Pilgrimage

Given the heartbreaking context in which this album was released — this was the final recording by saxophonist Michael Brecker, who died of myelodysplastic syndrome and leukemia only a few months before its release — there might be a certain temptation to cut it some slack for sentimental reasons. However, leniency is hardly needed. Leading a group comprised of jaw-dropping talents (pianists Herbie Hancock and Brad Mehldau, guitarist Pat Metheny, bassist John Patitucci, drummer Jack DeJohnette) and playing for the first time a program consisting entirely of original compositions, Brecker delivers an emotionally rich and startlingly powerful album of straight-ahead modern jazz that will stand as his musical epitaph and will effectively confound anyone who has ever been tempted to dismiss him as a mere jazz-pop fusioneer. It will also frustrate anyone looking for maudlin emotion or even any obvious product of existential angst; the only concession to sentiment here is on the title of a ballad, "When Can I Kiss You Again?," a quote from Brecker's teenage son during a period in his treatment when his family was not allowed to touch him. But even that track, with its unusual chord progression and sometimes rather arid solos, retains a core of tough-mindedness within the tenderness. Most of the rest of the program consists of uptempo and medium-tempo burners that swing with a powerful sense of urgency and life, and precious little foreshadowing of the tragedy that all involved knew was soon to come. This is a brilliant and inspiring album — and would be whether or not it had anything to do with the death of one of the great figures in American jazz.

— Rick Anderson

Tenor saxophonist Michael Brecker lost his ongoing bout with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), a rare bone marrow cancer, in January 2007. Pilgrimage provides one last chance to hear him in the company of like-minded souls. Joined by a who's who of mainstream jazz royalty, guitarist Pat Metheny, pianists Herbie Hancock and Brad Mehldau, bassist John Patitucci and drummer Jack DeJohnette accompany the saxophonist on this superlative session.

Brecker began his career as a session player in the early 1970s, something he continued to do throughout his career, to the chagrin of jazz purists. Having accompanied everyone from James Taylor and Joni Mitchell to McCoy Tyner and Charlie Haden, his ability to keep a foot in each camp made him an in-demand sideman. Combining John Coltrane's sheets of sound approach with funky soul, he established himself as one of the most distinctive voices of his generation.

His first album of all original tunes, Pilgrimage is also his most personal. Haunting ballads like “When Can I Kiss You Again?” and the churning “Five Months from Midnight” resonate with simmering emotion, but never subsume the session in mordant retroflection.

His illness does not appear to have hindered his playing abilities on this date at all. Sounding inspired and confident, his tone is strong and buoyant, his phrasing uplifting and intense, his fighting spirit apparent.

That spirit generates considerable heat, with the majority of the album propulsive and invigorating. Brisk post-bop (”The Mean Time”) and angular modernism (”Anagram”) alternate with simmering funk (”Tumbleweed”) and proto-fusion (”Pilgrimage”), often meeting halfway (”Cardinal Rule”). Delivering these tunes with elastic group interplay, the intuitive camaraderie shared between these artists is electrifying; rarely do musicians, even of this caliber, play to such heights.

DeJohnette is a marvel, his ceaselessly inventive patterns and thunderous palpitations are astonishing in their enthusiasm. His unbridled passion lifts the bandstand; this is one of his finest moments on record. Patiticci's bass resounds forcefully as Metheny unfurls billowy post-bop phrases with serpentine proficiency, even unleashing some processed distortion with his guitar synth. Splitting duties at the piano, Hancock and Mehldau provide a fascinating study in contrasts.

Michael Brecker's passing at age 57 is unfortunate. While some of his work over the years flirted with middling cross-over appeal, this uncompromising final statement is unquestionably from the heart. Pilgrimage is a stirring and celebratory jazz record, perhaps the finest of his career.

Track listing: The Mean Time; Five Months from Midnight; Anagram; Tumbleweed; When Can I Kiss You Again?; Cardinal Rule; Half Moon Lane; Loose Threads; Pilgrimage.

Personnel: Michael Brecker: tenor saxophone, EWI; Pat Metheny: guitars; Herbie Hancock: piano (1, 5, 6, 9); Brad Mehldau: piano (2, 3, 4, 6, 7); John Patitucci: bass; Jack DeJohnette: drums.

— Troy Collins

The importance of saxophonist Michael Brecker's final recording, Pilgrimage, is densely multidimensional. The romantically inclined will attach significance to the fact that the nine compositions were conceived and recorded while Brecker was aware of the gravity of his final illness. Pilgrimage falls into an artistic/musical category that includes such disparate music as Mozart's Requiem, Puccini's Turandot, Billie Holiday's Lady In Satin and Johnny Cash's American Recordings, Volumes 5 & 6. All of these examples were conceived during the artists' autumnal periods and, in these cases, represent something of pinnacles in their outputs.

High art in the face of destiny is not always the case, however. June Carter Cash's final Wildwood Flower, while heartfelt, did the singer disfavor because she was obviously ill during the recording. Anita O'Day's final recording, Indestructible, similarly sincere, was recorded much too far past the singer's prime, and the aesthetic value of trumpeter Chet Baker's final recordings remains up for debate. So, what of Michael Brecker's final output?

