Remembering Michael Brecker

A slide show and excerpt from my 2021 book, "Ode to a Tenor Titan"

Michael Brecker passed away in a Manhattan hospital on Saturday, Jan. 13, 2007, surrounded by family and friends. Cause of death was leukemia, the result of his nearly two and a half year struggle with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS). After Michael drew his last breath, those in attendance clapped; a final round of applause for the loving husband, devoted and selfless father, compassionate friend and beloved and revered tenor titan. As his manager Darryl Pitt said, “When Mike took his last breath, we applauded the end of a life extraordinarily well lived. Mike mastered life, and then a two-and-a-half year war was over.”

And then, suddenly, after the round of applause, Michael began to breathe again. “His heart had stopped beating but he kept breathing for like..it seemed like an eternity, though it must have been only a couple of minutes,” said Michael’s friend and colleague Gary Gold. “And I always found that striking, metaphorically — his life ended but he was still blowing.”

In a piece for the April 2007 issue of Jazz Times, I wrote the following about getting the news about Michael’s passing at the International Association for Jazz Education conference, a three-day schmooze-athon held in New York City and attended by 8,000 or music industry types from around the globe:

On the morning of Saturday, Jan. 13, the last day of the conference, we were all drawn a little closer together by the crushing news of the passing of Michael Brecker. I arrived at the conference around 3 p.m. The first person I encountered was vibraphonist Mike Mainieri, Brecker’s longtime pal and colleague going back to their hippie days together in the sprawling ensemble White Elephant. I spied him standing alone in the lobby and could see the grief in his face. “Mike passed away this morning,” he muttered in somber tones. His words fell like bricks and I walked around in stunned silence all afternoon.

I had just communicated with Brecker the week before, when I sent him a copy of saxist-clarinetist Andy Statman’s ‘Awakening From Above,’ thinking that the healing vibrations of that collection of sacred Jewish music would lift his spirits. On Jan. 3, Brecker sent me an e-mail that read: “Hi Bill, thanks for the Andy Statman CD. He is amazing. I really enjoyed it. And thanks for thinking of me. I’m still at home fighting the battle. All is well though…lots to be grateful for. I hope you are fine and lotsa love, Mike.”

Ten days later, he was gone.

Looking back on their life together, Susan said that rather than reflect on her husband’s dark, Shakespearean twist of fate, she preferred to think about the good life they had together. “We were a good team,” she said in the comfort of her Hastings home. “We did have 25 years together and were married 23 years. And some people don’t have five minutes of what we had. So I’m super grateful about that.

“I mean, I really was lucky, and so was he,” she continued. “Our lives were fashioned around the music and the family, and that was OK with both of us. I did the house and the children and he did the music. He had dinner with us every night he was home. He’d come up from his studio and he would have dinner and then he’d be with the kids, whether it was bathtime, reading books or doing homework, until it was time to go back downstairs to his studio. And we took family vacations. And he really grew within the marriage as did I. I learned a lot about myself. I would have to say a lot of who I am today is because of Mike. Because he was wise and he had a way about him that you kind of wanted a little piece of him. And he really was just a great partner for me —very accepting, very loving. My life was really good with him.”

Susan recalled driving Michael to chemo treatment every morning, an unfortunate trip but one made lighter by Mike’s loving nature. “It’s about 45 minutes to Sloan Kettering from Hastings and we would listen to the blues show on the radio driving into Manhattan, because we both loved the blues. And one day he turned to me and said, ‘I really love this time together.’ Here I was driving him to a cancer hospital to do these horrible chemo treatments and he was able to extract joy out of that. He could look at things and see beauty that other people couldn’t see. He was such an artist that way. He was so tuned into something that a lot of people aren’t tuned into. I think sometimes it’s because he didn’t have distractions that other people had. He didn’t have to deal with the house or fixing it up or having it maintained. He didn’t have to deal with the kids or choosing what summer camp to go to. He used to say about me, ‘Honey knows everything. Honey does it better.’ And it was true. So a lot of distractions were gone for him. He didn’t have to wake up and think about stuff that a lot of people have to think about in their everyday life. And I was so grateful to be able to give him that because I so valued his work that if I could create an environment for him that he could just create, then how perfect!”

