Five decades into his career, @RandyBrecker is still going strong. @bradjbarker caught up with the famed trumpeter and composer to talk about his new album Rocks and hear more about his many years in music. https://t.co/AS4fBYbVbT— JAZZ.FM91 (@JAZZFM91) March 27, 2019
Thursday, March 28, 2019
@RandyBrecker
Wednesday, February 22, 2017
Gary Burton, Randy Brecker and Steve Khan ....
At JazzWax today, Gary Burton, Randy Brecker and Steve Khan remember Larry Coryell, the late fusion guitarist. https://t.co/cQ29n03udL pic.twitter.com/BbEZkaA1eZ— Marc Myers (@JazzWax) 22 de fevereiro de 2017
Thursday, January 7, 2016
Sea of Jazz Fest
Dick Oatts is a highly acclaimed, versatile musician. His instrument of choice is the saxophone, which he plays with soaring intensity. He has also been featured with the Stockholm Jazz Orchestra, Danish Radio Big Band, Norboton Jazz Orchestra, Metropole Orchestra, and the UMO Big Band in Helsinki. Oatts has accompanied such vocalists as Joe Williams, Sarah Vaughn, Ella Fitzgerald, Neene Freelon, Mel Torme, and Milton Nascimento. He has recorded solos for pop artists Luther Vandross, James Taylor, and Everything But the Girl.
A prolific musician and performer, Randy Brecker is an American trumpeter and flugelhornist whose versatility in musical tastes has made him a sought-after player, equally accomplished in playing jazz, rock, and R&B. He was a member of Blood, Sweat & Tears, Brecker Brothers and Mingus Big Band, and has performed or recorded with numerous acclaimed musicians. Brecker’s achievements include six Grammy Awards. While the quintet’s expert sidemen are all gifted soloists in their own right, Brecker’s “secret weapon” is saxophonist, and wife, Ada Rovatti. Her tenor sound is often dark and mysterious, but can be soulful and bluesy, or cutting and edgy. The two know how to accompany each other and their interplay is truly conversational.
Playing his first professional gig in elementary school, Ken Peplowski has spent his life – along with many a wedding and high school Polka band engagement – mastering the clarinet. With just a year of college under his belt, he joined the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra under the direction of Buddy Morrow. In 1980, he moved to New York City and, shortly thereafter, was hired by Benny Goodman to play tenor saxophone in his new band. Considering himself an interpreter of material who thrives on putting his own spin on music of various genres, Ken was inducted into The Jazz Cruise Hall of Fame in 2013 and returns for an encore performance on The Jazz Cruise 2016. With a diverse repertoire of Italian folk songs, avant-garde jazz, pop and classical music, the jazz clarinetist and tenor saxophonist has recorded approximately 50 CDs as a soloist and nearly 400 as a sideman. He’s collaborated with the likes of Mel Torme, Leon Redbone, Charlie Byrd, Peggy Lee, George Shearing, Madonna, Hank Jones, Dave Frishberg, Rosemary Clooney, Tom Harrell, James Moody, Cedar Walton, Houston Person, Steve Allen, Bill Charlap, Woody Allen, Marianne Faithfull, Isaac Delgado and Erich Kunzel.
David Finck is all about that bass! Since age 10, his mastery of the double bass has earned him spots in the jazz, popular, Brazilian and classical music worlds. David got his professional start touring with Woody Herman and his Thundering Herd. Since then he’s collaborated with a roster of notable and diverse artists like Dizzy Gillespie, Aretha Franklin, Sinead O’Connor, Natalie Cole, Rod Stewart, Herbie Hancock, Ivan Lins, Al Jarreau, Tony Bennett, Paquito D’Rivera, George Michael, Rosemary Clooney and Andre Previn. The in-demand bassist has appeared on more than 100 recordings, including platinum and gold-selling records of Rod Stewart, Natalie Cole and Elton John. Today, his career extends beyond performing and into the roles of producer, arranger and songwriter, most recently on the Christy Baron album, “Take This Journey.”
Drummer/percussionist Ernie Adams woos audiences with his brilliant technique and magnetic personality. The Chicago-based artist has played professionally since age 15 and his long list of performance, touring and recording credentials includes collaborations with Ramsey Lewis, Stanley Turrentine, Dizzy Gillespie, Joe Williams, Patricia Barber, Dianne Reeves, James Moody, Rufus Reid, Joe Zawinul, Slide Hampton, Frank Morgan, Arturo Sandoval, Wycliffe Gordon, Clark Terry, Pharoah Sanders, Ahmad Jamal and the Chicago Jazz Philharmonic. Performing on more than 100 recordings along with a host of radio and television jingles, Ernie’s perfect timing, solid groove and masterful technique render him relevant – and highly in-demand – in all musical genres. Devoted to arts education, Ernie currently serves on the faculty at the University of Illinois-Chicago and teaches at Orbert Davis’ Music Alive program, The Jazz Institute of Chicago, Ravinia and the Music Institute of Chicago.
