Great Michael Brecker Licks
July 18th, 2007 | 
Author: Here are a few Michael Brecker licks that I have picked up and used over the years. I give these out to my more advanced students who want to start getting into this stuff. I went through a stage in the late 80′s and early 90′s where I was consumed with Michael Brecker. I had never heard a tenor player with such authority or command of the horn. I’m sad that he is gone. he has left an incredible legacy with all his recordings. I’ll always be grateful for the impact and influence he has had on my life. These licks can be used in a variety of ways. Most of them are just plain chromatic patterns, some are over a minor tonality, some outline more of a 3 tonic kind of approach(Giant Steps…). I usually will talk with the students in person on how to use them. These are great to get under your fingers. I hope you like them. If you want to get more into the Brecker style of playing I would recommend buying as many recordings as you can of him. Hal Leonard also has a few transcription books out of his solos. There are also some great sites out there with free transcriptions that you find if you search around for them. Steve brecker-licks
Posted in Jazz Improvisation | 
Tags: great licks, jazz licks, jazz patterns, Michael Brecker, tenor sax
Hey steve. I found these brecker licks a while back and printed them out. Thank you so muck for that. Mike’s one of my alltime favourite sax players (along with coltrane and the usual suspects). Only problem is I don’t have any formal training and can’t really pick up on what’s going on in the licks. Take the first line – am I on the right track to say that in the context it was written the first four notes imply the 1, 5, and b7 of a chord?
I can’t really afford lessons, I’m 18, live on my own, had to move out because my step dad wouldn’t even let me hum indoors, let alone practice. I’m trying to pick up bits and pieces from here and there though and it seems to be working.
Would you mind explaining the first lick to me? Or how about your favourite one?
These are licks that I picked out and worked on over the years. Many of them are just chromatic patterns that he uses to play fast and outside of the changes. It doesn’t matter where you play them as long as you resolve the pattern into the key you are in or traveling to. Some of them are in certain tonalities but I would have to go through them to figure each out. That is actually a good topic for another video lesson. thanks, steve
Gabriel, If no one minds, I would say the first pattern descends in minor thirds. It might actually fit the turnaround to the Joe Henderson blues “Isotope,” transposed for tenor. In the tenor key (D) the chords implied would be: D7 B7 Ab7 F7 (two beats apiece) which would then resolve down another minor third to the “one” chord. The same lick as written might also fit the same blues in the alto key where the chords would be: A7 F#7 Eb7 C7. Some might even call each three-note grouping a partial pentatonic scale.
The second one seems to be a Giant Steps-type pattern. One way of describing it might be: GbMaj7 F7 BbMaj7 Db7. As Steve says, he might be superimposing these chords over a static harmony or something else.
Bars 19-23 (or the last two lines on the page) are in a tonality that would fit the vamp on Cedar Walton’s “Bolivia” in the tenor key. In fact it’s very similar to what Bob Berg plays on the first sixteen bars of “Bolivia” on Sam Jones’s album “Something in Common,” which I transcribed a long time ago. Here’s some else’s transcription of the same solo which I just found on the Internet:
http://pubcs.free.fr/BB/BOLIVIA_SamJones.pdf
I would call it a Coltrane-inspired phrase of the type that Steve Grossman was known for. It stays right in the key. Brecker adds the D#.
This is just my way of looking at it. I have books and books of my own transcriptions: licks, phrases, solos, etc., and it’s always fun to look at other people’s.
PS Steve, thank you for the great blog. You hipped me to a couple of great mouthpieces that I ended up buying!