Sax legend Michael Brecker’s final record comes out Tuesday | Music | Rhode Isla... pagina 1 van 2 Music Sax legend Michael Brecker’s final record comes out Tuesday
01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, May 20, 2007
BY RICK MASSIMO
Journal Pop Music Writer
MIchael Brecker at rehearsal in New York City for his recording Pilgrimage in August 2006
Darryl Pitt Darryl Pitt
Saxophone legend Michael Brecker died in January of leukemia at age 57, but his final musical statement comes out Tuesday. Pilgrimage (Heads Up International) captures a great musician at the end of life and at the top of his game.
In his life, Brecker worked with artists ranging from Chick Corea to Jackson Browne to James Brown. For Pilgrimage, Brecker worked with longtime compatriots Jack DeJohnette, Herbie Hancock, John Patitucci and Pat Metheny, as well as pianist Brad Mehldau, to create what turned out to be his swan song.
It doesn’t feel like one, though. For every poignant passage, such as “When Can I Kiss You Again?” (with title taken from the sentiments of Brecker’s son), there’s a burning determination, a — well, a life, in all the songs, but particularly “Half Moon Lane” and the ramble of “Tumbleweed,” with an inspiring rave-up coming at the end.
The 10-minute album closer, “Pilgrimage,” sums up the attitude, as gentle sections mingle with fiery passages, Brecker and Metheny particularly leading the way.
“That’s the yin-yang of something as profound as this,” says Darryl Pitt, Brecker’s longtime friend, manager and executive producer of Pilgrimage. “Wherever there’s a profound sense of life, it’s in part because of its neighbor, death.”
Pilgrimage is the only Michael Brecker solo record to consist solely of his original songs. “Most of the tunes,” Pitt says, “were written during an interval where they just flowed from him. … And it was a matter of a master artist who had something to say, and I hope people pay attention.”
GETTING THE SONGS on record wasn’t as easy as writing them. Brecker’s health had been worsening, and Pitt says that “I was prepared, at any given notice during the rehearsals as well as during the actual recording, that we would have to just pull the plug. … The musicians — we kind of went to lengths to make sure that all they had to focus on was making music, and that they knew Mike was well enough to make music, but in point of fact he was quite ill at the time. …
http://www.projo.com/music/content/artsun-brecker_05-20-07_6T5LOKM.1cbcc0b.html 22-5-2007 Sax legend Michael Brecker’s final record comes out Tuesday | Music | Rhode Isla... pagina 2 van 2 “He would be spent at the end of these days, and he wasn’t really playing much before. Not that you could tell from the recording, obviously. He was in pain and discomfort, but he found a way to compartmentalize and ignore it, in the process of making some extraordinary music for the ages.”
In his obituary of Brecker in January, Ben Ratliff wrote in The New York Times that Brecker’s “tone was strong and focused, and some of his recognizable language echoed [John] Coltrane’s sound. But having worked in pop, where a solo must be strong and to the point, Mr. Brecker was above all a condenser of exciting devices into short spaces. He could fold the full pitch range of the horn into a short solo … and connect rarefied ideas to the rich, soulful phrasing of saxophonists like Junior Walker.” His playing on Pilgrimage certifies this assessment, from the very beginning of the opening “The Mean Time,” where Brecker turns a complex passage into a singable hook.
After the basic recording was done, Brecker, who lived in upstate New York, was going to overdub some more instruments, but decided against it. After a family vacation and a recurrence of his illness, he returned to the studio in January of this year to cut a few tracks with the EWI (electronic wind instrument), which he’d been working with on and off over the decades. At that time, Pitt says, “He said, ‘This record’s done. … I like it the way that it is.’ And five days later he died.”
THE MIXING WAS scheduled for later that month; the remaining producers (Steve Rodby, Gil Goldstein and Metheny) huddled with Pitt to decide whether to go on as scheduled or to wait. They kept going.
“And these guys had to basically anesthetize themselves,” Pitt says, “because how could you not? … You’re conjuring him in the studio with performances that are so evocative. It was very difficult for them; I don’t know quite how they were able to do it. I stopped by several times and I just had to excuse myself. There were just tears all over the place.”
The disc clocks in at 78 minutes, and Pitt says there are no leftover tracks from the sessions. “This is the last Michael Brecker recording.”
Brecker was diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndrome (which often develops into leukemia) in 2005. He had to be replaced on the tour with the reunited Steps Ahead, with guitarist Mike Stern and vibist Mike Maineri, that played at the JVC Jazz Festival-Newport that year.
At that festival, as well as others around the world (and synagogues and Jewish community centers across the country), the call for bone-marrow donors went out. Pitt says that Brecker at first didn’t want to go public with his plight, “but when he became aware that he could help others, he said ‘Let’s do this.’ ”
Everyone knew that the chances of finding a match for Brecker were infinitesimal, but of the thousands of people who got tested, matches have reportedly been found for 15 patients. The Marrow Foundation maintains the Time is of the Essence Fund, named after his 1999 album.
WHILE BRECKER WAS under no illusions about how ill he was, Pitt says he wasn’t ready to concede that Pilgrimage (originally entitled This Just In) would be his last album.
“He was certainly fearful that that was the case, but there were three records [planned] after this one, and he knew exactly what he wanted to do. He said ‘Look, I’m not going to be able to tour, but hopefully we’ll be able to go back to the studio right away.’ He had a lot of music inside him that he wanted to make available. It’s sad, it’s really sad for us all, that that wasn’t possible.”
In the end, Pitt says, the process might have been difficult for Brecker, but reconnecting with music, which had been sporadic since his diagnosis, was beneficial.
“It was his spirit and his profound desire to create this music that kept him going. It kept him alive. There’s no doubt in my mind it kept him alive.”
http://www.projo.com/music/content/artsun-brecker_05-20-07_6T5LOKM.1cbcc0b.html 22-5-2007