial number 92203), fitted with a Dave Guardala MB1 mouthpiece and LaVoz medium reeds.[13][14] His earlier mouthpieces included a metal Otto Link 'New York' STM (during the mid-1970s) and a metal Dukoff in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Brecker also played the drums as he often talked about time, or rhythm, being musically the most important. He displayed his drum prowess during shows with his own ensembles or accompanying students during masterclasses.
Legacy
On February 11, 2007, Brecker was awarded two posthumous Grammy awards for his involvement on his brother Randy's 2005 album Some Skunk Funk.
Brecker's search in the International Bone Marrow Registry for a match prompted his wife and manager to organize a series of bone marrow drives throughout the world, including the Red Sea, Monterey, and Newport Jazz Festivals. Brecker was subsequently featured in a film directed by Noah Hutton (son of
Debra Winger and
Timothy Hutton), named More to Live For. It documents Brecker's battle with leukemia, and the production of his final recording. By going public with his illness, Brecker raised tens of thousands of dollars for testing, and signed up many thousands of donors, but was unable to find a match for himself.
Herbie Hancock said that around nine months before his death, Brecker had started practicing Buddhism and three months later joined
Soka Gakkai International, a group associated with
Nichiren Buddhism. At Brecker's memorial service, Hancock,
Wayne Shorter and
Buster Williams (who all practice the same form of Buddhism) as well as Brecker's son, Sam, sat in a line with their backs to the audience while facing an inscribed scroll (
Gohonzon) hanging in a wooden shrine (
Butsudan) and chanted, "
Nam myoho renge kyo" for five minutes.[16]
The Michael Brecker Archive was established in 2013 at William Paterson University in Wayne, New Jersey, in collaboration with Susan Brecker, and Randy Brecker acting as advisor. The archive contains: original pencil and ink tune manuscripts covering Brecker's solo career and collaborations with Elvin Jones, Pat Metheny, Paul Simon, Horace Silver, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea and others; three EWIs; mouthpieces, reeds and other equipment; over 250 commercially released LPs and CDs; over 1200 hours of unreleased live recordings and studio mixes on cassettes, DATs and other digital media; nine practice journals spanning from Brecker's time at Indiana University to the late 1990s; music books from his personal collection; an extensive clippings file; business materials; tour itineraries and record company/tour promotional materials; and over 1500 unreleased photo images.
^David Schroeder (1965). From the Minds of Jazz Musicians: Conversations with the Creative and Inspired. Taylor & Francis. p. 167.
ISBN978-0-329-12661-2.