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111 of 114 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
He looks so healthy . . . , May 22, 2007
. . . hardly like a man suffering from a rare blood disease with less than half a year to live. That's the first thing you notice.
The second thing is the power and precision of his playing. The thirteen-time Grammy winner and premier saxophonist of his generation seems to have lost nothing. Backed by his peers (Herbie Hancock and Brad Mehldau, piano; Pat Metheny, guitar; John Patitucci, bass; and Jack DeJohnette, drums), playing nine attractive new self-penned compositions, he sounds as energized and expressive as ever.
The third thing is how wonderfully this gathering of absolutely first-rank jazz players works together, setting aside egos, focusing all their attention on making the music sing and ring with beauty and authority. After all, these superstar sessions don't always work. Proof? The gorgeous ensemble playing up to, behind, and following the leader's stunning solo on "Five Months from Midnight." Or on "Anagram," a Shorter-ish piece with a tricky unison head nailed by Brecker and Metheny, then sailing off into the wild blue yonder with another heroic solo by the leader as the band provides provocative comping for him to riff off of, power-driven by some of DeJohnette's finest drumming on disc. When Metheny comes in with his own wonderfully conceived solo statement, the feel's one of tribute, a tip of the hat, to the leader, without the slightest shred of cutting or one-upmanship. Mehldau's solo, one of his finest, also sparkles with wit and approbation. DeJohnette follows with some controlled mayhem on his kit, and it all ends with a reprise of the head and a rousing ensemble send-off.
The churning, chugging "Tumbleweed," with its wild-west feel mapped onto some ur-heartland vibe, shakes things up, nicely framed by a bit of eldritch wordless vocals and Metheny's tasty guitar-synth solo followed by a driving statement from the leader. Mehldau keeps things rolling with a quirky, percussively outrageous solo, and everyone comes back in for a rousing finale. Certainly a high point in a record bursting with passage after passage of brilliant playing.
Even the balladic "When Can I Kiss You Again?" though starting out gently enough, eventually gets the fully energized treatment with an emotionally searing solo by the leader that builds gloriously and then backs into tranquility. "Cardinal Rule" likewise begins innocently enough only to be goosed into overdrive by some killer unison lines from, again, the leader and Metheny and a nimble solo from Patitucci. The mid-tempo, samba-like "Half Moon Lane" shows a mellower side of leader and band, but its pure melody, easy Latin groove, and deft yet heartfelt sensibility maintain the highest level of playing. "Loose Threads," another south-of-the-border tune, but with a little more muscle and a wackily fractured sense of time, nicely caps the previous number.
With "Pilgrimage," the last cut, we're deep into the mystic. Hancock's ethereal electric piano sets the table for this symbolic voyage into the unknown. But there's nothing New Age-y or sentimental about this piece. Instead, we get glorious sound vistas anchored to a hard-headed sense of both one's mortality, and the hope of a better beyond, beautifully expressed in Brecker's magical EWI solo. The sense I get is something akin to C. S. Lewis's vision of the weight of glory, the idea that Heaven is so much more real and substantial than earthly existence that were mere mortals to travel there they would find the grass so sharp as to cut their feet.
One mourns the untimely passing of such an imposing and heroic musical figure as Michael Brecker. But at the same time we can rejoice not only that he has gone on, one hopes, to a better place, but also because of the iridescence of his last musical statement.
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44 of 44 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
HALL OF FAMER MICHAEL BRECKER'S BRILLIANT FINAL PERFORMANCES, WITH FRIENDS!!, May 23, 2007
Five WONDERFUL Stars!! These brilliant, complex, touching performances are jazz tenor saxophone titan Michael Brecker's final recorded testaments in a brilliant multiple Grammy-winning career. Indeed, "Anagram", on this very CD, won the Grammy in February 2008 as the Best Instrumental Jazz Solo and this entire CD was the winner of Best Jazz Instrumental Recording. Sadly, the 57 year old succumbed to a form of leukemia in January 2007, but these performances, like many others, will endure forever. Surrounded by equally brilliant friends like Herbie Hancock or Brad Mehldau on keyboards, along with Pat Metheny, John Patitucci, and Jack DeJohnette as the core group, Downbeat Magazine tells us he was playing with pain but obviously without technical limitations (trust me, Michael was at the top of his game, blazing away and lovingly coloring the ballads). He was not able to 'mix' or 'master' the final recordings, but he had decided this, as we hear it, is what he wanted and it is SPECTACULAR as it is: the final mix was a task faithfully completed by empathetic friends, as the listener will readily hear in this first-rate CD package. These facts make this recording bittersweet, but never maudlin: it is fiery and heartfelt music from beginning to end, with as cohesive a group as you'll ever hear. As DeJohnette said in the DownBeat cover story, "we celebrated him".
