Michael Brecker:Michael Brecker, the Philadelphia-born saxophonist star who has died of leukaemia aged 57, could hurl out more notes faster than almost all of his fellow-practitioners, but his 11 Grammy awards, devoted worldwide audience and status among musicians everywhere testified to artistic strengths that went far beyond technique.
He was a composer, bandleader and improviser whose solo career started late, after years as a sideman and session-player; but in the two decades after he made his leadership debut, he became the most emulated jazz saxophonist on the planet after John Coltrane.
Brecker's lawyer father was a part-time jazz pianist, his sister Emmy a classical pianist, and his brother Randy became a celebrated jazz trumpeter. Michael would joke that the only way the children could have had a subversive teenage rebellion would have been to become doctors or attorneys.
Michael played drums at first, then clarinet from the age of seven, alto sax in high school, and finally the tenor and soprano instruments. While at Indiana University he mostly played rock, turning to R&B and funk at the end of the 1960s when he moved to New York to play professionally.
In 1969 Michael and Randy Brecker, guitarist John Abercrombie and drummer Billy Cobham co-founded Dreams, one of the earliest and most creative of the first wave of jazz-rock bands. Work with Cobham and with Horace Silver followed, before Randy and Michael formed the Brecker Brothers.
The Brecker Brothers continued with various line-ups until 1982. Between 1970 and the mid-1980s, Michael also contributed to more than 400 albums as a session saxist.
Then, in 1986, with pianist Joey Calderazzo, drummer Adam Nussbaum and bassist Jeff Andrews, he formed a much more jazz-oriented post-bop group, and in 1987 recorded his debut album as a leader (it was jazz album of the year in both Downbeatand Jazzizmagazines), and toured with Herbie Hancock's quartet.
In 2001, at the invitation of the English Contemporary Music Network, he also successfully explored leadership of a larger band, working with Gil Goldstein and an Anglo-American group on expanded arrangements of his own compositions. A bigger group also participated on Wide Angles, which won two Grammy awards.
He is survived by his wife Susan, children Jessica and Sam, brother Randy and sister Emily Brecker Greenberg.
Michael Brecker, born March 29th, 1949; died January 13th, 2007.