VICTOR BAILEY

VICTOR BAILEY

electric bass

A true champion of the electric bass guitar, Victor Bailey has distinguished himself as one of the greats on that instrument in the service of Weather Report, Weather Update, Steps Ahead, The Zawinul Syndicate and Madonna. As a leader he brings his impressive facility and undeniable groovepower to bear in the service of his own songs. An accomplished composer with an inherent musicality that goes well beyond the bass, Bailey strikes a nice balance between virtuosic chops and solid tunesmithing on Lowblow, his second recording as a leader and his debut on ESC Records.

Although it has been ten years between albums (his Bottom's Up on Atlantic came out 1990), the timing of Bailey's Lowblow is right on the money. "In the last 20 years, by the time that my generation of guys was mature enough to become artists, everything became so different," he says. "Straight ahead became the sound of 30 or 40 years ago. And electric music became smooth jazz. I think a lot of us reached a point where we got fed up. I hadn't made a record in ten years because every label wanted the radio thing. It took me that long time to run into a label guy (ESC Record's Joachim Becker) who would let me just play my bass and record the music I wanted to record."

In tandem with a pair of unparalleled drummers in Omar Hakim and Dennis Chambers, Bailey grooves with authority on tunes like "Sweet Tooth", "Knee-Jerk Reaction" and the exceedingly funky Larry Graham tribute "Graham Cracker". Special guests Bill Evans and Kenny Garrett contribute their own virtuosity on soprano sax while stellar support is also given by Wayne Krantz on guitar, Jim Beard, Michael Bearden and Henry Hey on keyboards.

The burning samba flavored "Brain Teaser" is a stunning showcase of Victor's single note prowess while the lovely, melancholy ballad "She Left Me" features some of his most lyrical playing on the record. He affects a warm, rounded upright bass tone on the piano trio ballad "Babytalk", which features Jim Beard on the Wurlitzer piano and Dennis Chambers flaunting some supple brushwork. The title track highlights Victor's vocal scatting in union with his tight, staccato basslines and "Feels Like a Hug" is a melodic vehicle underscored by cleanly picked arpeggios and synth bass while also featuring some two handed tapping excursions on Victor's solo.
Easily the most inspired track on Lowblow is Bailey's vocal treatment of the Jaco Pastorious signature piece "Continuum". Having memorized the song and the solo note for note when he was still a teenager, Victor would later put heartfelt words to the tune in memory of the late, great bassist who was such a towering influence on so many players.

"I wrote those lyrics about a week after Jaco died," says Victor. "I can't even say that I wrote it... it just came through me. I wrote the lyrics exactly as they are in about ten minutes. I didn't change a word from that first writing. They just kind of flowed out and it just happened. Of course, I knew the whole thing intimately because I spent half of my childhood practicing it. Every day after school I had my routine of things that I would do. And one was to play 'Continuum'. I mean, I layed that song every day. To this day I can put that record on every day and listen to it. So I really knew the solo well and it seemed like the words already there. It was one truly inspired moment. It just happened and I'm very proud of it."

A native Philadelphian and current resident of Los Angeles, Bailey is a link in that long lineage of Philly bass that has produced such extraordinary players as Jymie Merritt, Tyrone Browne, Alphonso Johnson, Stanley Clarke, Jaco Pastorious, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Charles Fambrough, Gerald Veasley and Christian McBride. And yet, he maintains that his mission on Lowblow went beyond that deep bass tradition.

"The main thing that I'm trying to show as a recording artist is that I'm not a bass player," he maintains. "I don't play the bass, I play music. It just so happens that the instrument that I specialize in is the bass. In this post-Jaco and Stanley Clarke era, there've been a lot of records with a lot of phenomenal bass playing on them but not as much phenomenal bass music... things like Jaco's 'Teen Town' and 'Baha Mama' or Stanley's 'Schoold Days', which hold up as great pieces of music in spite of the fact that they were done on the bass. And on this recording I really wanted to show the music that I have inside of me and show that I'm more than a bass player but also a writer, arranger and composer."

Growing up in a musical household (his father Morris Bailey was a respected saxophonist and writer-arranger for many of the acts on Philadelphia Sound Records), Victor was exposed at an early age to a constant flow of great Philly musicians. "I can't say that I really had any mentors, per se, but I'd come home from school and my father would be there rehearsing with guys like Tyrone Browne. So naturally hearing somebody like that when you're 16 and you'd been playing for only a year... it was inspiring to me. After Tyrone would leave I'd want to stay up and practice until midnight... like six hours straight. So he was a big influence on me though I wouldn't say mentor."

