Brecker Plays Trumpet With Masterful Ease
Randy Brecker and the Whitworth Jazz Ensemble Saturday, Nov. 22, Whitworth College Cowles Auditorium
Saturday night’s appearance at Whitworth College was enough to remind a comfortable crowd at Cowles Auditorium why Randy Brecker is in demand for studio work.
The jazz trumpeter’s command of all the elements of his instrument was consummate.
Brecker joined the Whitworth Jazz Ensemble on campus to front the band for eight numbers. His fast fingers and seemingly endless stream of ideas for improvisation should provide a milestone memory for the young jazz initiates at Whitworth as well as the many veterans in the audience.
Apparent ease was Brecker’s hallmark for the evening.
Total control of the trademark big sound, dynamics and the top and bottom of the trumpet range was handled matter-of-factly, as if there are guys at every bus stop that can play like that.
Several standards were on the program, and Brecker had a skillion new notes for each one.
Tunes like “Oleo” and “Green Dolphin Street” were filled with fast runs and pyrotechnics, but the improv sounded settled in and natural.
For the ballads “My Ideal” and “When Sunny Gets Blue,” he took up the flugelhorn and used his creative melodic invention to play a game of “What’s the most out note I can start on and still get there from here.” Brecker always got there.
His solos generated a feeling similar to being a passenger in a sports car - one of those Italian jobs they make only 12 of - with someone who can really drive and who knows a shortcut to the other side of the mountain range.
Both experiences have the same kind of unexpected turns and the wonder of how you got to where you are intact.
Brecker kept his flugelhorn in hand for the fast-paced “Cherokee.” Geez.
To quench the thirst of the standing masses who clamored for more, “Billy’s Bounce” was offered up as an encore.
Dan Keberle, director of the Whitworth group, pulled out his horn and engaged in a “battle of the trumpets” with Brecker. After a few moments lost to picking up a cold ax for the first time all evening, Keberle joined the conflagration for a trading of fours that generated audible satisfaction from the audience.
As an aside, one of the reasons behind this newspaper’s policy of generally not reviewing school events is that holding kids up to professional standards can be diminishing. Nevertheless, the Whitworth Jazz Ensemble is a strong college group that was hot enough on some of the up-tempo charts on Saturday to give the pros a run for their money.
In addition to good ensemble playing, there was a handful of good soloists out of the band.
I don’t know what time on Sunday tenor saxophone student Marcus Denny woke up to realize that he did a side-by-side feature with Randy Brecker and held up his end of the deal pretty well, too.
Ah, to be young. I hope somebody had a camera.