Tim Horner began playing the drums at the age of ten. His influences rest primarily with musical parents. His introduction with music began by singing in the church choir at a very early age and by the 4th grade he began playing violin, viola, and drums in his public school music programs. This continued through high school while also joining The Roanoke Civic Orchestra and attending numerous summer music camps. Upon entering Berklee College of Music in 1974 he made drumming and the goal of being a professional jazz drummer his dream.
Monday, October 5, 2015
Interview: Randy Brecker
Reprinted from http://jazzwax.com
Trumpeter Randy Brecker will celebrate his 70th birthday in November and has just released a new live album—RandyPop! (Piloo). The album features re-imagined arrangements of pop songs by James Brown, Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon, Donald Fagen and others. Joining Randy are Kenny Werner (p, arr), David Sanchez (ts), Amanda Brecker (v), Adam Rogers (g), John Patitucci (b) and Nate Smith (d). Randy has appeared on more than 700 known jazz recording sessions and easily double that in the pop, rock, funk and soul realms. A couple of weeks ago, I caught up with Randy:
JazzWax: Where did you grow up?
Randy Brecker: In Cheltenham, Penn., which is right outside of Philadelphia. Our house was a block from the city limits. My father was a semi-pro pianist, so I heard music from the time I could walk. I took to jazz more than my sister, Emily, who studied classical piano. My brother Michael [Brecker] got serious about music in high school. Until then, he was into basketball and his chemistry set.
JW: When did you start playing the trumpet?
RB: In the third grade. I had a choice between trumpet and clarinet. I went with the trumpet because my father, Bob, was a trumpet fanatic. He loved Clifford Brown and had seen his band with Max Roach at the Rendezvous and Blue Note clubs in Philly. I remember my father playing me one of Brownie’s EmArcy albums and at one point grabbed my arm and said, “Randy, the trumpet is the greatest jazz instrument.”
JW: And Michael?
RB: He got stuck with the clarinet and played it for six years. In the 9th grade he switched to the alto saxophone and came into his own. I was four years older than Michael, so I missed his transition. I was already in college. [Pictured above, Emily Brecker, Mike Brecker and Randy Brecker with a department-store Santa in the early 1950s]
JW: How did you wind up playing jazz as a teen growing up in Philadelphia at the height of R&B and rock ‘n’ roll?
RB: My father had a huge jazz record collection. When I was 10, he bought me a record player. I’d take his LPs up to my room and play along on the trumpet. Most often I used Miles Davis’s ‘Round About Midnight, Chet Baker’s My Funny Valentine and Shorty Rogers' Martians Come Back. I’d just play along after practicing my classical pieces.
JW: How did playing along help you?
RB: It gave me a chance to pretend to be playing with the bands on the albums, which gave me confidence. I channeled their instincts. It was good for me but not so good for my father’s record collection. I’d play the records over and over, improvising over the piano solos when the horns took a break.
JW: Why didn’t’ your father become a musician?
RB: He was a lawyer working his way up at his corporate law firm. But he was always really a musician. He grew up as a player and went to the same music camp as Mark “Moose” Charlap, Bill Charlap’s father and a terrific musician. But my dad was afraid of not being able to feed his family. He knew he could always play piano, so he went into law. But we had great jam sessions at home.
JW: Were you a fast learner?
RB: Pretty much. When I was 15, in 1959, I went to Indiana University to play in Stan Kenton’s band camp. Kenton had just started to hold clinics at colleges to inspire kids to play jazz. There were a lot of great players there—Dee Barton, Marvin Stamm, Louis Gasca, Buddy Baker and others. I met David Sanborn, Lou Marini and Don Grolnick at the camp.
JW: When you graduated high school, you attended college at Indiana University, yes?
RB: Yes. The university had a fledgling jazz program in 1963. I played mostly by ear, but David Baker helped codify things for me. He wasn’t playing trombone then. He was playing cello. He taught me a great deal about harmony. A lot of musicians came to the school, including Booker T. Jones (above) of Booker T. and the MGs. He studied music composition at Indiana University and had a band at school during the time he was there. I played with him for a couple of years. By the time I left school, I was a pretty darn good reader and pop player.
JW: What did you do after you graduated?