While still a teenager, Victor honed his chops on local gigs with the likes of organist Shirley Scott and jazz drumming great Mickey Rocker. "Philly is a great place to get your musicality together," he maintains. "The standard of playing is so high and there is so much competition. But it's a great education. If you're 16 and you think you can play and you wanna go to a jam session, you gotta get up and play with the older cats who run all of the club scene. So you have to learn how to play tunes and you have to learn how to play changes. You never step on the stage in Philly unless you really got it together."

Larry Graham was a particular bass hero of his in those formative years. "I was a Larry Graham nut before I ever played bass," says Victor. "I played drums when Graham Central Station first came out. I went to see him at the Capitol Center in D.C. and just to sound of the bass alone... it was the first time I had ever heard anybody slapping, and just the sound of the bass was in my head for weeks. I knew he was hitting the bass in some kind of way but my seat was so far back, I really couldn't see what he was doing. But the tone of the bass being slapped and humped was just so phenomenal to me."

"And like most guys of my age who are known as jazz guys, I grew up playing in a funk band, covering tunes by Larry Graham, Kool & The Gang, Earth, Wind & Fire, Bootsy Collins. I kind of always played it in a real jazzy style and over time it sort of just became what it became."

After a stint at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Bailey migrated to the New York scene. It was on his first recording date in town, guitarist Bobby Brown'sClean Sweep (GRP), that he met drummer Omar Hakim. They also did two gigs with singer Miriam Makeba before joining Weather Report in 1982.

"As far as chemistry, it was immediate," says Victor. "It's that thing that every drummer and bass player dream of. You have certain guys that you just hook up with, and with Omar I never have to think about where the time is, where the groove is, where the feel is. We just play and it's like instant communication. I think we have a good combination of the virtuosity and the education and the heart and the soul and the groove and all that, in equal proportions to each other. I think our styles fit each other because we're both funky but we're not really funk guys, and we're jazz but we're not really jazzy guys. When we get called for something and we know that the other guy is on the gig, we instantly know that it's going to be happening, it's going to be grooving and there's going to be a lot of energy. If it's an improvising situation it's going to be a lot of fun improvising. It it's a groove thing like Madonna was, it's going to be a GROOVE thing... capital letters, please."

The Madonna gig came after her 1982 appearance on "Saturday Night Live". As Victor explains, "They were just putting a rhythm section together for her appearance on the show and she knew who we were and asked the musical director to see if he could get us. So we did that show and she really enjoyed it and she said at the time 'Whenever I do a tour, I'm gonna use you guys.' And we were surprised at how hip she was. I mean, like, at the end of a songs at rehearsal we'd play certain things and she'd turn around and say 'Don't play that Weather Report shit at the end of any tune'. And we both said to her, 'You know about that?' And she sure did."

Considering his deep-seated love of groove, Bailey was fulfilled in the pop setting of Madonna's music as he was in the jazzier realms of Joe Zawinul's world beat fusion music. "That is something that I've always been fighting, that notion that I'm a jazz guy," he says. "Fortunately, I've been able to transcend some of the boundaries. I mean, I'm just as happy laying it down with Madonna, and in her band I'm playing with the same heart and the same passion that I play with Joe."

While he remains the bass anchor in the Zawinul Syndicate, Victor also eargely awaits the opportunity to spread the bass gospel on tour with his own band."There's a whole new generation of kids out here who have never seen Jaco or Stanley Clarke. That's like my slot now, that's my audience right there. There's a whole new audience that I can turn on to that genre, that thing. It's like I'm carrying the torch. For real. I'm at the age where I'm one of the torchbearers."