Then she paused and added with a chuckle, “Michael’s greatest wish was to get an iPhone. But he died right before the iPhone came out. He used to say, ‘I just want to live to see an iPhone.’ He never did though. Oh, he would’ve loved it! He could’ve done so much with that thing — make his movies, record demos, send messages to everyone. He never would have put it down, ever, ever, ever. He would have divorced me and married the iPhone. Trust me...you're laughing, but it’s true.”

Two weeks after the funeral, saxophonist Tim Ries came by to visit Susan. “She took me down to the basement and there was Mike’s horn sitting on the stand, as he always had it. So I said to Susan, ‘We have to put the horn away, because between the dog, the cleaning person and whatever, the horn can accidentally get knocked over and get damaged.’ So I brought out the sax case and I opened it up, and I began taking off the neck and putting it in the case, then putting in the bell, closing up the case and zipping it. And that was even heavier than the funeral for me. Because you’re putting away Michael’s main instrument forever. And the moment got to us. We were both weeping like children there in Mike’s studio. It was heavy because it was the end.”

Several years later, Ries, who had moved away to New Jersey by then, called Susan to check in. “And I told her, ‘Susan, these horns have been sitting inside the case, zipped up in some closet somewhere for like eight years. They should really be in the air sometimes because if it’s in a really humid environment they can get pitted and start to actually eat away the metal.’ So she invited me up to her house in Hastings and I opened up all the tenors — three Selmer Super Balanced and three Selmer Mark VIs. And she sat there as I played the horns. And when I played Mike’s main Selmer Mark VI, Susan goes, ‘You have to play that horn. Take it for a while.’ So I took it and I ended up bringing it with me on tour with The Rolling Stones right after that. And it’s become my main horn.

“So now I open the horn case every day and look at Mike’s tenor and I say a little mantra to myself: ’OK, motherfucker, you have a duty to play great today because of who played this saxophone.’ So there’s not a day that I don’t think about Michael. Even without the horn, I do anyway because of how much I learned from him. But also that I’m blowing air through his instrument. It’s another level of calling, like, ‘OK, you have to get it together.’ And it’s just another level of connecting with Mike, in a way.”

Pilgrimage was released on the Heads Up label on May 22, 2007, just four months after Michael had passed. The album opens with a burst of uptempo energy on “The Mean Time,” with Michael and Metheny joining on a tricky unison line right out of the gate. DeJohnette swings in his inimitable fashion and Hancock comps slyly in sparse fashion as Michael unleashes with the same remarkable facility — daring intervallic leaps, nonchalant double-timing and fluid flights into the altissimo range — like the Mikey B of old. This is not the sound of a sick man. With Patitucci grooving mightily underneath and DeJohnette delivering his typical whirlwind performance on the kit, Metheny and Hancock contribute stellar, flowing solos before the interactive crew returns to the challenging head. Elsewhere on Pilgrimage, Michael reveals heightened expressive powers on the balladic “Five Months from Midnight,” with some beautiful contrapuntal accompaniment from Metheny and pianist Brad Mehldau. Mike’s solo on the more energized second half of the piece is scintillating and very much in Breckerian mode.

“Anagram” is a runaway burner. A 10-minute exercise in turbulent swing with some tight unisons upfront by Pat and Mike, it features the tenor titan unleashing in the open-ended blowing section with multiphonics and Trane-inspired ‘sheets of sound.’ Metheny and Mehldau both deliver spectacular solos here on top of a furiously kinetic undercurrent created by the all-world rhythm tandem of Patitucci and DeJohnette. Jack also unleashes an incredible solo over a full band ostinato near the end of this exhilarating number.

“Tumbleweed” carries an earthy flavor (a trace of Pee Wee Ellis’ “The Chicken” changes can be detected in the fabric of this piece) while bits of Bulgarian-inspired time signatures are injected into the proceedings at the 1:37 and 7:23 marks. Metheny leads with a brilliant guitar synth solo here that Michael picks up on to launch into his own heroic tenor solo. They close out in furious fashion with sax and guitar synth screaming at each other in a powerful crescendo

The tender ballad “When Can I Kiss You Again?” was named for a question asked by Michael’s son Sam during a hospital visit when physical contact was prohibited to avoid infection. Metheny’s solo is a warm, heartfelt offering while Hancock’s is more probing and slightly pensive. Michael’s solo here is imbued with deep feeling as it builds to a dramatic peak; the love for his son fairly oozing out of his horn.

