Pilgrimage - Michael Brecker

Dec

12

Pilgrimage - Michael Brecker

≡ Category: 2000s, Essential, Post Bop, Reviews |
≅ Written by: Michael Kydonieus

JAZZBO NOTES ESSENTIAL RECORDING

Rating:

Sadly, Pilgrimage was Michael Brecker’s swan song before he succumbed to a rare form of cancer. He was very sick when he recorded Pilgrimage, but you would never know it.

In fact, Pilgrimage (on the Heads Up label) represents the flowering of a new phase in Brecker’s playing, which makes his death at an early age doubly tragic.

Michael Brecker is one of those musicians who works really hard and changes really slowly. That is understandable when you consider that he was playing at an extraordinarily high level as far back as 1975. I saw him in concert at the Berklee College of Music back in the 80s and you could see Brecker straining to extend his technique and push the boundaries of what his rhythmic and harmonic concepts were capable of. I was exhausted just watching him.

With the exception of Coltrane and maybe a few others, improvisors don’t create brand new licks all the time. They have a trick bag that they dip into. By the time Brecker recorded Wide Angles in 2006, he had been using a number of familiar licks for literally decades. But in Wide Angles, a funny thing started to happen. These familiar licks started to fall away and Brecker’s solos seemed to grow organically out of the materials to an unprecedented extent.

It’s well-known that Coltrane was one of Michael Brecker’s biggest influences. On Pilgrimage, Brecker finally sounds a lot like his mentor, not in the respect of tone or approach to rhythm or anything like that, but rather in his ability to spin out melodies endlessly that have never been in the air before. Somehow, by the time Michael Brecker recorded Pilgrimage, all of the immense knowledge of harmony and rhythm he had accumulated over the years ceased to be theoretical and became second nature.

If that was all there was to Pilgrimage, that would be enough, but there’s much more. Michael Brecker’s compositions had grown in ambition and erudition along with his sax playing. I wish I could explain to you some of the technical details of what makes these new compositions different and more advanced, but I can’t for the simple reason that Brecker has passed beyond my ability to understand him. Mind you, I appreciate what he’s doing, but on a subliminal level.

There’s also the matter of who he’s working with. For what Brecker had to know was his valedictory recording, he chose the very best musicians: Jack DeJohnette (drums), Herbie Hancock (piano), Brad Mehldau (piano), Pat Metheny (guitar), John Patitucci (bass), and Gil Goldstein (arranger). Most of these men need no introduction, but I’ll just mention that Gil Goldstein was Brecker’s arranger on Wide Angles and he did a stupendous job on that recording, winning a well deserved Grammy for his work.

One thing that’s a bit surprising about Pilgrimage. Given the tragic circumstances under which it was recorded, there is not so much as a whiff of sentimentality about the project. This is tough minded jazz, with everyone concerned digging as deep as their abilities will allow.

Again, I apologize for my inadequacy in being able to explain in technical terms what makes the performances on Pilgrimage so excellent. Trust me. Just listen to the samples.