I guess we all review our opinions from time to time, and I seem to have been doing quite a lot of that in the last two or three years, usually in the form of deciding that artists I had thought 'over-rated' weren't so over-rated at all. For example, I was originally put off Keith Jarrett by the hype surrounding his emergence, and my negative impressions were reinforced by his pronouncements, his vocalisations and the stories of his being a difficult individual. All of which put me off listening to his music for a very long time. For years, the only Jarrett in my collection was the Cologne concert, and it was only recently (perhaps three or four years) that I got round to buying 'The cure' and 'Belonging' and was forced to admit that this was tremendous music. A few months back, I bought 'Standards live', and can only say that I have been missing out; this is possibly the very finest piano trio playing I have ever heard. Jarrett *is* right there with Evans. Likewise, I've come to realise over the last couple of years that Pat Metheny's music is far, far more than the bland pop-fusion that some have claimed.
With Jarrett and Metheny, I have had the excuse that I hadn't listened to their music enough, and had allowed my judgement to be based on their reputations. I can't plead the same excuse in respect of Michael Brecker. My two sons agree on almost nothing, except that Brecker is next to God where the saxophone is concerned. It seems that there is never a minute but that someone in the house is playing one or other of his recordings. When it's not recordings, someone is attacking a Brecker transcription. And the boys aren't alone in their esteem -- I bought 'Now you see it' shortly after its release, years ago, and played it incessantly at one time; there are at least half-a-dozen other albums in my collection which feature Brecker and which I play regularly. But I have tended to view his music as somewhat mechanistic, cold and calculating. On the Diploma course I've just finished [by the way -- I passed, even the performance section!], one of the transcriptions for study was Brecker's 'Itsbinn reel', and I must admit that I felt Richard Ingham's eulogising over the musicality as well as technical bravura was a shade over the top. I held my tongue in the seminar, and I'm glad I did, or I would be eating my words today.
The Michael Brecker concert has been the up-coming high spot in our house for months. Iestyn even refused the first tenor chair with the Scottish Youth Jazz Orchestra because their principal concert of the year conflicted with the Brecker show! Dan Hallam, who helps to run the Edinburgh Schools Jazz Orchestra, and I had agreed to take a couple of car-loads of young saxophonists over, so it was a bit of an expedition. We were there an hour and a half before show-time and headed up the queue for seating. (We got front-row seats.)
We could hear a trumpet playing in the practice room and were trying to work out who it might be, as no trumpet was listed in the concert program. The band turned out to be somewhat different from advertised -- a quartet with Joey Calderazzo, James Genus and Ralph Peterson (instead of Tain Watts plus Don Alias). They started out with a couple of the really strong in-your-face up-tempo pieces which we associate with Brecker, full of breathtaking technical fireworks from both MB and Calderazzo, and particularly strong support from Peterson. Next up, (if I've remembered the running order rightly) Brecker moved to 'Delta City Blues' from his current album, which was tremendously effective. By this point, I was really enjoying the show, but it was the next item which really hit me -- an unaccompanied version of 'Round Midnight'. Now, this is a trick I've seen more than once or twice (Courtney Pine did a pretty memorable version at a concert I attended a few years ago, in the days when he still played jazz). But this was a textbook display, not just of the technical mastery of the saxophone, but of a simultaneous melodic and harmonic development of the material. I simply cannot recall hearing so effective a version. After three or four choruses, Calderazzo joined him to further heighten the tension and round out the performance. That was the point at which I was forced to admit that Brecker is much more than a technician of the highest order. He's an astonishingly deep musician, too.
One of the many things which added to the enjoyment of the concert was the behaviour of the guys on stage. Not only were they plainly enjoying the moment, they were in constant musical and extra-musical communication, looking at each other with broad smiles. Calderazzo and Peterson, in particular, seemed to have a few private jokes running between them. And when he wasn't playing, Brecker himself stood at the side of the stage, plainly listening to and engaged in the music. Whatever may have lain behind their mood (and I've heard plenty of stories about Brecker in that regard), they gave every impression of being a happy and mutually supportive group.
By the time we got to the end of the formal show, after about an hour, most of the audience was on its feet applauding wildly. This night, we did get an encore, and it proved to be great fun. It was based on a rhythmic vamp with a similar feel to 'Itsbinn reel' (in fact, I thought they were going to break into that at any moment for the first few minutes). After a few choruses from Brecker and Calderazzo, MB disappeared backstage and returned with a trumpet, which he handed to Peterson. As he went up to the mike, Brecker himself slid onto the drum stool. OK, so the music in that configuration was perhaps the smallest shade less tight and imaginative than the rest that we had heard that evening, but it was nevertheless of a very high order, and fully deserving of its place on that stage. It was a good long encore, played for perhaps fifteen or twenty minutes, and by the time the band left for the second time, I'm sure the entire house was on its feet. I can't say this was the best concert I've ever attended, but it was certainly one of the best.
There were a lot of Scottish jazz musicians on hand that night, and those who had heard Brecker play previously were agreed that this was the best live music they had ever heard from him. Dan succeeded in getting the youngsters backstage to meet Brecker, who was apparently polite, but simply signed a few programs/CDs. I can't say I'm surprised that he didn't have much to say after a show like that!