Brecker Brothers Biography
Individually, saxophonist Michael Brecker and trumpeter/flugelhornist Randy Brecker are among the most skillful, versatile and in-demand jazz players of their era. Collectively, the sibling duo made a lasting mark with a series of popular albums that established them as leading lights in jazz-fusion’s embrace of elements of rock and R&B.
Randy Brecker was an original member of Blood, Sweat and Tears. After he left that band, he and his brother played together in the short-lived but influential fusion outfit Dreams, which also included Billy Cobham. Michael then played in groups led by Cobham and Horace Silver, while Randy became was a charter member of Larry Coryell’s seminal fusion combo the Eleventh House. Michael and Randy then reunited to launch the Brecker Brothers, whose emphasis on structured arrangements and a rock-influenced backbeat broadened the duo’s appeal to rock-weaned audiences. The Breckers demonstrated an impressive ability to make music that was complex and intricate, yet consistently accessible.
The Brecker Brothers recorded prolifically through the second half of the 1970s, co-leading a band that at various times included such heavyweights as David Sanborn, George Duke and Will Lee. Both together and separately, the brothers also maintained busy parallel careers as studio sidemen, recording with such prestigious jazz artists as Chet Baker, George Benson, Chick Corea, Pat Metheny, Charles Mingus, Jaco Pastorius and McCoy Tyner, as well as rock and pop performers like Frank Sinatra, Paul Simon, James Taylor, Bruce Springsteen, Steely Dan, Frank Zappa and Parliament-Funkadelic.
After the Brecker Brothers disbanded in 1982, Michael and Randy maintained thriving individual careers, with Michael joining the jazz supergroup Steps Ahead and recording a series of acclaimed solo releases, on which he augmented his saxophone work with the EWI (Electronic Wind Instrument). Michael and Randy reunited in the early ’90s for two albums with a retooled Brecker Brothers lineup, and Michael later teamed with Herbie Hancock and Roy Hargrove to form a temporary aggregation that bore the three musicians’ surnames. Although Michael passed away in 2007, Randy continues remains one of jazz’s most respected horn players.
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