The jauntily swinging “Cardinal Rule” exhibits a high degree of interactivity and virtuosity among all the participants, including a brilliant extended solo from Patitucci and some sparkling, rapidfire exchanges between Brecker and Mehldau over DeJohnette’s irrepressible polyrhythmic pulse. It closes with an exhilarating tenor-drums breakdown between Michael and Jack that is a tip of the hat to the John Coltrane-Elvin Jones matchups of yore that inspired them both.

The more mellow “Half Moon Lane,” an engaging number with a memorable hook, has Michael taking his time and telling a story on his sax. Following suit, Metheny starts out slow on his solo, gradually building to dizzying, fleet-fingered flights up and down his fretboard. “Loose Ends” opens as a quirky stop-time funk vehicle with allusions to Eddie Harris’ “Listen Here” or “Cold Duck Time.” (Michael had recorded Harris’ “Listen Here” in 2005 on Eddie Palmieri’s Listen Here! for the Concord label). Michael’s solo here is positively Herculean, once again belying his underlying illness. Hancock follows with an expansive solo that is breathtaking in its harmonic inventiveness.

The moving 10-minute title track that closes Pilgrimage is bittersweet, considering the profoundly sad circumstances that followed. With Hancock creating a spacious, atmospheric vibe on Fender Rhodes and DeJohnette drumming up thunder on the rubato intro, it segues to a stately theme at the 2:48 mark. Herbie’s Rhodes solo is right out of the ‘70s, conjuring up memories of Michael’s own musical beginnings with Dreams and the Brecker Brothers. Metheny’s warm-toned legato solo invites the listener in, then Michael follows with a flute-sounding EWI solo before they build to a dramatic conclusion. Said Randy of his brother’s swan song, “How he did it, I have no idea. It’s a testament to his strength. And this was his most significant work, by far.”

“What I would like people to take from this record is that it is one man’s testament to the human spirit,” Susan later told the Associated Press’ Charlie Gans. “This music is just one man’s response to hearing he is going to die … and there can be nothing more honest or more vibrant than that, nothing.” Added Pitt, “In addition to the love of his family and friends, his work on this project helped keep him alive and will be another jewel in his legacy.”

In his Jazz Times review of the album, Geoffrey Himes wrote: “How would we have responded to this album if it had been just another release from a healthy Michael Brecker? We certainly wouldn’t have associated any of these nine instrumental tracks with sickness and death. There is none of the howling anger or desolate anguish that one might expect from a confrontation with mortality. The album also lacks the stoic fatalism that’s sometimes associated with dying. In fact, the disc’s strongest tracks are all driven by a sense of quest, as if the composer and his bandmates were seeking the answer to a nagging question. If these compositions had been released by a healthy Brecker, we might have thought the musicians were trying to solve the riddle of a romantic relationship, a philosophical quandary or merely the harmonic challenge of finding the perfect restatement of a theme. No matter what the provoking topic may have been — life-after-death, life-before-death or bridge-after-verse — the urgency with which these musicians chase after the answer is thrilling.”

Nate Chinen wrote in The New York Times: “Pilgrimage represents both a postscript and a pinnacle. Mr. Brecker had been struggling with leukemia for more than a year when he entered a studio last August with a spirit of urgent conviction and a stack of original compositions. You don’t need to know this to be astonished by the mastery and immediacy of the album. The songs are harmonically advanced yet often catchy. Mr. Brecker plays with lucidity and passion on the churning ‘Tumbleweed’ and the brooding ‘Half Moon Lane,’ and his work on the title track — a spiritual anthem in the John Coltrane vein that shifts into a modern groove — feels calmly valedictory. Of course, there is poignancy in the album’s circumstances, which are impossible to ignore. But the power of this music is more than sentimental. In its balance of ambition and abandon, serious-mindedness and ebullience, there’s a crystallization of what jazz, at its best, is about.”

Michael received two posthumous Grammy Awards (his 14th and 15th) for his stunning swan song — Best Instrumental Jazz Album and Best Improvised Jazz Solo for “Anagram.”

In his eulogy at a Michael Brecker Memorial held at Town Hall on February 20, 2007, Pat Metheny called Pilgrimage, “one of the great codas in modern music history.”

