Randy Brecker

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Randy Brecker in Kongsberg (2018). Image: Tore Sætre.

Randal Edward "Randy" Brecker (born November 27, 1945 in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania) is an American jazz musician ( trumpet , flugelhorn ). He is an artist in the genres of jazz, rock and R&B .

Live and act

After finishing school, Brecker studied classical trumpet at Indiana University in Bloomington. In 1966 he went to New York and in 1968 he worked in the big band of Clark Terry . He played with Horace Silver , Stevie Wonder , Janis Joplin and Art Blakey in 1970 .

Randy Brecker was a founding member of the rock-jazz band Blood, Sweat & Tears in 1967 and Larry Coryell's groundbreaking fusion band The Eleventh House in 1973 .

Together with his younger brother Michael , Jerry Dodgion , Larry Coryell, Hal Galper , Eddie Gomez , Mickey Roker and others, who died in January 2007, he produced his first album Score for the Blue Note label in early 1969 .

With Michael Brecker he founded the Brecker Brothers in 1975 , whose first album was nominated for four Grammys . In addition to countless studio projects, he was also a member of the jazz-rock group Dreams in 1971/2 (with John Abercrombie , Billy Cobham and others). In 1977 he founded the Seventh Avenue South jazz club with his brother Michael . With Michael Brecker he supported Melanie Safka on her album Phonogenetic in 1978. Not Another Pretty Face .

After the Brecker Brothers split up in 1982, he toured as a member of Jaco Pastorius' Word of Mouth Big Band . Shortly afterwards, Randy Brecker met his first wife, the Brazilian jazz pianist Eliane Elias . He played a lot with her over the next few years and recorded an album with her called their daughter Amanda .

In 1989 he performed with Eric Clapton at the one week sold-out Royal Albert Hall . In 1992 the Brecker brothers re-formed their band. Two years later they recorded "Out of the Loop" for which they received two Grammys. They then became the first contemporary jazz band in the People's Republic of China to play in front of sold-out houses in Beijing and Shanghai . With his brother he released the CD "Priceless Jazz" in 1999, but it was less successful.

In the summer of 2001 Randy went on a European tour with his brother Michael with an acoustic version of the Brecker Brothers, mainly with tracks from the CD Hangin 'in the City . Together with his brother and Leslie Mandoki , he released two albums in 2002 and 2003.

His CD 34th N Lex , released in April 2003, contains eleven new Randy Brecker compositions and arrangements; which recorded with the “Dream Horn Section” David Sanborn , Michael Brecker, Fred Wesley and Ronnie Cuber , together with Brecker's regular band and his wife, the Italian tenor saxophonist Ada Rovatti , was awarded a Grammy for best contemporary jazz album .

He played with Billy Cobham , Bruce Springsteen , Charles Mingus and in the Mingus Big Band ( Gunslinging Birds 1994) as well as with Horace Silver , Frank Zappa , Parliament , Jaco Pastorius . In recent years he has toured several times with Mike Stern .

In 2012, in collaboration with the Polish musician and composer Włodek Pawlik and the Kalisz Philharmonic, the album Night in Calisia was released the following year ; This was in 2014 won a Grammy Award. For the title Sozinho (on the album Rocks , 2018) he received the award for the best jazz solo in early 2020 .

Discographic notes

  • Score (Blue Note, 1969)
  • In the Idiom (1986)
  • Live at Sweet Basil (1988)
  • Into the Sun (Concord, 1995)
  • Some Skunk Funk (BHM, with the WDR Big Band Köln & Michael Brecker, 2003)
  • Randy Brecker Rocks (Jazzline Records, 2019, with the NDR Bigband )

Web links

Remarks

  1. According to the information on his official website. Sometimes the current suburb of Cheltenham is also given
  2. ^ Seventh Avenue South | - Legendary jazz club in Manhatten. In: Jazzband Live. Retrieved on February 17, 2020 (German).
  3. ^ Wieland Harms: The Unplugged Guitar Book. 20 of the most beautiful songs for acoustic guitar. Gerig Music, ISBN 3-87252-249-3 , p. 20.
  4. first published on CD in 1993 (Capitol)