A blog by the anonymous Dr. Jazz Ph.D. is worth perusing, if only for a couple of Michael Brecker video clips. One, from 1983, has the tenor saxophonist and a rhythm section that includes Niels Henning Orsted-Pedersen playing the fastest “Oleo” you’re likely to hear this side of Johnny Griffin. The other was made at an outdoor festival in Switzerland in 1998 with his Brecker’s own quartet, Joey Calderazzo on piano, James Genus on bass, and drummer Ralph Peterson. In it, Brecker manages to incorporate tricks that would have put a 1920s saxophone vaudevillian to shame while also negotiating a complex harmonic scheme and, ultimately, going into straight time and swinging the house down. Well, he would have swung it down if he hadn’t been on an outdoor stage.
The young blog is The Jazz Clinic. I have cruised through its archives and found it valuable for the fresh perspective of a young enthusiast with big ears. To visit it, and to see those Brecker clips, go here.