RB: Actually, I didn’t graduate from the Indiana University. In my senior year, at the start of 1966, I decided to take four months off and go out on a tour of the Middle East and Asia with the university's Jazz Ensemble. When I returned, I moved to New York in September 1966 to finish my degree at New York University. The New York jazz and pop studio scene was pretty active. By then, I was getting mixed signals from my parents about whether I should become a professional musician. They were afraid I wouldn’t be able to earn a living to support a family. Finally, they backed off. My mom, Sylvia, was an incredible portrait artist, so she understood.
JW: Did you finish at NYU?
RB: Not really. I got sucked into the studio scene quickly. I had a suit and tie and was making a ton of money for someone my age back then. I was living in Greenwich Village at 21 Jones St., and I never had to take money from my dad to support myself.
JW: How did the Brecker Brothers form?
RB: Mike had flown to New York to play on my Score fusion album in 1968. He moved to the city a year later in 1969. In 1970, we played together in our band Dreams for a few years with trombonist Barry Rogers, keyboardist Jeff Kent, guitarist John Abercrombie, bassist Doug Lubahn and drummer Billy Cobham.
JW: This was just when Cobham was getting hot.
RB: Yes. In 1973, Billy hit with his first album as a leader, Spectrum. He hired Mike and me for his band, and I worked on a lot of sessions with Mike. During those years, I started to write for myself. I was listening to what others were writing. I had an electric piano and fooled around with scores. I put together nine arrangements. I brought Mike and David Sanborn together with me in a horn section and was getting ready to record a demo for a record. Then I got a call from Steve Backer, a producer who had joined Arista Records headed by Clive Davis. Steve had me meet with Clive. Clive said, “You know, if you call the band the Brecker Brothers, I’ll sign you right now."
JW: What did you do?
RB: I fought the idea for a while, but it was too good of an opportunity to turn down. We recorded my nine songs and arrangements in January 1975. When Clive heard the sessions, he called me into his office on 57th between 5th and 6th. [Pictured above, Michael Brecker, left, and Randy Brecker]
JW: What did he say?
RB: He said, “I love everything you guys recorded but you need a single.” I trudged back to the rehearsal studio and told the guys we need a tune that the label could put on the radio. We jammed a tune, went into the studio and recorded Sneakin' Up Behind You. It became a hit. Pieces fell into place. Next thing I knew the band was opening for Chaka Khan and Rufus and the Parliament. Many people thought we were black, but we were white and the single is what sold it.
JW: Looking back, what do you think of fusion?
RB: Well it ended like everything else: awash in mediocre records. Fusion morphed into the “smooth jazz” format, which, in turn, helped give fusion a bad name. But at it's best, fusion was a perfect blend of various musical genres and available technology. When you think of the best bands—like Miles Davis, Weather Report, Return to Forever, Herbie Hancock's Headhunters, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Larry Coryell's Eleventh House, Billy Cobham's Spectrum and, yes, the Brecker Brothers—each had an individual concept based on mixing jazz, rock, funk and soul. It was an exciting time. Fusion was popular in the mainstream and there were no limits on what you could achieve musically. Every 10 albums on the Billboard 200 was a jazz fusion artist. Sadly, those days are long gone.
JW: What do you love most about your new album?
RB: The arrangements by Kenny Werner are terrific. He has an amazing ability to reinvent pre-existing tunes so that they keep their classic fundamentals but sound altogether different than the originals. It was also great to work with my daughter and singer Amanda. The band killed these difficult charts once we got them under our fingers, and I think the soloing also is unique. You couldn't rely on your bebop/funk vocabulary on this date. Instead, you had to think creatively and melodically to make something out of the unusual chord changes.
Used with permission by Marc Myers
read more: http://www.jazzwax.com/2015/09/interview-randy-brecker.html?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=FeedBlitzRss&utm_content=Interview%3a+Randy+Brecker
Sunday, November 10, 2013
Randy Brecker: A Fusion Legacy
“I enjoy rhythm. That's where I'm coming from. That's what I grew up with. —Randy Brecker”
"We play FUSION," he said, emphasizing the last word in a lower-register, foghorn like bellow. He repeated "FUUUUUSION."
He meant it. The band, on tour supporting the new recording The Brecker Brothers Band Reunion, serves up a full menu of funky, sparkling, pat-your-food, shake-your-butt music that is gritty and full of hot solos, as well. For years, the band, with Randy's brother Michael on saxophone, had a huge fan base and claimed their own spot in the fusion landscape, even as both Breckers, individually, also made their own reputations as top-shelf, intense mainstream jazz burners.
