Randy Brecker with “A” Band and NiteCap, Thursday, April 2, at 8 p.m. at Capilano University’s BlueShore Financial Centre for the Performing Arts. Tickets: $35/$32.
On the eve of his 70th birthday, Grammy Award-winning trumpeter and composer Randy Brecker is taking a moment to reflect on where he’s been, while at the same time remaining firmly focused on the future of the jazz genre to which he’s dedicated his career.
“I started being a professional when I was 15 and . . . I’ll be 70 years old on Nov. 27. It’s quite a lot of years of trying to figure out the trumpet but that’s how most trumpet players feel about it. It’s kind of a mysterious instrument. It’s always a challenge and every day it feels a little different, and you just take it one step at a time. So, we’re all students. Sometimes the experience kicks in but I still, at heart, am a student of music and the trumpet.”
Maintaining an avid performance and recording career, Brecker, also known for his contributions to the rock and R&B worlds, is anticipating the release of a new project, a live album retrospective seeing him, with the help of a talented group of musical friends, offer a modern slant on a host of hits from the 1960s to 1980s that he played on, ranging from those by Bruce Springsteen to Paul Simon.
An additional current focus of Brecker’s, whose homebase is East Hampton, New York, is imparting his experience on the rising jazz stars of tomorrow. That work will bring him to North Vancouver next week, seeing him offer clinics as well as share the stage with students at Capilano University at the BlueShore Financial Centre for the Performing Arts, Thursday, April 2 at 8 p.m.
“I took the lead of the late-great Clark Terry who passed away a couple weeks ago (at age 94) . . . who was instrumental in bringing, I think, jazz to schools and going to schools and working with young people,” says Brecker, reached Tuesday from Montreal, between workshops with Université de Montréal students.
“He worked with me while I was young and I’m trying to kind of follow in his footsteps. He set a great example. It’s great to give something back to young kids that are really, for the most part I’ve found, fine musicians and really enthusiastic about music. It kind of keeps me young,” he says.
Brecker is looking forward to being in the Lower Mainland for a couple of days prior to heading off to Europe for a two-and-a-half week run of performances with longtime collaborator Mike Stern, a guitarist.
While on the North Shore, he’ll share the stage for the first time with the Capilano’s “A” Band, under the direction of Brad Turner, who he first met 25 years ago, and NiteCap, led by Réjean Marois.
“Their reputation has preceded them. I’m really looking forward to getting together with Brad Turner, who is a wonderful trumpet player himself and pianist, and also getting to know his band and also playing with the choir,” says Brecker.
Brecker will rehearse with the ensembles, and present a clinic on his approach and work to offer insight into jazz and improvisation.
“It’s amazing to me that so many young people are interested in playing music and particularly jazz. It seems like when the young people who discover jazz, there’s something intrinsic in the music that also beckons them to play. So there are just hundreds and thousands of young aspiring jazz players, which I find amazing,” says Brecker.
“It’s a strange phenomenon that’s happened the last few years with the burgeoning jazz education, which has just grown exponentially the last 20 years,” he adds.
That said, jazz music fans are waning to a certain extent, something Brecker would like to see change.
“The trick is to not only nurture the young players, but help them find an audience to play in front of, a younger audience,” he says.
The Capilano concert program will feature some of Brecker’s tunes arranged for big band, as well as some songs by his late brother Michael, a tenor saxophonist. Together the brothers formed the Brecker Brothers Band in 1975. Michael passed away in 2007, following a diagnosis with a rare form of leukemia.
Among his recent releases is 2013’s Randy Brecker: Brecker Brothers Band Reunion, which was dedicated to Michael, as well other departed band members. In addition, the project celebrated the group’s successes — six albums on Arista and seven Grammy nominations included. The release features a live DVD recorded at New York City’s Blue Note Jazz Club, and an 11-song studio recording by Brecker Brothers Band members from throughout the years.
Particularly meaningful to Brecker was having his wife of 11 years, Ada Rovatti, a saxophonist from Italy and mother to their six-ear-old daughter Stella, play on the project.
“It’s been great to have her in the family and playing with me regularly. It was a tough thing to lose my brother. We were like one person. I feel the same way about playing with Ada. We have a sixth sense when we play together we’ve done it so much now. So it’s great to have that connection,” he says.
Other recent releases Brecker is part of include the Jeff Lorber-led BOP, a benefit bebop record featuring a host of artists, in support of the Polycistic Kidney Disease Foundation.
Hot off the presses is The Brecker Brothers: Live at The Bottom Line (March 6, 1976), part of the Bottom Line Archive Series, which was released Tuesday. “That’s a wonderful record. That band hadn’t recorded live very much,” says Brecker.
Also released this month is Dearborn Station, recorded by the DePaul University Jazz Ensemble at Joe Segal’s Jazz Showcase in Chicago, with Brecker as guest.
Brecker is looking forward to the summer release of an album project he led, recorded over two nights by a band he put together at the Blue Note.
“We revisit hits that I’ve played on in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s as arranged by my great friend Kenny Werner,” he says.
Songs include Bruce Springsteen’s “Meeting Across the River,” the studio recording of which features a prominent trumpet solo by Brecker, and was included on Springsteen’s breakthrough 1975 album, Born to Run.
Other featured songs include Todd Rundgren’s “Hello It’s Me,” another studio recording Brecker contributed to.
“Todd wanted to have everyone at the same time recording, so you can hear him just count it off, maybe 40 people in the studio. That one take sold a couple million records,” he says.
Other featured songs include those by Blood, Sweat & Tears, Paul Simon, James Brown and Steely Dan.
While they’re all well-known tunes, they’re given unique treatment.
“It’s kind of a retrospective but put in a modern context. Kenny Werner is a very modern, forward-thinking guy, so a lot of these tunes you can barely recognize,” says Brecker.
He’s backed by a “great young band,” he says, including his daughter Amanda Brecker, a singer-songwriter in her own right based in NYC, as well as John Patitucci, bass, Adam Rogers, guitar, David Sanchez, tenor sax, and Nate Smith, drums.
“I’m looking forward to getting this thing mixed and edited and out there. It will be a nice retrospective on my 70th birthday and then we’ll see what’s next,” says Brecker.
