Randy Brecker Quintet to Give Free Concert

The same month he will be giving concerts at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center, celebrated jazz trumpeter Randy Brecker will bring his latest group of all-star musicians to Ithaca College for a free performance. The Randy Brecker Quintet will play on Sunday, March 28, at 8:15 p.m. in Ford Hall Auditorium. The concert, which is open to the public, is part of the School of Music’s 1998–99 Visiting Artists Series.

Randy Brecker has been shaping the sound of jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock for more than two decades. His trumpet and fluegelhorn performances grace hundreds of albums by a wide range of artists, from James Taylor, Bruce Springsteen, and Parliament/Funkadelic to David Sanborn, Jaco Pastorius, and Frank Zappa. His agile and multifaceted "post-bop" trumpeting has helped lift bandstands with Charles Mingus, Clark Terry, Joe Henderson, the Thad Jones & Mel Lewis Orchestra, Horace Silver, and Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. His most visible calling card, though, is as cofounder (with brother Mike) of the celebrated Brecker Brothers Band. Established and greeted with great popular and critical acclaim in the mid-1970s, the band reunited in the mid-1990s to win a pair of Grammy Awards for its album Out of the Loop.

The New York Daily News calls Brecker "a clever scoundrel" for managing to play some of the most marketable easy-listening jazz in the world while at the same time being able to inject a considerable amount of depth and conviction into his music. Like those of all great artists, his technique and knowledge are means to a larger vision rather than ends for showboating athletic display.

Brecker’s recordings, both solo and with various bands, include Live at Sweet Basil, Word of Mouth, The Return of the Brecker Brothers, and Into the Sun, for which he won a 1998 Grammy for best contemporary jazz performance. He tours extensively, not only performing but also giving clinics and workshops at many stops to help teach the next generation of trumpeters.

Joining Brecker for his Ithaca College performance will be quintet members Adam Kolker, tenor and soprano saxophones; Ted Rosenthal, piano; Dean Johnson, bass; and Ron Vincent, drums. Kolker is a member of several ensembles, including the Village Vanguard Orchestra, and has performed on two Grammy-nominated albums with Ray Barretto. Rosenthal, Johnson, and Vincent all played and recorded frequently with jazz great Gerry Mulligan until his death in 1996. They continue to work with one another in a variety of configurations both on stage and in the studio.