Randy Brecker, Trumpeter
Randy Brecker is a legenday jazz trumpeter and composer who has worked with artists including Steely Dan, Frank Sinatra, Jaco Pastorius and Bruce Springsteen in his four-decade career.
He studied with David Baker and Jerry Coker at Indiana University and later moved to New York where he worked with Clark Terry’s Big Bad Band and the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra.
In 1967, he joined the Horace Silver Quintet. Brecker later worked with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and then teamed up with his saxophonist brother, Michael, in the band Dreams. The Brecker Brothers formed their own eponymous group in 1975.
At his first show after the pandemic performance hiatus in the spring of 2021, Brecker quipped that this was the first time he had played with anything other the Aebersold Play-A-Longs.
Do you use the Aebersold Play-A-Longs in your teaching?
Yes, since that is, in a nutshell, the way I learned to play, and developed my ears and phrasing before I even consciously thought about such things. Not only from the Play-A-Longs, but also playing with my Dad’s records, a lot of listening and writing things down that my favorite musicians played.
Do you recommend Aebersold Play-A-Longs for your friends or colleagues?
Always. But my friends and colleagues already use them! I’m sure most everyone does in some fashion.
Have you used the Aebersold Play-A-Longs in any unusual or creative ways?
Well in my more thoughtful moments, I utilize them in many different ways, like broadening my repertoire of any given composer, learning and singing the lyrics, if they are provided, and everything by ear as much as possible. Only after I have the bulk of the changes figured out, do I even look at the chords.
Or I’ll get out the Woody Shaw Play-A-Long if I want to work on pentatonic scales for instance, or set improvisation goals in my mind, like only playing in one octave, only playing ‘outside notes’, only playing inside notes, or try to play only motivically, thematically, or extra rhythmically.
Can you share an unusual story of how you used the Aebersold Play-A-Longs?
I did use a Jamey Play-A-Long to help secure a State Department Tour for my Quintet years ago, behind the Iron Curtain. I played along with some standards like ”I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” tunes I thought they might want to hear, and would know, and dubbed in some applause… and lo and behold I got the gig!
I put a great fusion band together with Barry Finnerty, Steve Smith, Dave Kikoski, and Dieter Ilg and we did my own tunes, but everywhere we went from the people stationed in various cities working for the State Department we’d get requests for “I Left My Heart in San Francisco!” ‘Please, please can you play that one from your recording!’ So maybe I owe Jamey a few bucks on that one!
What do you find most important about the Aebersold Play-A-Longs?
The most important thing is playing with good time and, moreover, swinging, but also using the correct articulations and keeping your fingers actively moving, and your mind in ‘creative’ mode.
Are there any particular recordings you have found most useful?
Well besides mine? Volume 126? “The Music of Randy Brecker,” where on one disc of the two, I play all the melodies and (harmonies) with my wife Ada Rovatti? That’s a great one.
Also the more clinical ones like Volume 3 (The II-V-I Progression) or 16 (Turnarounds, Cycles and II/Vs) or 84 (Dominant Seventh Workout) that teach you about substitutions, and get you into all the tonal centers.
Or the other ones that feature a specific composer; those help you get inside the composer’s head and might help also your own writing process.
And also the ones where the rhythm section is well recorded, the bass playing is in tune, and the band is smoking! Turn down the lights, pretend you are on the bandstand and HIT IT!