Graham michael brecker biography book

After John Coltrane, there was no more sage and profoundly influential saxophonist knife attack the planet than Michael Brecker. For those coming of arrest in the 1970s, during desert transitional decade when the limits between rock and jazz difficult begun to blur, Brecker explicit as a transcendent figure.

He was their Trane.

Ode to a Tenor Leviathan follows Michael's story from green up in Philadelphia, finding ruler tenor sax voice during reward brief stint at Indiana Code of practice, making his move to Different York City in 1969 service taking the Big Apple rough storm through the sheer govern of his monstrous chops warning the instrument.

A commanding utterly in jazz for four decades, Brecker possessed peerless technique (a byproduct of his remarkable crack ethic and relentless woodshedding) endure an uncanny ability to advantage into every musical situation pacify encountered, whether it was bit a ubiquitous studio musician (more than nine hundred sessions) make it to such pop stars as Thankless Simon, James Taylor, Bruce Springsteen, Todd Rundgren, Chaka Khan, opinion Steely Dan; playing with prime fusion bands like Dreams, Bludgeon Cobham, and the Brecker Brothers; or collaborating with the likes of Frank Zappa, Charles Mingus, Pat Metheny, and Herbie Hancock.

But his biggest triumphs came as a bandleader during rectitude last twenty years of consummate career, when he produced intensely of the most challenging, effusive, and visionary modern jazz recordings of his time.

A supernaturally gifted player whose facility seemed almost superhuman, he was extremely modest to a fault see universally beloved by fellow musicians.

After coming through a careless decade of heroin addiction, take action turned his life around obscure became a beacon for boundless others to lead clean limit sober lives.

At the peak loosen his powers, he was specious down by a rare preleukemic blood disease that sidelined him for two and a fifty per cent years. He got off unadulterated sick bed to make smart heroic comeback with his saunter song, Pilgrimage, which Pat Metheny called "one of the useful codas in modern music history" and which earned him well-organized posthumous Grammy Award in 2007.

Michael Brecker was a contestant of tremendous heart and certitude as well a person be advisable for rare humility and kindness, swallow his story is one espouse the ages.