Randy Brecker


Randal Edward Brecker is an American trumpeter, flugelhornist, and composer. His versatility has made him a popular studio musician who has recorded with acts in jazz, rock, and R&B.
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Early life and education

Brecker was born in Cheltenham, Pennsylvania, on November 27, 1945, to a musical family. His father Bob was a lawyer who played jazz piano, and his mother Sylvia was a portrait artist.
Randy described his father as a semipro jazz pianist and trumpet fanatic. "In school when I was eight, they only offered trumpet or clarinet. I chose trumpet from hearing Diz, Miles, Clifford, and Chet Baker at home. My brother didn't want to play the same instrument as I did, so three years later he chose the clarinet!"
Randy's father, Bob, was also a songwriter and singer who loved to listen to recordings of the great jazz trumpet players such as Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie and Clifford Brown. He took Randy and his younger brother Michael Brecker to see Davis, Thelonious Monk, Duke Ellington, and many other jazz icons.
Brecker attended Cheltenham High School from 1959 to 1963 and then Indiana University from 1963 to 1966 studying with Bill Adam, David Baker and Jerry Coker and later moved to New York and performed with Clark Terry's Big Bad Band, the Duke Pearson and the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra.

Career

In 1967, Brecker ventured into jazz-rock with the band Blood, Sweat & Tears, on their first album Child Is Father to the Man, but left to join the Horace Silver Quintet. Brecker recorded his first solo album, Score, in 1968, featuring his brother Michael Brecker.
After Horace Silver, Randy Brecker joined Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers before teaming up with brother Michael, Barry Rogers, Billy Cobham, and John Abercrombie to form the fusion group Dreams. The group recorded two albums: Dreams and Imagine My Surprise for Columbia Records before they disbanded in 1971.
In the early 1970s, Brecker performed live with many artists, including The Eleventh House, Stevie Wonder, and Billy Cobham. He also recorded several albums with his brother under pianist/composer Hal Galper.
By 1975, Randy and Michael formed the Brecker Brothers band. They released six albums on Arista and garnered seven Grammy nominations between 1975 and 1981. Their first record, The Brecker Bros., featured Randy's composition "Some Skunk Funk", and he composed several pieces on this and subsequent albums.
After the Brecker Brothers disbanded in 1982, Randy recorded and toured as a member of Jaco Pastorius' Word of Mouth big band. It was soon thereafter that he met and later married Brazilian jazz pianist Eliane Elias. Eliane and Randy formed their own band, touring the world several times and recording one album named after their daughter together, Amanda, on Passport Records.
In 1977 he founded the jazz club Seventh Avenue South with his brother Michael Brecker.
Image:randy-brecker_NEW.jpg|thumb|Brecker performing at the Aarhus International Jazz Festival in Denmark in 2017
In 1992 Randy and Michael reunited for a world tour and the triple-Grammy nominated GRP recording The Return of the Brecker Brothers. The follow-up, 1994's Out of the Loop, was a double-Grammy winner. In 1995, he was featured on Turtles, an album by Polish composer Włodek Pawlik.
In 1997, Into the Sun, a recording featuring Brecker's impressions of Brazil, garnered Brecker his first Grammy as a solo artist.
In 2001, Brecker released Hangin' in the City, a solo project that introduced his alter-ego Randroid with lyrics and vocals by Randroid himself. This CD was released in Europe, where Brecker toured extensively with his own line-up.
Brecker's next CD for ESC Records, 34th N Lex, won him his third Grammy for Best Contemporary Jazz Album in 2003. That summer he went back to Europe with the Bill Evans Soulbop Band.
In the summer of 2003, the Brecker Brothers appeared in Japan at the Mount Fuji Jazz Festival.
2004 saw Brecker touring Europe as co-leader of the band Soulbop. The WDR Big Band also invited Brecker to perform at the . The date was of significance to Randy as it was the last time he played with his brother, who took ill shortly thereafter with a rare form of leukemia known as MDS.
In 2005, Brecker's wife Ada sat in for the first time. Brecker's schedule continued with the Randy Brecker Band performing throughout Eastern Europe.
In 2007, Brecker was awarded his fourth Grammy for Randy Brecker Live with the WDR Big Band, the live recording of his performance with Michael at the Leverkusen Jazz Fest in 2004. Michael died that same year on January 13.
2007 also saw the release of a two-CD set of live recordings of the band Soulbop featuring Dave Kikoski, Victor Bailey, Steve Smith, Rodney Holmes and Hiram Bullock.
Brecker returned to Brazilian music in 2008 for the album Randy in Brazil, which was recorded in São Paulo with Brazilian musicians and released on Summit Records. Chosen as one of the top 10 CDs of 2008 by All About Jazz, the CD won the Grammy for "Best Contemporary Jazz Album", bringing his Grammy total to five.
A Tribute to the Brecker Brothers featuring Randy and recorded live at the Hamamatsu Jazz Festival in Japan with Yoichi Murata's Solid Brass & Big Band was released by JVC Victor in Japan in late 2008.
In 2009, Brecker released Jazz Suite Tykocin, a project initiated and conceived by Włodek Pawlik, featuring Randy as a soloist with members of the Bialystok Philharmonic. Tykocin is the area in Poland where Brecker's ancestors hail from, a fact that Pawlik discovered.
2011 saw the release of The Jazz Ballad Song Book: Randy Brecker with the Danish Radio Big Band and The Danish National Chamber Orchestra, which garnered four Grammy nominations and critical acclaim. In 2012, Legacy Recordings released the boxed set The Brecker Brothers – The Complete Arista Albums Collection. In November of that year the album Night in Calisia, a collaboration between Brecker, the Wlodek Pawlik Trio, the Kalisz Philharmonic Orchestra and Adam Klocek was released in Poland. The album came out in the US in August 2013, and won the 2014 Grammy Award for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album, Brecker's sixth Grammy Award.
A Brecker Brothers Band Reunion tour of European festivals in the summer of 2013 supported Brecker's Brecker Brothers Band Reunion, a dual-disk project which was released on September 25, 2013, on Piloo Records. It features a live DVD recorded at the Blue Note in New York City with a new 11-song studio recording featuring members of the Brecker Brothers bands from throughout the years including David Sanborn, Mike Stern, Will Lee, and Dave Weckl. George Whitty produced the album, and Brecker's wife, Ada Rovatti, also played saxophone. The recording was released in North America by Magenta/E-One, in Europe by Moosicus Records in November, and in Japan by Victor. It is dedicated to his brother, Michael, and other departed Brecker Brothers Band members.
In 2022, Brecker began performing the acoustic jazz compositions of his brother Michael, arranged for the first time to include trumpet, with saxophonist Tod Dickow and the Bay Area trio, Charged Particles. Performances have included shows at Birdland in New York, at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in London, England, plus The Merchants House in Glasgow, Scotland, SF Jazz in San Francisco, Vibrato in Los Angeles, the Scarborough Jazz Festival in North Yorkshire, England, the San Jose Jazz, the new Palo Alto jazz club, The Spin Jazz Club in Oxford, England, plus The Stoller Hall, also in England. The collaboration was the subject of an article in the San Jose Mercury News, and a review of the Dazzle performance written by Geoff Anderson.

