First Michael Brecker Saxophone Competition Announced

SOURCE: ELI DEGIBRI 
February 22, 2017

Internationally acclaimed saxophonist, Eli Degibri, announced his intention to establish The Michael Brecker Saxophone Competition last month at the Nearness of You Concert, a biennial event held at Lincoln Center to raise money for cancer research in honor of the late Michael Brecker.

In front of an audience consisting of President Bill Clinton and Secretary Hillary Clinton, Degibri reminisced about the first time he heard the legendary Brecker perform, thirty years prior, at the inaugural Red Sea Jazz Festival in Eilat, Israel in 1986. “I was mesmerized," he recalled in his speech.

The benefit concert featured performances by Dianne Reeves, Diana Krall, Wynton Marsalis and Chaka Khan. Degibri performed a piece from his last album, Cliff Hangin', and the former President took notice.


“President Clinton came up to me after the show," Degibri glowingly recounted, “one of the greatest speakers of my lifetime shared that he was inspired by my speech and my playing. It was surreal. He told me a funny story about [former Israeli Prime Minister] Ehud Barak and we chatted about jazz. It was 20 years ago at The White House when we met and our love of jazz is something we'll forever share."

read more at: https://news.allaboutjazz.com/first-michael-brecker-saxophone-competition-announced.php

Remembering Michael Brecker, Five Years Later

Hard to wrap my mind around the fact that as of yesterday, Michael Brecker has been dead for five years, now. With over 900 recordings to his name, it's damned near impossible to avoid that singular sax sound of his whether the music is funk, rock, mainstream jazz or fusion jazz. Moreover, I find that more and more of the current crop of sax players are drawing major elements of their style from Brecker, perhaps the most significant indication of his importance to jazz.

Of all of his accomplishments, the most amazing one to me was when he was ailing badly from the form of leukemia that would ultimately take his life, he summoned up the strength and determination to make one last musical statement, Pilgrimage, and it was a grand one, a curtain call released after his death that only made us fans miss him more.

Two weeks after Brecker's passing, I put together some personal thoughts on him around an MB song—one of many—that I loved. Here's a reprint of that One Track Mind:

Last weekend I helped my brother move across state. After we stuffed the 26 foot U-Haul and his Ford pickup, he handed me the keys to the Ford and just as we were about to embark he showed my his XM radio and before I can tell him I already had an iPod handy for listening, he gave me a quick tutorial on how to work this newfangled device that's become all the rage among mobile music listeners.

We shove off with me tailing my brother's U-Haul and I pop the white earbuds in my ears. Crap, the Nano is just about bled dry of juice. Let's check out this XM gizmo and see if we can find some good tunes on it. Turning the knob I find a “straight jazz" channel.

Alright, I think, now we're getting somewhere. But I soon discover some of the material is too soft, I'll never make the three hour drive up to Shreveport. Luckily, just two channels over, I discover “Beyond Jazz." Now, this is what I call travelling music. They're playing Jean-Luc Ponty, Stanton Moore and some trippy acid jazz outfit called the Modern Groove Syndicate.

And about every hour, they're queuing up a song by the late, lamented Michael Brecker.

A couple of weeks ago I sort of covered his untimely passing with a quick piece, and intended to move on from there. But this station was playing cuts off of Now You See It...Now You Don't which I previously noted was my favorite Michael Brecker.

Adding to that good vibe are some positive associations with the time period when this record was new and in my regular CD rotation.

One of the cuts played was “Dogs In The Wine Shop," and I haven't been able to get it out of my head since then. Yes, folks, I have a One Track Mind, but this time, the song wasn't selected on a whim. Indeed, it's a mission.

Like all the other tracks on Now You See It...Now You Don't and all of Brecker's early solo records in general, it is a rare example of challenging, engaging fusion in the late eighties and early nineties.

By then the genre largely gave way to bland smooth jazz on one end and incessant wanking on the other. Brecker offered a perfect middle road.

Everyone knows he could play his ass off on the alto sax, and he always left room to strut his stuff. But to him, the mood and depth of the material meant just as much. On 1990'sNow You See It... it probably meant even more.

With good friend and longtime musical partner keyboardist/composer Don Grolnick as producer, Brecker put together an exotic bland of bop, world music and Brecker Brothers that at it's heart had a slightly meloncholy soul to it. In it, Brecker always soloed and never soloed.

If you've heard that phrase before, you know I'm drawing a comparison to Weather Report's approach to fusion, a comparison that is made in the most complimentary way.
Read more on: http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/news.php?id=92265

Saxophone Summit Live at Birdland, 1999....

Saxophone Summit Live at Birdland, 1999, featuring:
Michael Brecker,
David Liebman
Joe Lovano
Phil Markowitz,
Rufus Reid
Billy Hart

One For Michael Brecker

On August 11, MAMA Records released Chuck Owen & The Jazz Surge’s The Comet’s Tail: Playing the Compositions of Michael Brecker. Under the direction of Owen, the disc features the eminently swinging 17-piece Jazz Surge alongside longtime Brecker collaborators such as Joe Lovano, Mike Stern, Mike Mainieri, Dave Liebman, Adam Nussbaum, Danny Gottlieb, Rob Thomas and Brecker’s brother Randy.

The Comet’s Tail is the first release emanating from the University of South Florida’s Center for Jazz Composition and the culmination of a project begun in 2006. Seeking to focus attention on an established composer’s body of work while, at the same time, stimulating new works, the CJC launched an International Jazz Arranging Competition in honor of Brecker. Over 80 works from five countries were submitted. Ultimately, British Columbia resident Fred Stride’s rollicking score of “Peep,” which opens The Comet’s Tail, was selected as the winning entry. In the meantime, the CJC commissioned fresh arrangements of Brecker compositions from the saxophonist’s frequent behind-the-scenes collaborators Gil Goldstein and Vince Mendoza. Each selected a song of his choosing with Mendoza going with “Slings and Arrows” and Goldstein opting for “The Mean Time,” a tune from Pilgrimage, Brecker’s final recording. These works, along with arrangements by former CJC Managing Director Dave Stamps and Owen, the organization’s present director, were to be premiered in a series of concerts throughout central Florida in April 2007. Sadly, Brecker passed away in January of that year, casting a somber mood over the project. After careful assessment, everyone agreed that the project should continue and that it would serve as a poignant tribute and wonderful celebration of the late saxophonist and his work.

After three April concerts premiers and two recording sessions, the Jazz Surge reprised the material (with two new charts added) at the Clearwater Jazz Holiday in October 2007. The final recording sessions soon followed.
The result of so much intensive and loving labor is a fine, lively record, with inspired playing all around. The eight selections span some 25 years and are culled from seven different Brecker recordings. As tributes go, this one’s a memorable gem.
http://www.jazziz.com/news/2009/08/31/one-for-michael-brecker/

Michael Brecker - Delta City Blues

Michael Brecker Group Live 1998 @ Leverkusener Jazztage (Germany)
featuring:
Joey Calderazzo (piano)
James Genus (bass)
Ralph Peterson (drums)

Michael Brecker & César Camargo Mariano - Body & Soul - Heineken Concerts - 1997

HEINEKEN CONCERTS-1997 > César Camargo Mariano invites:
Romero Lubambo: Violão
Leo Traversa: Bass
Mark Walker: Drum
Michael Brecker: Saxophone
Ivan lins: Vocal e Piano
Mario Manga: Cello
Marcos Brito: Piano
Dianne Reeves: Vocal
HEINEKEN CONCERTS
Project & Production: LPC Projetos Culturais
Artistic Manager: Toy Lima
Record: TV Cultura de São Paulo/BR