Victor carries the torch in fine fashion on Lowblow

(Bill Milkowski)

SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY

Solo Album

Bottom's Up - Atlantic

With Weather Report

Procession - CBS

Domino Theory - CBS

Sportin' Life - CBS

This is This - CBS

With Steps Ahead

Magnetic - Electra Musician

NYC - NYC Records

With Bill Evans

Escape - ESC Records

Touch - ESC Records

With Joe Zawinul & The Zawinul Syndicate

World Tour - ESC Records

With Michael Brecker

Now You See It, Now You Don't - GRP

With Lenny White

Present Tense - Hip Bop Records

Source: http://www.europejazz.net/mus/bailey.htm

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STEVE GADD

Stephen Kendall Gadd (born April 9, 1945 in Rochester, New York) is an American session and studio drummer, notable for his work with Paul McCartney, Paul Simon, Steely Dan, Al Jarreau, Joe Cocker, Stuff, Bob James, Chick Corea, Eric Clapton, James Taylor, Jim Croce, Eddie Gomez, The Manhattan Transfer, Michal Urbaniak, Steps Ahead, Al Di Meola, Manhattan Jazz Quintet, Richard Tee and many others.

Biography

Gadd is a native of Irondequoit, a suburb of Rochester, NY. When he was seven years old, his uncle, who was a drummer in the US army, encouraged him to take drum lessons. Gadd became so talented at the drums that by the age of eleven he had sat in with Dizzy Gillespie.

After graduating from Irondequoit's Eastridge High School, he attended the Manhattan School of Music for two years, then transferred to the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, playing in wind ensemble and concert bands. At night, he would often play club gigs with other young musicians including Chick Corea, Joe Romano, and Frank Pullara. After Gadd finished college in the late 1960s, he played regularly with Chuck Mangione and his brother Gap Mangione, his first recording being Gap Mangione's first solo album, Diana in the Autumn Wind (1968).

Steve was drafted into the U.S. Army and spent three years as a drummer in the Army Music Program, most of which was spent with the prestigious Jazz Ambassadors of the U.S. Army Field Band in Ft. Meade, MD. Following his military service, Gadd played and worked with a well-known band in Rochester. In 1972, Gadd formed a trio with Tony Levin and Mike Holmes, traveling to New York with them. The trio eventually broke up, but Gadd began to work mainly as a studio musician. Gadd also played with Corea's Return to Forever but left the group since he wanted to work as a studio musician instead of touring.

In the 1970s and 1980s, he toured internationally, and recorded with Paul Simon and also with Al Di Meola's Electric Rendezvous Band. Many people assume that he played with the British rock band Charlie, but Gadd, while on his We're on a Mission from Gadd tour in 2005, told fans that was another drummer by the same name - not him. In fact, Gadd said, "I've never met the other Steve Gadd. We happened to stay in the same hotel once, though. I kept getting his messages and apparently he was getting mine."

In 1976, Gadd and other notable session musicians in New York City, including Richard Tee, Eric Gale and Cornell Dupree, formed the group Stuff. Their work included appearances on NBC's Saturday Night Live, both performing on their own and backing Joe Cocker.

By the end of the 1970s, Steve Gadd was one of the most in-demand and influential drummers in the world, with transcriptions of his drum solos on sale in Japan. Chick Corea once commented, "Every drummer wants to play like Gadd because he plays perfect . . . He has brought orchestral and compositional thinking to the drum kit while at the same time having a great imagination and a great ability to swing."

Gadd showed some of these strengths in his work on the title track to Steely Dan's classic Aja album -- highlighted by Gadd's powerful drum punctuation in the coda of the title cut. Corea's straight-ahead jazz albums Friends and Three Quartets, as well as Jim Hall's 1975 album Concierto are good examples of Gadd's jazz playing.

In 2009, Gadd is set to return to Eric Clapton's band to play 11 nights at the Royal Albert Hall. He will become part of Eric's touring band throughout May 2009. Steve previously played and toured with Eric in 1994/1995 and again from 1998 to 2004.

Some of Gadd's favorite drummers are Elvin Jones, Tony Williams, Jack DeJohnette, Billy Cobham, Buddy Rich, Michael S. Smith, and Louie Bellson.

Gear

Steve Gadd was one of the first endorsers of Yamaha drums, which he has played since 1976. He is known for using the "Yamaha Recording Custom" drums, but has recently changed his gear to a setup consisting of "Birch Custom Absolute" toms and a maple bass drum. He has several signature snare drum models, but is most famous for using a chrome over brass Ludwig Supraphonic snare drum. It can be heard on "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover", a Paul Simon classic. Gadd first came to the idea of mounting two large tom-toms on a low stand and using them as floor toms. He has been asked to contribute his ideas to develop his own signature series Zildjian K Custom Session cymbals, although he is well-known for having a preference for older K's as well.

