“Following a Michael Brecker solo is like nothing else that I have ever experienced, and very few musicians on any instrument can do it. It’s because he’s deep! By the time he gets done with an audience, people are standing on their chairs screaming. He gets to people under their skin, and that’s what makes him heavy.”
– Pat Metheny (DownBeat Magazine)
2019 will mark what would have been Michael Brecker’s 70th birthday. The late saxophonist is among the most inspiring and often imitated saxophonists in the last three decades of jazz, and one who often investigated and revitalized the music’s legacy in a fresh manner that propelled it into a constant state of expansion.
Wide Angles, conceived in 2002 in support of a U.K. Arts Council tour, served as the catalyst for Brecker’s most ambitious and emotionally-charged recording the following year. The album resulted in a large ensemble of brass, woodwind, and string players, and was recorded as an extended ten-song saxophone concerto, orchestrated and arranged by Gil Goldstein. Until then, Brecker had never led an orchestra and had rarely framed his sound with a large ensemble. In its weight, authority, daring, and panoramic scope, it also makes clear that Brecker was one of the foremost composers in jazz of his generation.
Collaborating with Goldstein, Brecker enthused, “Gil created the arrangements underneath the solos and expanded the orchestrations, and he was very meticulous about staying loyal to my original ideas and re-orchestrating them. He also beautifully arranged and orchestrated three of the tunes from the ground up.”
Wide Angles, under the musical direction of Gil Goldstein, will be performed live for the first time in Portland as part of the Philly Special festival program on closing weekend. John Nastos has assembled the brass ensemble and string quartet for this For Portland Only special occasion. Guest saxophonists include Eli Degibri, Maria Grand and Marcus Strickland. Degibri, a native of Tel Aviv who serves as the Artistic Director for the Red Sea Festival where Brecker often performed, recently initiated the first International Saxophone Competition in Brecker’s name.
