home entertainment 2007

RECORD REVIEWS
RECORDING OF THE MONTH
When, following the superb Wide Angels (2003), recorded
with his 15-piece Quindectet, Michael Brecker
decided to end his long-term contract with
Impulse!/Verve and hook up with Heads Up
International, part of his goal was to adventurously expand his
repertoire in a jazz direction more oriented toward world
music—specifically, an album influenced by Bulgarian music,
which had forced him to harmonically reconceptualize how he
played his tenor sax. However, his Bulgarian speed-jazz project,
which was to include Bulgarian artists, was shelved in 2005
when Brecker was stricken with the rare bone-marrow cancer
Myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), which ultimately led to his
death, at 57, in early January 2007.
Despite long periods of complete
inactivity enforced by the severity of
MDS, Brecker found pockets of time
to begin working on a compositional
journey that would entail the enlistment
of some trusted longtime collaborators,
including guitarist Pat
Metheny, pianist Herbie Hancock,
and drummer Jack DeJohnette.
Pianist Brad Mehldau alternates with
Hancock, and bassist John Patitucci
anchors the entire album. Initially
titled This Just In, this appropriately
changed to Pilgrimage following
Brecker’s death, the CD, released four
months after that passing, is Brecker’s
brilliant final hurrah, a nine-tune swan
song written and recorded in his last
few months. Well aware that this
could indeed be his ultimate outing,
Brecker meticulously composed
MICHAEL BRECKER Pilgrimage
music that teems with complex arrangements and a soulful
urgency in which every note counts.
Brecker didn’t quite complete the project. He recorded and
mixed all of the tracks but was unable to master them, a task
painstakingly carried out after his death by coproducers
Metheny, Gil Goldstein, and Steve Rodby, executive producer
Darryl Pitt, and engineer Joe Ferla. Their labor of love and dedication
to detail makes Pilgrimage a sonic treat that wholly reveals
the crystal in Brecker’s clarion sound. Also impressive is the
impeccable instrumental mix: each player is given equal weight,
most notably Patitucci’s affective mélange of bass lines and
grooves. Case in point: his slow, sad steps on the melancholic
ballad “When Can I Kiss You Again.”
The performances are inspired. All participants rise to the
occasion, obviously fired up that Brecker had new musical ideas
and was healthy enough to express and document them.
Although Pilgrimage features, in essence, a studio supergroup, the
cumulative effect is that of a celebratory band with a deeply
ingrained improvisational chemistry. The playing is lofty—everyone
listens and responds, spurring each other on and clearing
the sound space for instrumental showcasing.
On many tracks, the operative word is uptempo. The album
Michael Brecker, tenor sax, EWI; Pat Metheny, guitars;
Herbie Hancock, Brad Mehldau, keyboards; John
Patitucci, bass; Jack DeJohnette, drums
Heads Up International HUCD 3095 (CD). 2007.
Michael Brecker, Gil Goldstein, Steve Rodby, Pat
Metheny, prods.; Darryl Pitt, exec. prod.; Joe Ferla,
eng. DDD. TT: 77:57
Performance ★★★★ 1 ⁄2
Sonics ★★★★ 1 ⁄2
opens with the robust “The Mean Time,” which features
Hancock’s unmistakable dashes across the keys, Metheny’s softtoned
but molten droplets of glee, and Brecker’s fine-tuned
excitement. “Anagram” has irregular tempos, but its gallop carries
the day as Brecker ecstatically wafts articulate leads above
Patitucci’s imaginative bass lines, which move from a walking gait
to reflective pulses. In “Tumbleweed,” Metheny leaps, rolls, and
somersaults on his synth guitar, and rocks with a trace of funk.
While Pilgrimage afforded Brecker the rhythmic license to juxtapose
sounds and colors in his time-shifting flights, the saxophonist
also gave himself ample space to muse, including his
inspired end statement on “Cardinal Rule,” and his moving prelude
on “Pilgrimage,” on which
Hancock dances on electric keys.
The most remarkable characteristic
of Pilgrimage is how potent and flawless
Brecker’s performance is, given how
ill he was. He’s absolutely fierce in his
blowing, wailing on “Tumbleweed”
and, on the playful, midtempo “Loose
Threads,” elatedly sketching an angular
architecture while bursting at the
seams with gravity-defying buoyancy.
Purportedly, after completing one
tune in the session, Hancock
expressed amazement at Brecker’s
strength and stamina, then joked,
“Hey, I thought you’ve been sick.” In
an interview, Mehldau observed that
Brecker’s vital and at times intense
playing didn’t reflect ill health. In reality,
according to those close to the sessions,
much of the time Brecker was
playing in pain. You can hear and feel
that in his horn.
Over time, Michael Brecker will be counted among the few
giants in the jazz pantheon as the singular-voice tenor saxophonist
who took the baton from his mentor, John Coltrane.
Throughout his career Brecker made many excellent recordings,
beginning in the mid-’70s as a member of the Brecker Brothers,
the seminal skunk-funk fusion band. Later, during his stint at
Verve, he sought to establish a closer musical connection to
Coltrane, first by linking up with Trane’s pianist, McCoy Tyner,
for his 1995 masterwork, Tales from the Hudson. He then furthered
the connection by employing Trane’s drummer, Elvin Jones, for
Time Is of the Essence (1999). The Nearness of You: The Ballad Book
(2001) was inspired by Coltrane’s classic Ballads. Other Coltrane
projects ensued, including Brecker’s collaboration with Hancock
on Directions in Music: Celebrating Miles Davis & John Coltrane (2002,
Verve), and the Saxophone Summit project with Joe Lovano and
Dave Liebman, which focused on Coltrane’s later material and
resulted in Gathering of Spirits (2004, Telarc).
While he carried on the Coltrane tradition in a respectful way,
Michael Brecker did so in his own distinctive voice. That voice is
in full frontal view on Pilgrimage, a captivating disc of jazz elevated
to a fine art, and the apex of a too-short career. —Dan Ouellette
www.Stereophile.com, May 2007 119