The 'Pieces De Resistance', the best of the best, begin with the swirling twin tornados of "The Mean Time" with great unison Brecker & Metheny and with Michael getting off one of his characteristically powerful tenor solos. The enigmatic "Five Months From Midnight", "Tumbleweed", "Loose Threads" and his Grammy award-winning solo on "Anagram" have some of the best Michael Brecker solos you'll ever hear, certainly the rivals of his amazing solo on "Carolyn Keki Mingus" with the Charles Mingus Big Band decades ago (my personal favorite until now). Hancock's solo on "Loose Threads" along with Jack's fabulous muscular drumming is flat out amazing, as is Patitucci: you will reap benefits by reserving time to focus on the drum and bass exclusively throughout the recording as they operate beautifully in the background. The low-burning "When Can I Kiss You Again?" is beautiful and touching with Michael and Herbie turning up the heat and soaring above it all. The pure fire of "Cardinal Rule" is one of the best performances with great Patitucci and Mehldau solos, and at the coda Michael's high-octane solo with DeJohnette in hot pursuit gives an affectionate wink-back at Coltrane and Elvin. Of special note is Metheny who is a 'monster' throughout the proceedings in both solo and uncanny unison passages where he almost sounds like a pitchrider on Michael's lead notes. These are brilliant, beautiful performances and this is how we should remember Michael. A fitting end to a wonderful, storied career.
Thank goodness, Michael Brecker left a huge discography for us to enjoy, stretching all the way back to his days with his brother Randy in the Horace Silver Quintet, thru the various incarnations of the 'Brecker Brothers', to this very CD. Another great player has left the bandstand and he will be missed. My Highest Recommendation. Five TREMENDOUS Stars!!
(*This review is based on an iTunes digital download.
* Michael Brecker was elected to the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame in October 2007.)
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22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great playing under any circumstances, but all the more so under these., June 7, 2007
If there's any solace to be gained from the dramatic, heart-rending final months of Michael Brecker's life, it's that perhaps some of the attention bestowed upon this great musician and exemplary human being will be directed to the vital African-American art form that he influenced and contributed to. As recently as 1990, the average life-span of jazz musicians was estimated to be 43, with the cases of saxophone legends Charlie Parker (who died at the age of 34) and John Coltrane (40) more often held up as typical rather than exceptional. It's difficult to recall the case of a jazz musician's premature death (Brecker was 57) that has provoked the outpourings of sympathy, love and respect, along with the unrestrained critical and popular assessments of his music, that this one has. But Brecker was a special case. His courageous battle was played out in full for almost two years (and for good reason because of the urgent search for a matching bone marrow donor for his exceedingly rare cancer). During this time, a larger public became aware of not only an outrageously talented, present-day master of the archetypal jazz instrument, the tenor saxophone, but of a generous and gentle human being--unassuming, personable, a loving father and family man. Finally, his death was neither a sudden shock (the road has taken a severe toll on musicians) nor one that could be implicitly interpreted as "self-inflicted" (drug addiction, alcoholism, smoking, etc.). Then the capper: a recording session that, accurately or not, is being viewed as not simply the "last note" but as a planned valedictory, a final testament, a visionary requiem. Its posthumous release, then, cannot help but take on a significance beyond the commercial, the aesthetic, and the historical: it's become a spiritual journey--from conception, to execution, and finally to its reception as a kind of other-worldly message from Brecker himself. (I can almost see the modest Michael bemused, perhaps even a bit amused, by much of the fanfare and fuss.)
As I'm listening to the music now, it's clearly apparent that he's playing like a giant in full possession of all his considerable powers (much as was pianist Bill Evans on the sixteen CDs' worth of music recorded less than a week before his death). The ensemble playing on "The Mean Time" is rhythmically and melodically intricate, tightly executed yet replete with inspired interplay and freeness. And for all the energy being expended, the musicians are listening to each other, working with dynamics and tension-release techniques over modal scales and within textures that are polyphonic, bringing as much attention to the group as to the individual soloist. "Tumbleweed" is another example of a high-intensity, intricate and polyphonically rich piece. On this composition Metheny's synthesizer-processed guitar solo might seem risky (should it ever come to be seen as dated, period-piece gadgetry) because it precedes a majestic Brecker solo, which sets up a two-handed, almost equally exhilarating turn by Brad Mehldau on acoustic piano.
It's an impressive session by exceptional players who are on their game. Is it a "work of art"? Is it a "classic"? Is it the "best" jazz album of the new millennium? Of Brecker's career? Maybe we'll know--in time. For now, best to enjoy it. Brecker's assimilation of Coltrane's innovations was not unlike Sonny Stitt's translation of Parker's new language. And there's always room for yet another flawless Stitt session.
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by Michael Brecker 
