Jazz Ensemble

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Guest Artist: Randy Brecker

Randy Brecker was born into a very musical family in 1945 in Cheltenham, Penn., just outside Philadelphia. His father Bob is a pianist, songwriter and singer who loved to listen to recordings of the great jazz trumpet players such as Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie and Clifford Brown. Randy and his younger brother Michael (Grammy winning saxophonist) and sister Emily (classical pianist) grew up in a home with musical instruments laying throughout the living room with regular weekend jam sessions.

After high school, Randy attended Indiana University where he studied jazz with David Baker and trumpet with Bill Adam. Randy played in the IU Jazz Band, and after winning the Notre Dame Jazz Festival in 1966, they did a three-month tour of Asia. Following the tour Randy stayed in Europe to study jazz with saxophonist Don Menza, then moved to New York and began his long career as one of the top trumpeters in jazz.

Randy has already carved out a spot in jazz history as one of the few jazz musicians who is equally at home playing jazz, pop, rhythm and blues, and jazz-fusion. He has played and recorded with Blood Sweat and Tears, Horace Silver, Art Blakey, Larry Coryell, Billy Cobham, Stevie Wonder, James Taylor, and most importantly, the jazz-fusion band The Brecker Brothers, which he founded and led with his brother Michael. The Brecker Brothers Band did six albums in six years, and established themselves as one of the first and most important jazz groups in the jazz-fusion style.

Although he continues to perform and record his own music with his own band, he also continues to work with many other musicians. Says Brecker, "I still enjoy being a freelance trumpet player in New York. I enjoy the studio work and all the other gigs. It keeps everything so fresh. I love rehearsing other people's music, as well as keeping my own group going." Some of his more recent albums include In The Idiom with Joe Henderson, Live At Sweet Basil Toe To Toe, and Into The Sun which received a Grammy Award in 1998.