Gadd also has signature Vic Firth sticks with his signature on them. The drumsticks are a very light, thin kind, black in color, and normal "wood color" on the tips. There is also an identical model with nylon tips. The stick is also slightly shorter than the American Classic 5A, and features a barrel tip for improved recording sound. It is 15 3/4" (40 cm) long and the diameter is .550" (1.4 cm). Along with having his own signature stick, he also has his own signature brushes. These brushes are intended to solve the problem of wire brushes snagging on new coated drumheads by slightly angling the wires in the top 3/4” (1.9 cm) of the playing end. The wires glide across the head, allowing a smoother sweep and a velvet swish sound.
Drumheads

Remo Coated Powerstroke 3 on snare, Pinstripes or coated ambassadors on toms, clear ambassador on bottoms, powerstroke on kick.

As a young boy in the 1950s, Gadd played the drums as a guest star on the Mickey Mouse Show.
Gadd is credited by Paul Simon for creating the unique rhythm of "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover".
Gadd is the drummer on Van McCoy's "The Hustle" and is said to have created the "disco beat."
Gadd is of Sicilian American descent.
Gadd was a featured performer and actor in the 1980 motion picture One Trick Pony starring Paul Simon. Simon's hit "Late in the Evening" was the movie's main title in which Gadd implemented the "Mozambique", a Cuban dance rhythm, into the song.
The song "Green Rosetta" by Frank Zappa mentions bringing in Steve Gadd's clone to play the out chorus on the song. Contrary to Steve's normal playing, the drums sound almost completely at odds with the song itself. Vinnie Colaiuta is playing the drums on "Green Rosetta" and the phrase is an ironic twist to make fun of the fact that Vinnie is completely off the "click track" (which Zappa at one point has appear in the recording).

Selected discography

As Steve Gadd/ with the Gadd Gang:

Gadd About (1984)
The Gadd Gang (1986)
Here & Now (1988)
Live at Bottom Line (1988)
Gadd Gang (1991)

With Stuff:

Stuff (1976)
Stuff It (1978)
Live Stuff 1978)
Live In New York (1980)
East (1981)
Best Stuff (1981)

With B.B. King:

Riding With The King

With Chick Corea:

My Spanish Heart
Friends
Three Quartets
The Leprechaun
The Mad Hatter
Rendezvous In New York
The Ultimate Adventure
(the unreleased version of Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy)

With Steely Dan:

Aja on (title track)
Gaucho on ("Glamour Profession", "My Rival", "Third World Man" and 'percussion' on "Hey Nineteen")

With Simon and Garfunkel:

The Concert in Central Park

With The Manhattan Transfer:

Mecca for Moderns
Pastiche

With Paul Simon:

One-Trick Pony
Still Crazy After All These Years
Hearts and Bones
You're the One
Paul Simon's Concert in the Park, August 15, 1991
Surprise
Late in the Evening
Still Crazy After All These Years (50 Ways To Leave Your Lover)

With Steps Ahead:

Smokin' In The Pit

With George Benson:

Bad Benson
Pacific Fire
GB
In Your Eyes
Livin' Inside Your Love
Good King Bad
In Concert-Carnegie Hall

With Eric Clapton:

Live At Hyde Park (DVD)
Pilgrim
Reptile
Riding With The King
One More Car, One More Rider
Me And Mr. Johnson
Sessions for Robert J.
Back Home
Clapton Chronicles

With Dr. John:

City Lights
Tango Palace

With James Brown:

Black Caesar

With Al Jarreau:

Tenderness
Breakin' Away
Jarreau
This Time

With Rickie Lee Jones:

Rickie Lee Jones
Pirates
Magazine

With Paul McCartney:

Tug Of War"
Pipes Of Peace"

With Chuck Mangione:

Disguise
Tarantella
Main Squeeze
Land Of Make Believe
Alive
Together
Friends And Love

With Michel Petrucciani:

Trio In Tokyo
Both Worlds

With Al Di Meola:

Casino
Elegant Gypsy
Orange And Blue
Tour De Force Live
Electric Rendezvous
Splendido Hotel
Land Of The Midnight Sun
Consequence Of Chaos

With Lee Ritenour:

Feel the Night
Captains Journey
Friendship

With Bob James

Touchdown (1978)