The formation of the band was somewhat inadvertent, as was this first reunion since the death of Michael Brecker, an iconic saxophonist, in 2007 after being diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), an illness leading to leukemia. But that music, and that band, is a place Randy Brecker now regards as home; somewhere he will depart from periodically, and to which he will return.
"You have to follow your muse," Brecker says recently from his New York City home. "I love playing straight ahead. That's what I started doing, playing acoustically. I still do quite a bit of that with other people and occasionally my own bands. But quite honestly, I feel most at home in this setting. I realized when I put this back together that this band is kind of my legacy. People still want to hear it, even if the 'jazz police' don't. We did a real successful tour all summer. There are a lot of people all over the world that still get excited hearing this stuff. It's exciting to play."
On saxophone is Ada Rovatti, a native of Italy who grew up hearing the Brecker Brothers and has a similar inclination toward fusing musical styles. She also happens to be Brecker's wife, and mother to their four-year-old daughter Stella.
Read more: http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=45714&page=1#.UoASU6XhH9A
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Who's Randy Brecker?
Randy Brecker has been shaping the sound of Jazz, R and B and Rock for more than three decades. His trumpet and flugelhorn performances have graced hundreds of albums by a wide range of artists from James Taylor, Bruce Springsteen, Chaka Khan, George Benson and Parliament-Funkadelics to Frank Sinatra, Steely Dan, David Sanborn, Horace Silver, Jaco Pastorius and Frank Zappa.
Randy Brecker's history is as varied as it is distinguished. Born (1945) in Philadelphia to a piano-playing father, Randy spent summers in stage-band camps where he got his earliest experience in ensemble playing. He began playing RandB and funk in local bar bands while in his teens, but at the same time he had an ear for hard bop. "I'd listen to Sonny Rollins, Lee Morgan, Miles' Quintets, Art Blakey, Horace Silver, the Clifford Brown/Max Roach group."
After finishing high school. Randy attended Indiana University where after winning the 1965 Notre Dame Jazz festival, the IU Jazz Band was awarded a 3 month State Dept. tour of the Middle East and Asia. In 1966, he moved to New York City. Some of his first gigs upon arriving there were with Clark Terry's Big Band, the Thad Jones/ Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra and the Duke Pearson Big Band with whom he recorded 2 albums. Randy also began his foray into jazz-rock by joining Blood, Sweat and Tears. He worked with BSandT for a year and played on their innovative 1968 debut, Child is Father to the Man.
Randy left BSandT to join the Horace Silver Quintet. "BSandT was a very structured situation...I needed to stretch out and play." In 1968, Randy recorded his first album as a leader, Score (re-issued in 1993 on Blue Note), which also featured 19 year-old Michael Brecker on tenor saxophone.
After Horace Silver, Randy joined forces with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers before teaming up with brother Michael, Barry Rogers, Billy Cobham, and John Abercrombie to form the seminal fusion group Dreams. The group recorded two adventurous and wildly acclaimed albums: Dreams and Imagine My Surprise - now collector's items - for Columbia Records before they disbanded in 1971.
In 1972, Randy was back with Horace Silver, teaming up with brother Michael as the front line in Horace's quintet. By now, the two horn players had become two of the most in-demand studio musicians of the day. After recording the now classic In Pursuit of the 27th Man (Blue Note) with Horace, Randy left to join another new influential jazz-rock group led by old friend Larry Coryell which resulted in the album Larry Coryell and The 11th House. In '74, the brothers joined Billy Cobham's group, Spectrum, with whom they recorded several albums, and by 1975 they were ready to front their own band.
The Brecker Brothers were to become a band of immeasurable influence and impact. Hailed by pop and jazz critics alike, their first album,The Brecker Brothers (Arista) which Randy produced, wrote, and arranged, was nominated for four Grammys. The Brecker Brothers went on to record a total of six albums, including the still popular Heavy Metal Be-Bop and garner seven Grammy nominations between 1975 and 1981. In 1978 Randy and Michael played a week in NYC with Frank Zappa which resulted in the much requested album Zappa in NY.
In the late 70s. Randy recorded on Charles Mingus' last album. Me Myself and Eye. Randy has performed with various incarnations of Mingus Dynasties, Big Bands, and Epitaphs up to the present day. Also from 1977-1987 the Brecker Brothers owned and operated Seventh Avenue South a jazz club in downtown Manhattan. The club became a major musical hangout with many great bands of all styles, performing nightly.
After the Brecker Brothers parted in 1982. Randy recorded and toured extensively with Jaco Pastorius, recording the famous Word of Mouth album, a live concert in Japan. In 1986, Randy produced,composed and arranged his first acoustic jazz album, In the Idiom, for Denon Records, with Joe Henderson, Dave Kikoski, Ron Carter, and Al Foster.
