Michael Brecker 1996 Interview – Practicing
Have You Heard Michael Brecker on Delta City Blues?
Michael Brecker plays Delta City Blues, there’s a solo saxophone introduction for a bit. He uses multiphonics and overtones heavily in the song. They can be a fun thing to play around with to get different tones as well!
If you like my site/newsletter, please support it at Amazon or by getting some sheet music
Greatest Saxophone Player of All Time?
The greatest saxophone player of all time…..
Certainly up for debate. But a number of saxophone players are definitely contenders.
Saw a poll on Sax on the web about who the greatest sax player ever is. Here are their results:
Charlie Parker | 48 | 27.75% |
Ornette Coleman | 0 | 0% |
John Coltrane | 38 | 21.97% |
Brecker | 18 | 10.40% |
Mule and Rascher | 10 | 5.78% |
Branford Marsalis | 3 | 1.73% |
Lester Young | 11 | 6.36% |
Plas Johnson | 1 | 0.58% |
Cannonball Adderley | 14 | 8.09% |
So Charlie Parker and John Coltrane get the top two spots. Makes sense. The other players on the list certainly sound great as well. Who do you think should also rank in the top tiers?
A few more contenders I would add to the list of possibilities would be-
Coleman Hawkins
Stanley Turrentine
Stan Getz
Sonny Stitt
Joe Henderson
Dexter Gordon
James Moody
Paul Desmond
Hank Mobley
Eddie Harris
Wayne Shorter
Sonny Rollins
Grover Washington Jr.
Benny Carter
Gene Ammons
Maceo Parker
Eddie ‘Lockjaw’ Davis
King Curtis
Jimmy Heath
Jr. Walker
Louis Jordan
Gerry Mulligan
Illinois Jacquet
Earl Bostic
Johnny Hodges
Art Pepper
Some of these I like personally, my favorite is Stanley Turrentine. Others were suggested by visitors to Sax Station.
Feel free to add a comment of your own.
It’s somewhat a question of taste. Charlie Parker and John Coltrane were pioneers of bebop though.
Another question might be who you think the greatest living saxophone player is.
Michael Brecker Bio
Saxophone virtuoso Michael Brecker was given an early start in jazz by his amateur jazz pianist father, who was a lawyer by trade. Brecker began his musical studies on clarinet, moving to alto saxophone, and finally settling on the tenor sax, which would become his primary instrument as his career progressed.
He grew up near Philadelphia and then attended Indiana University for a short time, but left at 19 to pursue music. His mouthpieces for much of his career were made by Dave Guardala, and the reeds he used were LaVoz, medium strength. He played a Selmer Mark VI 86,000 series saxophone. Previously, he had played a Selmer Super Balanced Action saxophone.
His first foray into professional musicianship was with a jazz/rock band called Dreams which featured legendary drummer Billy Cobham. Dreams was a short lived project, but held influence with such greats as Miles Davis.
Most of Brecker’s early work was informed by rock guitar as much as R&B saxophone. After working with Dreams, Brecker began working with pianist Horace Silver and Billy Cobham before starting a side project with his brother Randy called the Brecker Brothers.
During the years that followed, Brecker was a sought after soloist and sideman. He worked with James Taylor and Paul Simon, Jaco Pastorius, Pat Metheny, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, and more, showcasing the jazz-rock fusion style that would become a landmark for a generation of jazz musicians. His career would span an enormous number of records, with over 900 albums in his discography.
During the 70s and 80s he worked often in studio sessions for the pop singer-songwriter movement playing with Joni Mitchell. His playing was obviously informed by Coltrane, but his work in the pop arena forced him to condense his solos into shorter spaces, gathering the full range of the sax, from altissimo to the deepest notes into a small space.
His brilliance in this melding of styles was admirable, but many believe that his talent was more aptly showcased on his work in the early 80s, on Steps Ahead’s first two albums, on Chick Corea’s “Three Quartets”, and Pat Metheny’s “80/81.” His solos were technically intricate, but accessible. He played with punchy style that cut through the mess of improvisation and stuck to the music, straight talk on the sax, littered with “signature riffs” that his fans often wait for on every solo.
Over the course of his lifetime, Michael Brecker won 11 Grammy awards, shortly after his death he was awarded two posthumous Grammy awards for his involvement on his brother Randy’s album Some Skunk Funk.
In 2005, Michael was diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS – a cancer of the blood marrow) after noticing a sharp pain in his back at the Mount Fuji Jazz Festival. In late 2005 he was a recipient of a controversial stem cell transplant received from his daughter. After two years battling leukemia, he passed away from related complications on January 13, 2007. He is survived by his wife Susan, his children Jessica and Sam, his brother, Randy, and his sister Emily Brecker Greenberg.
A Tenor Supreme Coltrane Tribute Impressions Part 1
Here’s an epic Coltrane tribute concert featuring the tenor sax –
On tenor saxophone: Michaell Brecker, Dave Liebman, Joshua Redman, George Garzone
On piano: Geoffrey Keezer,
On bass: Dave Holland, Christian McBride,
On drums: Jack Dejhonette, Brian Blade