With Michel Jonasz:

Michel Jonasz au Zénith (1993)

With Sunlightsquare:

Urban Sessions (2006)

With Weather Report

"Mr Gone" (1978) (Tracks "Young And Fine" and "And Then")

With Funk Factory

"Funk Factory" (1975) (Tracks "Watusi Dance", "Rien Ne Va Plus", "Funk It" and "Lilliput")

With James Taylor

New Moon Shine, 1993
October Road, 2002
James Taylor: A Christmas Album, 2006

With Art Garfunkel

Some Enchanted Evening, 2007
Songs From A Parent To A Child, 1997

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BOSTON , September 12, 2005 – Abraham Laboriel, Patrice Rushen, and Steve Gadd received honorary doctor of music degrees for their outstanding contributions to contemporary music, and treated the crowd to a surprise performance at Berklee College of Music’s 2005 Entering Student Convocation, Friday, September 9, 2005, at the Berklee Performance Center. The three honorees, Berklee President Roger Brown, and Vice President for Student Affairs Lawrence E. Bethune, welcomed approximately 815 students from more than 75 countries, at the ceremony. 

Steve Gadd, one of the most in-demand drummers in the world, and who has worked with such artists as Joe Cocker, Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, and Aretha Franklin, among many others, said after accepting his degree that the honor was extra-special because he was sharing the moment with Rushen, and Laboriel, two of his closest musical peers. “This is probably my only chance to get a honorary degree because I’m not the greatest student in the world,” said Gadd. “But I love music. I found one thing that I loved and I just kept on doing it … and if I can do it, I believe you all can do it. Welcome aboard.”

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Steve Gadd is one of the most sought-after studio musicians, in the world. Regarded as the most influential drummer in contemporary music, Gadd can play anything, easily bridging different musical styles. His feel, technique, and musicality on such tunes as Paul Simon's "Fifty Ways", Steely Dan's "Aja", and Chick Corea's "Nite Sprite" were so awe-inspiring and his concepts so innovative that they instantly assured his special position in the history of the percussive arts.

Gadd attended the Manhattan School of Music for two years, then finished at Eastman School of Music. Before that, he studied privately with Bill and Stanley Street and John Beck. He established himself with Chuck Mangione, then spent three years in the Army prior to coming to New York and doing studio work in 1971.

He rapidly rose to prominence on the studio scene and has since played with a wide variety of artists, including Carly Simon, Phoebe Snow, Aretha Franklin, Al DiMeola, Stanley Clarke, Rickie Lee Jones, Tom Scott, Frank Sinatra, and Stuff.

After a period of touring and recording with his own band, the Gadd Gang, he provided the spark that ignited Paul Simon's South African inspired, Grammy Award-winning recordings and dynamic live touring band.

Today, Gadd is as busy as ever, balancing frequent recording dates with a hectic touring schedule. Some artists include Eric Clapton, David Sanborn, Marcus Miller, Joe Sample, and jazz piano virtuoso Michel Petrucciani.

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One of the most influential drummers of all time, Steve Gadd set a new standard in contemporary drumming techniques and performance, and in doing so launched a thousand imitators. Steve has recorded countless legendary drum tracks like; " Aja," "Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover" and "Late in the Evening" and with artists such as James Taylor, Eric Clapton, Paul Simon, Chick Corea, Joe Cocker, Dave Matthews, Paul McCartney, Steely Dan, among many many others.

There is no drummer alive today who in some way has not been effected by Steve Gadd's influential grooves and "in the pocket" playing style. Steve was an honored recipient of the American Drummers Achievement Awards in 2003 and was recently inducted into the Percussive Arts Society Hall of Fame.

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MICHAEL BRECKER

Influential Grammy-award-winning jazz saxophonist, band leader and prolific session musician

No saxophonist in jazz has had as pervasive an influence as Michael Brecker, since the death of John Coltrane in 1967. Across a wide range of stylistic backgrounds, Brecker developed the emotional intensity and technical dexterity of Coltrane’s mid-period playing into a highly distinctive individual style of his own, which was so widely imitated by aspiring saxophone students that Leeds College of Music took to nicknaming those teenage players who auditioned for its jazz course as “Ready-Breckers”. 