In 1988, Randy recorded Live At Sweet Basil, for Sonet Records at the famed jazz club in New York, with Bob Berg, Joey Baron,Dave Kikoski, and Dieter Ilg. Through the end of the 80s, Randy toured North America and Europe several times as a leader, as well as touring with Stanley Clarke's Jazz Explosion. In 1989 under the aupices of the US State Department, he toured Eastern Europe with his Quintet six months before the fall of Communism. Also in 1989, he performed a sold out week at the Albert Hall In London with Eric Clapton.
The 1990s began with Randy on tour with the Mingus Dynasty/Epitaph. He also recorded and co-produced his third album as a leader. Toe To Toe, for MCA in 1990. And in 1992, exactly ten years after they disbanded, Randy and Michael joined forces again in a much heralded reunion featuring a world tour and the triple-Grammy nominated GRP recording, The Return of the Brecker Brothers.
In the fall of 1994, the Brecker Brothers released the double-Grammy winning Out of the Loop, with tours that followed into 1995 throughout the U.S. and Europe. A tour highlight, they were the first international contemporary jazz group to perform in the People's Republic of China, playing to sell-out crowds in Beijing and Shanghai. Branching out again in 1995, Randy toured Japan as a special guest with Stanley Turrentine and was one of the first western jazz artists to tour in Poland.
Most significantly, he began recording his first solo album in six years with a band of musicians assembled from different parts of the globe, including long-time friend and musical cohort David Sanborn. guitarist Adam Rogers from Lost Tribe, Brazilian vocalist Maucha Adnet (singer with the late Jobim's band), and bassist Bakithi Kumalo of Graceland fame, among others.
Completed in 1996, drawn to and inspired by the music of Brazil since his first visit there in 1979, Randy offered up his impression of Brazilian music mixed with pinches of Latin, World Music, Funk and Jazz on Into the Sun. Released first in Japan on Pony Canyon, it became available on Concord Records throughout the rest of the world, and won Randy his first Grammy as a soloist in 1998 for "Best Contemporary Jazz Performance." A live concert of the music from the album was filmed by Japanese television station NHK and broadcast in 1997. The summer of that year, Randy toured Europe with Joe Henderson, and closed the year on tour with the Mingus Big Band across the U.S. and South America, and the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band in Europe.
1998 began with Randy's appearance on tour as a special guest with Billy Cobham in the U.K. In fact, it was while on stage at Ronnie Scott's in London, that Randy first heard the news of his Grammy win. Summer appearances included several reunion concerts with Larry Coryell and the 11th House, as well as a special guest appearance with the Vanguard Orchestra in a Tribute to Thad Jones In Marciac, France. Later that year he began appearing with the Art of Blakey Band featuring Benny Golson and Curtis Fuller in addition to performing in Israel twice as a guest soloist.
The Millennium had Randy signed to ESC Records and his first release on that label: the controversial Hangin' in the City appeared, featuring the antics of 'Randroid' his rappin' cab-drivin' alter-ego. Hangin' sold especially well in Europe and Japan (it went to #4 on the German charts) and allowed Randy to perform more regularly around the globe as the leader of his own band. Also in the spring of that year he toured the US extensively as a part of Festival Productions' Newport Jazz Millennium Celebration tour. The summer saw the release of the Jazz Times Superband CD on Concord featuring Randy, Bob Berg. Joey DeFrancesco and Dennis Chambers and another US festival tour.
He has been a part of the touring Concord/Fujitsu Jazz Festival in Japan three times in recent years... with Art of Blakey Band and as Special Guest with the Ray Brown Trio and the Micheal Brecker Quartet. In addition he has been a frequent guest in Russia touring with the Igor Butman Quartet.
His most recent CD for ESC, 34th N Lex released in April of 2003 to great reviews ("RandyBrecker clearly outdoes himself on this one"-Paula Edelstein AMG Review)) features 11 new Randy Brecker compositions and arrangements and the 'dream horn section' of David Sanborn, Micheal Brecker, Fred Wesley and, Ronnie Cuber, along with Randy's regular working band and his wife, the Italian tenor saxophonist Ada Rovatti. In May of 2003 he toured Europe with his Quintet in support of the CD, and in the summer went back to Europe yet again with the Randy Brecker/ Bill Evans Soulbop Band.
The summer of 2003 culminated in the special headline appearance in Japan at the Mt. Fuji Jazz Festival of the reunited Brecker Brothers.
Randy Brecker continues to influence and inspire young musicians, and thoughout the years, has been in constant demand as a Yamaha Clinician, performing at Colleges and Universities the world over.
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