{"id":111976,"date":"2022-12-15T14:47:14","date_gmt":"2022-12-15T19:47:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/?p=111976"},"modified":"2023-01-19T16:22:09","modified_gmt":"2023-01-19T21:22:09","slug":"insane-michael-brecker-invitation-tenor-sax-solo-transcription-from-the-jaco-birthday-concert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/2022\/12\/insane-michael-brecker-invitation-tenor-sax-solo-transcription-from-the-jaco-birthday-concert\/","title":{"rendered":"Insane Michael Brecker Invitation Tenor Sax Solo Transcription from the Jaco Birthday Concert"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Here&#8217;s another great Michael Brecker tenor saxophone solo transcription I am excited to share with everyone. This is a transcription of Michael Brecker&#8217;s insane tenor sax solo on the jazz standard, &#8220;Invitation&#8221; from the Jaco Pastorius&#8217; album &#8220;The Birthday Concert&#8221; (this is not the Invitation solo from Jack Wilkins album &#8220;Merge&#8221;).\u00a0 The Jaco Pastorius &#8220;Birthday Concert&#8221; album was recorded live in 1981 but wasn&#8217;t released until 1995.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-22893 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.neffmusic.com\/2022\/JacoBirthday.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"500\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Jaco Pastorius &#8220;The Birthday Concert&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Michael Brecker&#8217;s solo on this jazz standard, Invitation, is just ridiculous in my mind.\u00a0 First of all, you have the tempo.\u00a0 Peter Erskine and Jaco Pastorius start this tune off in the ballpark of 172-176 bpm.\u00a0 When Michael Brecker comes in for his tenor solo, in typical Michael Brecker fashion it is mostly all 16th notes.\u00a0 Michael Brecker just crushes this solo!\u00a0 \u00a0 I love the energy and interplay between Brecker and Jaco.\u00a0 Michael Brecker is usually high energy to begin with but when you add Jaco&#8217;s incredibly energetic bass lines it just pushes Brecker into maximum overdrive.\u00a0 (I really feel bad for Bob Mintzer who had to take the solo after Brecker.\u00a0 I mean, Bob Mintzer does great, but I have to wonder what he was thinking while listening to Brecker solo&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;)<\/p>\n<p>One interesting observation while working on this transcription is that there is some weirdness to the form of the tune during the solo.\u00a0 Pages 1-3 is a typical chorus of Invitation.\u00a0 On page 4 however, the band goes back to the top of the head but then Jaco sounds like he is going to the ending again during those 16 bars of that A section.\u00a0 Bars 9-16 has just Jaco playing the bass line behind Brecker and it seems a bit odd to me.\u00a0 Almost like Brecker is hesitant and is not sure where Jaco is going.\u00a0 \u00a0I don&#8217;t know if this was planned, a mistake, or maybe just too many drugs taken before the concert.\u00a0 It did throw me for a loop while transcribing though as there is an extra 16 bars added to the form right there in the solo.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-X_gk0rmDJc?start=70\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Insane Michael Brecker Invitation Tenor Sax Solo from the Jaco Birthday Concert<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Sadly, Michael Brecker and Jaco Pastorius are no longer with us.\u00a0 Jaco died in 1987 as a result of injuries sustained in a beating outside a South Florida after-hours nightclub (this still makes me so mad every time I think about it).\u00a0 Michael Brecker died in 2007 from leukemia.\u00a0 Both of these incredibly gifted musicians had a lasting and profound impact on the landscapes of the saxophone world and the electric bass world.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks again to Michael Brecker.\u00a0 It&#8217;s hard to believe he has been gone for almost 15 years already. His contributions to music and as a person are still having a lasting impact on those he interacted with and influenced as well as all those who have yet to hear his great recordings in the future.\u00a0 We miss you!<\/p>\n<p>If you have any thoughts on Michael Brecker, Jaco Pastorius or this transcription of Brecker&#8217;s Invitation solo,\u00a0 I would love to hear from you in the comments below.\u00a0 \u00a0Steve<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding: 12px; background-color: #f0b646; line-height: 1.4;\">\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.neffmusic.com\/2022\/Invitation-Michael_Brecker-Jaco_Birthday_Concert_Bb.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Insane Michael Brecker Invitation Tenor Sax Solo Transcription from Jaco Birthday Concert-Bb PDF<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.neffmusic.com\/2022\/Invitation-Michael_Brecker-Jaco_Birthday_Concert-C.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Insane Michael Brecker Invitation Tenor Sax Solo Transcription from Jaco Birthday Concert-Concert Key PDF<\/a><\/p>\n<p>*If you would like to support me here at neffmusic.com, you can do so\u00a0on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/product-category\/support\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">support page of my store<\/a> or better yet pick up a jazz improvisation book or lesson while you&#8217;re here.\u00a0 \u00a0Any support is appreciated and will go towards keeping this site running, saxophone reeds, mouthpiece patches, coffee, and towards justifying the many hours I spend on providing free transcriptions to the saxophone community!\u00a0 Thanks,\u00a0 \u00a0Steve<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>If you like these type of outside modern sounding lines like I do, be sure to check out my Devastating Lines for Jazz and Funk Soloing for Minor and Dominant Grooves. These two books are filled with great modern 16th note lines like Michael Brecker demonstrates in this solo in all 12 keys that you can learn and use while soloing. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/product\/devastating-minor-lines-for-jazz-and-funk-soloing\/#reviews\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Check out all the 5 star reviews! <\/a> Steve<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/product\/devastating-minor-lines-for-jazz-and-funk-soloing\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-15910\" src=\"https:\/\/d1av9c1o38t6ow.cloudfront.net\/2021\/DevastatingFrontCoverAd.jpg\" alt=\"DevastatingFrontCoverAd\" width=\"258\" height=\"336\" \/><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/product\/devastating-minor-lines-for-jazz-and-funk-soloing\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Devastating Minor Lines for Jazz and Funk Soloing<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/product\/devastating-dominant-lines-for-jazz-and-funk-soloing-digital-pdf-book\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-15910\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.neffmusic.com\/2021\/DevastatingDominantAd.jpg\" alt=\"DevastatingDominantAd\" width=\"258\" height=\"336\" \/><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/product\/devastating-dominant-lines-for-jazz-and-funk-soloing-digital-pdf-book\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Devastating Dominant Lines for Jazz &amp; Funk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s another great Michael Brecker tenor saxophone solo transcription I am excited to share with everyone. This is a transcription of Michael Brecker&#8217;s insane tenor sax solo on the jazz standard, &#8220;Invitation&#8221; from the Jaco Pastorius&#8217; album &#8220;The Birthday Concert&#8221; (this is not the Invitation solo from Jack Wilkins album &#8220;Merge&#8221;).\u00a0 The Jaco Pastorius &#8220;Birthday [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":63,"featured_media":111977,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[2147,1085,2146,716,35,265,71],"class_list":{"0":"post-111976","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-transcriptions","8":"tag-birthday-concert","9":"tag-invitation","10":"tag-jaco-pastorius","11":"tag-jazz-sax","12":"tag-michael-brecker","13":"tag-tenor-saxophone","14":"tag-transcription","15":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/63"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111976\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}