In addition to leading his own bands, co-fronting the Brecker Brothers fusion band with his trumpet-playing brother Randy, and founding the groups Dreams and Steps Ahead, Brecker worked with such legendary jazz figures as the drummer Billy Cobham, and the pianists Horace Silver and Herbie Hancock. He was also one of the most prolific session players in history, contributing to more than 400 freelance dates by artists as varied as Paul Simon, James Taylor, Steely Dan, Dire Straits and Joni Mitchell. 

From the early 1990s he worked most frequently with his own quartet, renowned for the way its members, the pianist Joey Calderazzo, bassist James Genus and drummer Jeff “Tain” Watts matched Brecker’s energy. Yet he also undertook a major recording project of his own almost every year from 1987 onwards, and from 2002 found time to tour with Hancock’s tribute to the 1960s Miles Davis band, Directions In Jazz, which pitted Brecker against the formidable trumpeter Roy Hargrove. 

Brecker was born in 1949 and grew up in Philadelphia, where he and his brother were taken by their father to see the likes of Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk and Duke Ellington. Brecker studied the clarinet and alto saxophone, before transferring to the tenor instrument, which became his principal focus. 

For the most part, despite owning an array of saxophones, he played an aged Selmer Mark 6, with which he became so familiar that he once said: “It’s as if I own every molecule of the instrument.” The degree to which he eventually became at one with the instrument was obvious in a sporadic series of unaccompanied solo concerts which began in 2001 with a recital at London’s Union Chapel as the opening of that year’s jazz festival. So accomplished was Brecker that he appeared to conjure an invisible band of backing musicians through the passing harmonic nuances and jumps between registers that he achieved within the broad sweep of his melodic lines. 

Having studied at Indiana University, he followed his older brother Randy to New York, where in 1969 they joined Billy Cobham in the fusion band Dreams. Yet both brothers could not be typecast merely as jazz-rock players. In 1973-74 they became the horn section of Horace Silver’s quintet, playing soul jazz and hard bop at a level that matched any of Silver’s previous recruits. 

On leaving Silver, after a brief return to Billy Cobham, Michael and Randy formed the Brecker Brothers, which made a series of successful albums for Arista between 1974 and 1981 that included the 1978 chart single East River. The band combined rock and soul rhythms with tightly written arrangements, and both brothers had plenty of opportunities for extended solo playing. The formula was successful, but the band ceased touring in 1979 and broke up in 1981, although it reformed briefly several times in the 1990s, finally touring as a conventional acoustic jazz group, and reinventing a high percentage of its original repertoire for this new format. During the 1970s the brothers also owned the New York jazz club Seventh Avenue South, where they played frequently. 

In the meantime, Brecker formed Steps, with the vibes player Mike Mainieri, a group which in its second incarnation, Steps Ahead, brought a high level of instrumental virtuosity to a repertoire that tightened aspects of the Brecker Brothers sound into what became a universal paradigm for 1980s rock fusion. Outstanding instrumentalists who worked with the band included the guitarist Mike Stern, the pianist Don Grolnick and bassists Eddie Gomez and Darryl Jones. Brecker led the group for the latter part of the 1980s, but in 1987 he cut the Michael Brecker album for Impulse, which effectively launched the solo recording career that became his main interest. On this album he used the Electronic Wind Instrument which allowed him to convert his formidable saxophone technique into input for a synthesiser. 

Brecker’s subsequent discs include Tales From the Hudson, Two Blocks From the Edge, and Time is of the Essence, plus a ballad collection, The Nearness of You on which he was joined by Pat Metheny and Herbie Hancock, with James Taylor making a guest appearance in return for Brecker’s numerous cameos on the singer’s discs. He won eight Grammies, and he achieved the unique double of winning both best instrumental performance and best instrumental solo in two successive years. 

In the summer of 2005, Brecker was found to have MDS (myelodysplastic syndrome), cancelling all his concerts, and undergoing an extended course of chemotherapy. Despite his illness, which later developed into leukaemia, he recorded a final album, completing it two weeks ago. 

He is survived by his wife, Susan, and their two children. 

Michael Brecker, jazz saxophonist and bandleader, was born on March 29, 1949. He died on January 13, 2007, aged 57

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Michael Leonard Brecker, March 29, 1949 – January 13, 2007 was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Acknowledged as "a quiet, gentle musician widely regarded as the most influential tenor saxophonist since John Coltrane," he won 15 Grammys as both performer and composer and was inducted into Down Beat's Jazz Hall of Fame in 2007.

