Sounding a Farewell for Brecker
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On Tuesday at Town Hall, a memorial service was held for the saxophonist Michael Brecker, who died in January at age 57 of complications from leukemia. Brecker, who was also celebrated last week at the Grammys, where he won two posthumous awards, was a unique and vastly influential musician. He and his brother Randy were virtually the only major players of the shortlived fusion school of the 1970s who came up directly through that movement (most of its best-known exponents were veterans of the Miles Davis bands of the previous decade).
Michael Brecker, in particular, was one of few fusion stars who could play all kinds of jazz, from straight-ahead bebop to John Coltrane-influenced postmodern free music. More than any other player of his generation, Brecker earned the admiration of musicians and listeners in all kinds of schools of music. He soloed on sessions with everyone from Joni Mitchell to Frank Sinatra, combining the popular following of a rock ‘n’ roll star with the respect of a classical instrumental virtuoso.
Brecker’s international and multistylistic appeal explains the packed house at Town Hall on Tuesday. The aisles were crowded with attendees, as well as with paparazzi — most unusual for a jazz event. At the request of Susan Brecker, the saxophonist’s widow, no saxophones were played by any of the performers; it is not known if she also requested that no electronic instruments be played, but as it worked out, the two sounds most associated with her husband were not heard in the 100-minute ceremony.
The first performer, appropriately, was Brecker’s older brother, Randy, who made a rare appearance with a straightahead acoustic jazz trio, with Joey Calderazzo on piano, James Genus on bass, and Jeff Watts on drums. This is the same trio that accompanied Michael Brecker on my favorite of his albums, 1997’s “Two Blocks From the Edge.” Most of his recordings, both with his brother and under his own name, tend, unfortunately, to bury his distinctive saxophone sound under layers of electronics and tired funk riffs that sound dated even in the context of the 1970s. It wasn’t until the final decade of his life, when he got away from electronics with such inspired efforts as “Two Blocks From the Edge” and his marvelous, 13-piece “quindectet” project “Wide Angles,” that the true glory of Brecker’s playing was captured on record. On Tuesday, when Randy Brecker played “Night Voyage,” a tune with the A-A-B-A feel of a jazz standard, it also made me wish that the trumpet-playing Brecker brother would also work in such a traditional setting more often.
The saxophonist Dave Liebman, who worked with Brecker most famously in the group Saxophone Summit, then spoke in a way that was at once begrudging and admiring of how Brecker moved easily between pop and jazz (something Mr. Liebman suggested that he himself refused to do); he then played “Gathering of Spirits,” a spiritual-style invocation on a wooden flute.
Pat Metheny, the big-haired fusion guitar star, played a tranquil, mono-dynamic solo called “Every Day I Thank You,” and the pianist Herbie Hancock, who read a lot of Buddhist teachings (he explained that Brecker had joined the faith shortly before his death), extended that mood with “Chan’s Song” in a trio with John Patitucci on bass and Jack DeJohnette on drums. Probably Mr. Hancock’s best-known composition of the past 20 years (introduced in the film “Round Midnight”), the piece starts introspectively but gets more exotically rhythmic as it progresses.
After a video montage covering Brecker’s career, from his arrival in New York in the late 1960s to his illness in 2005, showed him working in mostly electronic and pop contexts, the final performance of the evening was by the folk-pop singersongwriter Paul Simon. Accompanied by Mr. Hancock on keyboard, Mr. Simon sang one of his signature hits, “Still Crazy After All These Years,” a song originally graced by a Brecker solo in 1975. Singing in his usual understated fashion, Mr. Simon (“I ain’t no fool for love songs / that whisper in my ears”) seemed to describe the singer himself rather than Brecker, yet it was an appropriate way of saying goodbye to an old friend.