Discography

As leader

As the Brecker Brothers'The Brecker Bros. Back to Back Don't Stop the Music Heavy Metal Be-Bop – liveDetente Straphangin' Return of the Brecker Brothers Out of the Loop
  • ''Live And Unreleased''

As group

DreamsDreams Imagine My Surprise
GRP All-Star Big BandGRP All-Star Big Band Dave Grusin Presents GRP All-Star Big Band Live! – liveAll Blues – recorded in 1994

As sideman

With Patti AustinEnd of a Rainbow Body Language In My Life Gettin' Away with Murder
With George BensonGood King Bad – recorded in 1975Pacific Fire – recorded in 1975In Your Eyes Big Boss Band
With Walter Bishop Jr.Soul Village Cubicle
With Frank CatalanoPins 'n' Needles Live at the Green Mill
With Billy CobhamShabazz A Funky Thide of Sings
With Eliane EliasCross Currents So Far So Close Kissed by Nature Light My Fire I Thought About You Dance of Time
With Donald Fagen The Nightfly Kamakiriad
With Michael FranksTiger in the Rain Objects of Desire Passionfruit The Camera Never Lies Abandoned Garden Barefoot on the Beach
With Hal GalperThe Guerilla Band Wild Bird Reach Out!
With Bob JamesLucky Seven H
With Garland JeffreysGhost Writer One-Eyed Jack
With Jimmy McGriffRed Beans Tailgunner
With Mingus Dynasty
With Chaka KhanChaka Khan Naughty What Cha' Gonna Do for Me Destiny
With Bette MidlerSongs for the New Depression Thighs and Whispers
With Idris MuhammadPower of Soul Could Heaven Ever Be Like This Camby Bolongo
With Jaco PastoriusJaco Pastorius Invitation
With Duke PearsonIntroducing Duke Pearson's Big Band Now Hear This
With Todd RundgrenSomething/Anything? A Wizard, a True Star Todd
With Don SebeskyGiant Box The Rape of El Morro
With Horace Silver You Gotta Take a Little Love In Pursuit of the 27th Man A Prescription for the Blues
With Spyro GyraMorning Dance Catching the Sun
With Rickie Lee JonesPirates Flying Cowboys
With Lou ReedBerlin New Sensations
With Carly SimonBoys in the Trees Spy Torch
With Paul SimonGraceland The Rhythm of the Saints
With Phoebe SnowNever Letting Go Rock Away
With Ringo StarrRingo's Rotogravure Ringo the 4th
With James TaylorOne Man Dog Walking Man That's Why I'm Here New Moon Shine
With Jack WilkinsMerge Reunion
With others