Randy gave a beautiful eulogy himself at that moving ceremony. “I remember when Trane died and thinking, ‘What are we going to do now?’ That feeling is once again upon us,” he told the 1600 mourners, adding, “We always had a healthy competition going on. We would spur each other on, although I think we all know who would always come out quite ahead. He was forever probing, never satisfied, was always on the path to something new, groundbreaking and astounding. And during his epic struggle, he fought like hell for over two and a half years.”

Darryl Pitt spoke of the ‘colossal void’ left by Michael’s passing, which he admitted he was still having trouble processing at the time of the Town Hall Memorial: “Mike bounced back again and again from illness, and then he didn’t. And now we’re all here. In life, I don’t have to tell you Michael Brecker was a gift to each of us. His loss is surreal. It’s so weird, and heartbreaking.”

Dave Liebman addressed the traditional Jewish tenet of tikkun olam or “making the world better” in his eulogy. As he said, “There was an unspoken agreement that we should do something good for humanity. Our families both were into the idea of making the world better, and Mike wound up doing that.”

James Taylor sent a recorded message of thanks, crediting Michael’s intercession in his own addictions with saving his life: “We go back, Michael and I. I’ve said it a number of times before but I really have the sense that he saved my life at a very important juncture. He was my sponsor and as that was a role model for me. And I identified so closely with Michael that the fact that he managed to turn his life around and go forward at a certain point made me think that it was possible for me too. And I just owe him so much for that. Thinking of him in the world made it easier for me to think of myself in the world, really. And I know that there’s a huge community of us whose lives were really perhaps saved and certainly hugely changed and altered by Michael. So those of us who remain and survive, we carry him forward now, and his memory. We are what is left of him in this world.”

Randy joined with pianist Joey Calderazzo and bassist Patitucci to perform Calderazzo’s “Midnight Voyage,” a tune from Michael’s Tales from the Hudson, while Hancock joined Patitucci and DeJohnette in performing his “Chan’s Song,” which Michael had played on his 2001 album, Nearness of You: The Ballad Book, and won a Best Instrumental Jazz Solo Grammy Award for. Hancock and Paul Simon duetted on “Still Crazy After All These Years,” the Simon tune that Michael had played on in 1975, Liebman played a solo wood flute version of Michael’s “A Gathering of Spirits” from the Saxophone Summit’s 2004 album, Gathering of Spirits, and Metheny played a solo acoustic rendition of “Every Day (I Thank You),” a beautiful tune he had written with Michael in mind and that they had played together numerous times, including on Metheny’s stellar album, 80/81.

Metheny assessed Michael’s tenor prowess in his Town Hall eulogy: “Most people were blinded by the brilliance and ingenuity and strength of this guy coming along with perfect time while simultaneously displaying a level of saxophone technique and a sound that almost seemed superhuman. There were so many things in action there that the deepest treasure of Mike’s amazing gift was sometimes hard to pick out in the wealth of it all.”

Michael’s 13-year-old son Sam recalled hijinks with his father — wrestling on the bed, playing catch in the backyard, bike riding on weekends, playing basketball — as well as laughing and sharing intimate talks. And Susan delivered a profoundly moving eulogy for her husband:

“Mike was the best person I have ever known and I know that am a better person for having known and loved him. He was kind, he was gentle, he was generous, he was incredibly funny. He believed that people were good and he looked for and found the good in everyone. When you spoke with him you knew that you had his absolute attention and that he was genuinely interested in you and in that moment. Mike had an uncanny ability to make everyone feel special. With his constant smile and willingness to please, he was inside your heart within seconds. He and I fell in love the moment we met. I reveled in his telling that story and saying, ‘It was love at first sight with Susan.’

“He was so very grateful for his life, his music, his kids, his friends. This grateful man thanked me for every single meal I ever made for him. In our marriage we rarely argued, partly because he just refused to do so. He always took the high road. He was a wonderful father. With his worldwide acclaim and countless awards, he was proudest of his children.

“Carry him in your heart, because he’s in there. He gave us all a piece of himself every time we saw him play or spoke to him or hugged him tight. He was the very best of what we humans can be. And I will forever be honored to be Michael Brecker’s wife.”

The solemn ceremony concluded with Hancock joining Wayne Shorter and Buster Williams (all practicing members of SGI) and Sam Brecker for a full five minutes of chanting nam-myoho-renge-kyo as the crowd of colleagues, fans, bandmates, family members and the greater musical community silently filed out of Town Hall.