{"id":54069,"date":"2018-10-11T13:15:32","date_gmt":"2018-10-11T17:15:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/?p=54069"},"modified":"2019-08-12T08:35:29","modified_gmt":"2019-08-12T12:35:29","slug":"the-art-of-imitation-michael-brecker-on-peep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/2018\/10\/the-art-of-imitation-michael-brecker-on-peep\/","title":{"rendered":"The Art of Imitation-Michael Brecker on Peep"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Someone on SOTW (Sax on the Web) posted a video this morning of Michael Brecker soloing over his tune Peep from the early 90&#8217;s. Peep was a Brecker tune from the album &#8220;Now You See It&#8230; (Now You Don&#8217;t) that blew my mind when it was released in 1990.\u00a0 \u00a0I was a young Brecker head and bought everything with Michael Brecker on it the minute it was released.\u00a0 Sometimes, I&#8217;d be at Tower Records on Mass Ave in Boston before they even opened just to be the first to get the new release!\u00a0 Here is the video of the live version of Peep that was posted:<\/p>\n<p><iframe width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4-3Mk0kgfX4\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>As I was watching it this morning,\u00a0 I remembered that I recorded this tune in the early 90&#8217;s also. I was in my 20&#8217;s and fresh out of Berklee. I remember that summer playing over Peep relentlessly for hours just trying to catch glimpses and pieces of what Brecker was doing on his solo. (My neighbors probably hated my guts by the end of the summer!)<\/p>\n<p>I never really liked my playing on this recording but I think it is a good example of a young player trying to copy a musical idol.\u00a0 I posted a sample of one of my lessons about &#8220;The Style of Michael Brecker&#8221; on Youtube years ago and someone commented &#8220;You Sir, are no Michael Brecker!&#8221; I wasn&#8217;t bothered or threatened by this at all and immediately responded &#8220;You&#8217;re very right. There will never be another Michael Brecker!!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Although there is a lot in this recording that I am not happy with,\u00a0 I think it is a good demonstration of what a young player can try to work on when imitating his idols.\u00a0 I repeat many of the same licks over and over again and my 16th notes are rushing all over the place but it is what it is.\u00a0 I was young and doing the best I could.\u00a0 Here&#8217;s the recording:<\/p>\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-54069-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/d1av9c1o38t6ow.cloudfront.net\/2018\/Pools.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/d1av9c1o38t6ow.cloudfront.net\/2018\/Pools.mp3\">https:\/\/d1av9c1o38t6ow.cloudfront.net\/2018\/Pools.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><strong>My Early 90&#8217;s version of Peep<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>When I first heard Michael Brecker I was blown away! I was an alto sax major at college and the first thing I did after hearing Brecker on the tenor sax is go out and buy a tenor saxophone.<\/p>\n<p>I started buying every album with Michael Brecker on it that I could. I had no idea what he was playing but I would put on the album and just play along trying to catch something, anything that I could. Many times it wasn&#8217;t even the notes (the notes were going by too fast) but just the energy and vibe I was trying to imitate or grasp.<\/p>\n<p>Modern Times, Straphangin&#8217;, Cityscape, Don&#8217;t Try This at Home, any and every Steps Ahead album I could get, Getting There with Abercrombie, That killin&#8217; Mike Nock album &#8220;In Out and Around&#8221;, Three Quartets, Cameo, etc&#8230;&#8230;..<\/p>\n<p>I played to them all.\u00a0 I had very little idea of what was going on or the lines being played, but that didn&#8217;t stop me from playing along and trying to figure it out by ear. Sometimes I would figure one little pieces of the puzzle and jump up and down with joy. Other times, I would stop the recording and feel like smashing my saxophone against the wall. That is the process, joy, pain, improvement, frustration, etc&#8230;&#8230; You keep going, you keep working at it. You keep striving towards it! No pain, no gain!<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m now in my 50&#8217;s and Michael Brecker has been gone for many years now. I am still no Michael Brecker that is for sure! But as I watch this video above, I get the same feeling I had as a college kid at 18-19 years of age.\u00a0 The same excitement and wonder. That same feeling of wanting to get my sax out and play along trying to catch a glimpse of Michael&#8217;s mastery&#8230;&#8230;..\u00a0 I suspect that these feelings will never go away.\u00a0 We miss you Michael!<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-1551\" src=\"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/MichaelBrecker03-1-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/MichaelBrecker03-1-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/MichaelBrecker03-1-150x113.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/MichaelBrecker03-1.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Someone on SOTW (Sax on the Web) posted a video this morning of Michael Brecker soloing over his tune Peep from the early 90&#8217;s. Peep was a Brecker tune from the album &#8220;Now You See It&#8230; (Now You Don&#8217;t) that blew my mind when it was released in 1990.\u00a0 \u00a0I was a young Brecker head [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":63,"featured_media":54188,"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":[50],"tags":[1781,442,716,35,1780,265],"class_list":{"0":"post-54069","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-saxophone-stuff","8":"tag-imitation","9":"tag-improvisation","10":"tag-jazz-sax","11":"tag-michael-brecker","12":"tag-peep","13":"tag-tenor-saxophone","14":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54069","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=54069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54069\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}