Michael Brecker

I'm a little sad today. Michael Brecker died yesterday, 1/13/06 - he was 57. He was diagnosed with MDS (myelodysplastic syndrome) in 2005. Michael was a giant in the jazz world, and has always been my favorite saxophonist. I first heard the Brecker Brothers in 1978, the year their album Heavy Metal Be-Bop was released, and it has remained one of my favorite and most prized records to this day. I own every Brecker Brothers release, and they have not been terribly consistent, but each is good. I consider HMBB the peak of their output. My brother and I were like a little Brecker Brothers fan club, no one else I knew had even heard of them. As I moved on to bigger cities, I found more and more musicians who loved them and cited HMBB as one of their favorites, especially Some Skunk Funk. Randy Brecker started out as the primary songwriter but Michael contributed more and more as time went on, and I generally liked his compositions better. They petered out in the earlier 80's then went their separate ways for while. Michael went on to work in Steps Ahead and he played with many others, but I was never as big a fan of his non-Brecker Bros stuff. They reunited for a couple of CDs in the 90's. .

Some links for this story:

CBC
Bloomberg
All About Jazz
CNN - New link - Updated 01.15.07