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 | | | Randy Brecker has been shaping the sound of jazz, R&B, and rock for more than two 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 David Sanborn, Horace Silver, Jaco Pastorius, and Frank Zappa.
Randy Brecker's history is as varied as he is distinguished. Born in Philadelphia to a piano-playing father, Randy spent summers in big band stage camps where he got his earliest experience in ensemble playing. He began playing R&B 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, the Clifford Brown/Max Roach group."
Alter finishing high school. Randy attended Indiana University. In 1966, he moved to New York, and one of his first gigs upon arriving was with Clark Terry's big band. Randy also began his foray into jazz-rock by helping to form Blood, Sweat and Tears. He worked with BS&T for a year and played on their innovative 1968 debut album, Child is Father to the Man.
Randy left BS&T to join the Horace Silver Quintet. "BS&T was a very structured situation...I needed to stretch and play jazz." In 1968, Randy recorded his first album as a leader, Score (reissued in 1993 on BlueNote), which also featured his 19-year-old brother, Michael, on tenor sax.
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—now collector's items—for Columbia Records before they disbanded in 1971.
In 1973, 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. The following year, the brothers joined Billy Cobham's group, 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, which Randy produced, was nominated for four Grammys. The Brecker Brothers went on to record a total of six albums and garner seven Grammy nominations between 1975 and 1981.
In the late 70s, Randy recorded on Charles Mingus's last album., Me, Myself and Eye. Randy has performed with various incarnations of Mingus Dynasty Big Bands and Epitaphs up to the present day.
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. It was soon thereafter that Randy met jazz pianist Eliane Elias. Eliane and Randy formed their own band, touring the world several times and recording one album together, Amanda, for Passport Records. In 1986, Randy produced, arranged and recorded his first acoustic jazz album, In the Idiom, for Denon Records, with Al Foster.Ron Carter, Dave Kikosky and Joe Henderson.
In 1988, Randy recorded Live At Sweet Basil, a live album for Sonet Records at the famed jazz club Sweet Basil in New York with Bob Berg, Joey Baron 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, 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 coproduced his third album as a leader, Toe To Toe, for MCA/Impulse 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< |
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