Now You See Him...(Now You Don't)

Just found out that Michael Brecker died over the weekend. Wow. I had no idea he was fighting leukemia.

When I was at Berklee College of Music, we played a Brecker Brothers tune called "Sneakin' Up Behind You." The tenor saxophonist also played in Frank Zappa's band in the mid-70s, and appears on Zappa Live in New York, which was probably Zappa's biggest horn section record until the '88 band. Mainstream music fans may recall him from stints with Paul Simon, including at least one of those huge Central Park gigs where he showed off his work with an electronic wind instrument.

The EWI stuff, as far as I know, was pretty much unmatched among jazz saxophonists, and Brecker pioneered its use in much the same was as Pat Metheny or Allan Holdsworth on guitar synth, or Bill Bruford on electronic drums. I've got a couple of records from that era where he's going heavy into that realm -- his own Don't Try This At Home and Mike Stern's Jigsaw -- and they're fun to listen to.

On the one hand, 57 seems way too young to lose someone like Brecker. On the other, he had a pretty amazing career for a contemporary jazz musician.