Biography

Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and raised in Cheltenham Township, a local suburb, Michael Brecker was exposed to jazz at an early age by his father, an amateur jazz pianist. He grew up a part of the generation of jazz musicians who saw rock music not as the enemy but as a viable musical option; Brecker began studying clarinet, then moved to alto saxophone in school, eventually settling on the tenor saxophone as his primary instrument. He graduated from Cheltenham High School in 1967 and after only a year at Indiana University, Michael Brecker moved to New York City in 1970 where he carved out a niche for himself as a dynamic and exciting jazz soloist. He first made his mark at age 21 as a member of the jazz/rock band Dreams—a band that included his older brother Randy, trombonist Barry Rogers, drummer Billy Cobham, Jeff Kent and Doug Lubahn. Dreams was short-lived, lasting only a year, but influential (Miles Davis was seen at some gigs prior to his recording "Jack Johnson").

Most of Brecker's early work is marked by an approach informed as much by rock guitar as by R&B saxophone. 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-rock trends of the time, but with more attention to structured arrangements, a heavier backbeat, and a stronger rock influence. The band stayed together from 1975–1982 with consistent success and musicality.

During his career, he was in great demand as a soloist and sideman. He performed with bands which spanned from mainstream jazz to mainstream rock. Altogether, he appeared on over 700 albums, either as a band member or a guest soloist. He put his stamp on numerous pop and rock recordings as a soloist. His featured guest solos with James Taylor and Paul Simon are excellent examples from this body of work. For example, on James Taylor's 1972 album, One Man Dog, Brecker's solo on the track "Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight" complements the other acoustic instruments and sparse vocal. Also, on Paul Simon's 1975 album Still Crazy After All These Years, Brecker's solo on the title track is used to a similar effect. His solos are often placed in the bridge, or appended as a coda. This musical structure and instrumentation typifies (and somewhat defines) this jazz-rock fusion style. Other notable collaborations in this genre include work with Steely Dan, Lou Reed, Donald Fagen, Dire Straits, Joni Mitchell, Eric Clapton, Aerosmith, Dan Fogelberg, Frank Sinatra, Frank Zappa, Bruce Springsteen, and Parliament-Funkadelic.

Brecker also recorded or performed with leading jazz figures during his era, including Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Chet Baker, George Benson, Quincy Jones, Charles Mingus, Jaco Pastorius, McCoy Tyner, Pat Metheny, Elvin Jones, Claus Ogerman, and many others.

During the early 1980s, he was also a member of NBC’s Saturday Night Live band. Brecker can be seen in the background sporting shades during Eddie Murphy’s James Brown parody. After a stint co-leading the all-star group Steps Ahead with Mike Mainieri, Brecker finally 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. He continued to record albums as a leader throughout the 1990s and 2000s, winning multiple Grammy Awards. His solo and group tours consistently sold out top jazz venues in major cities worldwide.

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. This composition is a definitive work for tenor sax; its demanding solo enabled Brecker to show his complete mastery of the instrument. The live concert CD from the tour, Directions in Music, won a Grammy in 2003.

While performing at the Mount Fuji Jazz Festival in 2004 , Brecker noticed 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 experiment proved not to be a cure. He made his final public performance on June 23rd 2006, playing with Herbie Hancock at Carnegie Hall.

On January 13, 2007, Michael Brecker died from complications of leukemia in New York City. His funeral was held on January 15, 2007 in Hastings-on-Hudson, NY.

On February 11, 2007, Michael Brecker was awarded two posthumous Grammy awards for his involvement on his brother Randy's 2005 album Some Skunk Funk.

On May 22, 2007, his final recording, Pilgrimage, was released receiving a good critical response. It was recorded in August 2006 with Pat Metheny on guitar, John Patitucci on bass, Jack DeJohnette on drums and Herbie Hancock and Brad Mehldau on piano. Brecker was critically ill when it was recorded but the other musicians involved praised the standard of his musicianship.[1] Brecker was again posthumously nominated and subsequently awarded two additional Grammy Awards for this album in the categories of Best Jazz Instrumental Solo and Best Jazz Instrumental Album, Individual or Group, bringing his Grammy total to 15.

