Today, I am reviewing a Saxscape Downtown MB1 8* (.115) slim profile tenor saxophone mouthpiece that Ken Barry at Saxscape mouthpieces recently sent me to try out and perhaps review. Earlier this year, I reviewed a Saxscape Live model tenor sax mouthpiece as well as a Saxscape Fat Cat model tenor saxophone mouthpiece that I Read More…
Video Tour of The Michael Brecker Archive at William Paterson University
June 24, 2019 by Leave a Comment
Louis Gerrits creator of the site michaelbreckerliverecordings.com posted a link to a video tour of the Living Jazz Archives at William Paterson University which includes the Michael Brecker Archive on Facebook this morning. I posted about this great archive in the past here: Michael Brecker Archive Article. The Michael Brecker part of the video tour Read More…
New! Michael Brecker’s Alternate Fingering Lessons Area
March 22, 2019 by Leave a Comment
You might have noticed that I have been quiet here at neffmusic.com over the last few weeks. The reason is that I started a new lesson series on my site for members focused on the alternate fingering licks of Michael Brecker. I have been working diligently (my wife describes it more as obsessed…..) behind the Read More…
Michael Brecker International Saxophone Competition
February 7, 2019 by 1 Comment
I was recently informed about this new competition by Brian Plautz and Susan Brecker and thought I would pass on the information here on the site. If you are an aspiring saxophonist between the ages of 16-30, are a citizen of the world (no extraterrestrials) and can burn it up on the saxophone, then this Read More…
Guardala Mouthpiece Informative Brochures From 1990
December 21, 2018 by 2 Comments
A friend of mine on Facebook, Adrian Chia, posted these pictures of hardcopy Guardala mouthpiece brochures that he received from Dave Guardala in the mail back in 1990. Dave was living in Hicksville NY at the time and working out of his garage from what I have heard. If only I had a time machine…………… Read More…
The Michael Brecker Archive at William Paterson University
October 15, 2018 by 5 Comments
Dr. David Demsey at William Paterson University contacted me a few years ago to tell me about the “Living Jazz Archives” that the University was building and how they were adding a Michael Brecker Archive to the already existing archives that they already had. The Living Jazz Archives are: A TEACHING TOOL for William Paterson University Read More…
The Art of Imitation-Michael Brecker on Peep
October 11, 2018 by 14 Comments
Someone on SOTW (Sax on the Web) posted a video this morning of Michael Brecker soloing over his tune Peep from the early 90’s. Peep was a Brecker tune from the album “Now You See It… (Now You Don’t) that blew my mind when it was released in 1990. I was a young Brecker head Read More…
Michael Brecker “Mellow Minor” Tenor Saxophone Solo Transcription
April 30, 2018 by Leave a Comment
Here is another great solo transcription of Michael Brecker on the McCoy Tyner tune “Mellow Minor” from the album “Infinity”. This has been on my transcription list for many years now and this morning I thought I would hammer away at it and finally finish it. I remember when this album came out, I was Read More…
Michael Brecker “Happy Days” Tenor Sax Solo Transcription
April 18, 2018 by 1 Comment
Here is another great solo transcription of Michael Brecker on the McCoy Tyner tune “Happy Days” from the album “Infinity”. This has been on my transcription list for many years now and this morning I thought I would hammer away at it and finally finish it. I remember when this album came out, I was Read More…
Michael Brecker Sax Solo Transcription on David Letterman Intro
April 27, 2017 by 4 Comments
Here’s another great Michael Brecker tenor sax transcription to check out. It’s a short one of Michael Brecker sitting in with the Paul Shaffer band on the David Letterman show in the 80’s. This transcription was done by Joe Raia who is a local sax player down in Massachusetts and was nice enough to share Read More…
Will the Real Michael Brecker’s Sax Mouthpiece Please Stand Up?
July 18, 2016 by 45 Comments
I wanted to write a blog post on this subject because there has been a lot of discussion and confusion over the years about the Guardala mouthpiece Michael Brecker played on. I started a discussion on this subject about a month ago on Facebook but thought it would be good to post what I discovered Read More…
Liu Shizhao Pilgrimage MB Tenor Saxophone Mouthpiece Review
June 9, 2016 by 22 Comments
A month or two ago, I posted a review of a couple new saxophone mouthpiece from Liu Shizhao out of China. He sent me a tenor saxophone mouthpiece prototype MB Prototype and an alto prototype that I was very impressed with and wrote reviews on. Recently, he has sent me two more saxophone mouthpieces to review that Read More…
Michael Brecker on Three Quartets with Chick Corea
April 2, 2016 by 3 Comments
I just found this on Youtube this morning and wanted to share it. This video was made in 2003 and is a reunion concert of the original musicians from Chick Corea’s “Three Quartets” album. Chick Corea, Michael Brecker,Eddie Gomez and Steve Gadd. Three Quartets was released in 1981 and was one of the first albums Read More…
Liu Shizhao MB Prototype Tenor Saxophone Mouthpiece Review
November 18, 2015 by 3 Comments
In todays modern world, you see new products popping up on the internet almost everyday. About a month ago, I was on Facebook just browsing through friend’s posts when I came upon some beautiful pictures of some mouthpieces I had never seen before. These were posted by Liu Shizhao who lives in Beijing, China and apparently Read More…
Michael Brecker Solo Transcription-Recorda Me
September 7, 2015 by 6 Comments
For this week’s new transcription, I am posting the first 5 choruses of a transcription that Igor Tomanoski sent me this week. This is Michael Brecker soloing over Recorda Me with Steps Ahead in the 80’s. This is from a Youtube video that I first heard a few years ago. This is just classic “tearing it up” Brecker!! Read More…
Michael Brecker Transcription-A Night in Tunisia-Chaka Kahn
March 24, 2015 by 12 Comments
For this week’s new transcription I have been working on a solo by Michael Brecker over “A Night in Tunisia”. This is from a video on Youtube of Chaka Kahn performing a great version of this tune in 1981. I just discovered this Youtube video last week when someone posted it on Facebook. I must have watched Brecker’s solo 20 times in Read More…
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