During his career, Brecker played a Selmer Mark VI tenor saxophone using a highly-customized Dave Guardala mouthpiece. Previously, he had played a Selmer Super Balanced Action saxophone.

Discography
 
Michael Brecker in Hamburg (1981)
Main article: Michael Brecker Discography
1987: Michael Brecker
1988: Don't Try This at Home
1990: Now You See It...Now You Don't
1996: Tales from the Hudson
1998: Two Blocks from the Edge
1999: Time Is of the Essence
2001: Nearness of You
2002: Directions in Music: Live at Massey Hall
2003: Wide Angles
2007: Pilgrimage

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STEPS AHEAD

Steps Ahead (originally known as Steps) is a jazz fusion group and the brainchild of vibraphonist Mike Mainieri. According to the liner notes of the group's 1983 debut album (for worldwide release), entitled Steps Ahead, "Steps began as a part-time venture in 1979 at Seventh Avenue South, a New York City nightclub." The group began releasing recordings in Japan as far back as 1980.

The first line up of Steps in the period 1979-1981, as can be read on the live album Smokin' in the Pit, consisted of Michael Brecker (tenor sax), Steve Gadd (drums), Eddie Gomez (bass), Don Grolnick (piano), Mike Mainieri (vibraphone), and special guest Kazumi Watanabe (guitar). This double live album was recorded on the 15th and 16th of December 1979 at The Pitt Inn Tokyo. A second studio recording was made on the 17th December 1979, called Step by Step. Smokin' in the Pit was released in 1980 and awarded a gold record and is considered their best album. The studio album Step by Step was released shortly after, followed by another live recording in the summer of 1980 called Paradox. These three albums (see Mike Manieri's notes in the booklet of the 1999 cd release of Smokin' in the Pit) were the only albums released by the group under the name of Steps. In 1982 they learned that the name Steps had been trademarked by a band in North Carolina, and therefore changed their name to Steps Ahead.

The line-up for the Steps Ahead album consisted of Mainieri, the late Michael Brecker (tenor sax), Eliane Elias (piano), Peter Erskine (drums), and Eddie Gomez (bass).

The group's members has also included Dennis Chambers, Steve Gadd, Warren Bernhardt, Rachel Z, Chuck Loeb, Victor Bailey, Tony Levin, Bob Berg, Darryl Jones, Mike Stern, Richard Bona, and many others.

Brecker and Mainieri are featured on the Dire Straits album Brothers in Arms. For rock listeners, the albums Steps Ahead and Modern Times (1984, with Bernhardt replacing Elias in the main line-up, and other guest musicians appearing in limited roles) are a great bridge into a kind of jazz that is energetic and powerful. Reflecting the cooperative, ensemble nature of the band, the Modern Times album included compositions by Mainieri, Brecker, Erskine, and Bernhardt.

According to the website NYC Records, which include's Mainieri's biographical sketch and touring schedule with Steps Ahead, the 2007 instantiation of Steps Ahead includes: Mainieri (vibes), Bill Evans (sax; not to be confused with the late jazz pianist also named Bill Evans), Bryan Baker (guitar), Anthony Jackson (bass), and Steve Smith (drums), a former member of the rock group Journey. On some stops of the tour, Etienne Mbappe is listed as filling in for Jackson.

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Steps Ahead was formed by vibraphonist Mike Mainieri as a vehicle to bring together some New York virtuosi in a fusion group.

The line-up on Step By Step (december 1980) included tenor saxophonist Michael Brecker, pianist Don Grolnick, bassist Eddie Gomez, and drummer Steve Gadd. The supergroup continued to supply technical mastery but little emotion on Paradox (1982), with Peter Erskine replacing Gadd, and Steps Ahead (1983), with Eliane Elias replacing Grolnick (who nonetheless contributed the best track, Pools), before going electronic with Modern Times (Elektra, 1984), thanks to new keyboardist Warren Bernhardt.

According to the website NYC Records, which include’s Mainieri’s biographical sketch and touring schedule with Steps Ahead, the 2007 instantiation of Steps Ahead includes: Mainieri (vibes), Bill Evans (sax; not to be confused with the late jazz pianist also named Bill Evans), Bryan Baker (guitar), Anthony Jackson (bass), and Steve Smith (drums), a former member of the rock group Journey. On some stops of the tour, Etienne Mbappe is listed as filling in for Jackson.

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