In 2005, Brecker was diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndrome, a diverse collection of hematologic disease all sharing in common the inappropriate production of blood cells and their propensities for transforming into acute myelogenous leukemia. Unable to find a suitable stem-cell donor, Brecker passed away on Saturday, January 13, 2007. While Brecker did remain active during the period of his illness, appearing on Beatle Jazz's With A Little Help From Our Friends and Leni Stern's Alu Maye (Have You Heard), he had been inactive a year before these recordings.

Thus, the artist's largest late effort was reserved for Pilgrimage. He is joined by pianists Herbie Hancock and Brad Mehldau, guitarist Pat Metheny, bassist John Patitucci and drummer Jack DeJohnette, all sacred to Brecker's generation of jazz musicians. The notable absence of Randy Brecker is acknowledged for the life-long collaboration he had with his brother in their various music endeavors. Save that, Brecker chose his group wisely as the results of the recording reveal.

Brecker's tenor tone is strong and muscular. His composing is the best of his career. His melodic head-lines are organic, approximating a flock of small birds flying scattered one second and then in unison the next. Brecker and Metheny share a Bill Evans-Scott LaFaro empathy throughout the recording, both buoyed by the impressionistic piano of Hancock and Mehldau. The heart of the disc exists in its center with the pieces “Tumbleweed” and “When Can I Kiss You Again.” On the former, Brecker sets up a fast rolling theme and harmonics over which the soloists take quick flight including an aggressively distorted Metheny solo that gives way to one by Brecker. The rhythm section of Patitucci and DeJohnette creates a funky tonk with powerful momentum. No matter what, Brecker is in complete command.

“When Can I Kiss You Again” is Brecker's introspective lullaby to his children, whom he could not see while in medical isolation. Again, his superior composing provides a carefully complex melodic introduction with a modal concept over which to solo. Composition and improvisation weave in and out of one another; constructing a silken fabric over which Metheny gives one his most inspired and introverted solos. Hancock provides his trademark abstraction as solo, depicting anxiousness as music. Brecker's solo is middle to low register and impeccably structured (as are all of his solos). The disc's title cut is a moody, Coltrane-esque meditation over electric piano with bass and drums occupying all sonic spaces. The piece grows in density and freedom as an open improvisation develops over the barest harmonic structure. And that was just the extended introduction. Brecker pulls all involved into an extended obbligato that is serpentine and seamless.

How does history view Michael Brecker? Many consider him to be the most important tenor saxophone player since John Coltrane. This is at the expense of Wayne Shorter, though Shorter generationally overlaps Coltrane. I would come closer to declaring John Coltrane, Wayne Shorter and Michael Brecker the apex of the tenor saxophone since Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster. That excludes a lot and that exclusion is necessary. Brecker's importance lies in his universality. When I listen to Oliver Nelson's The Blues And The Abstract Truth (Impulse, 1961), I think of that music as a jazz soundtrack of the 1960s. It had that sound that listeners would immediately identify as jazz: so with Pilgrimage and the opening of the 21st Century. Michael Brecker's final recording is a finely crafted jazz soundtrack for a new millennium, serving in honor of the late saxophonist and all of jazz.

— C. Michael Bailey.

Michael Brecker's tragic death in January 2007, at the age of fifty-seven, robbed the world of perhaps the most influential saxophonist to emerge since the equally untimely passing of John Coltrane. It's easy to forget that he was one of the pop/rock world's most called-upon studio players, recording on hundreds of albums with artists including James Taylor, Paul Simon and Eric Clapton. But it's his prodigious body of work in the jazz realm that will be his most enduring legacy.

It's easy to want Pilgrimage to be one of Brecker's best recordings out of a purely emotional response to his passing. While the knowledge that this is his final recording creates an unassailable sense of loss, the fact remains that the writing on Pilgrimage stands as some of his best, and if he was in a weakened state you'd never know it. Brecker sounds as strong as he ever did—stronger, in fact.

For this last session Brecker called upon old friends—guitarist Pat Metheny, bassist John Patitucci, drummer Jack DeJohnette and pianist Herbie Hancock (who plays on four tracks). He also collaborates, for the first time, with pianist Brad Mehldau on five tracks. That Hancock and Mehldau are vastly different players is an understatement; yet Pilgrimage remains cohesive and focused, with both players bringing their own inimitable strengths to the material.

Brecker's unmistakable writing style stems, at times, from a post-Coltrane modality, but there's a greater complexity and distinctive language. Solo space abounds, but Brecker's ambitious writing is longer-form, with all manner of twists and turns that bring out some of the best performances on record from everyone involved. When DeJohnette takes one of his most energetic solos on the rhythmically and harmonically shifting “Anagram,” it's over a metrically challenging piano/bass ostinato that ultimately turns contrapuntal when Metheny and Brecker reenter.

“Tumbleweed,” with Metheny's signature synth tone, bears comparison to the guitarist's own “Song for Bilbao” in that it's an altered blues (also featuring a surprisingly funky solo from Mehldau), while the slinky groove of “Loose Threads” finds Hancock straddling the line between greater abstraction and more grounded soulfulness. Metheny seems to be inspired towards greater risks, with some of his most evocative playing in recent years.

Brecker takes the first solo on the opening salvo of “The Mean Time,” quickly dispensing with any notion that illness had compromised the visceral power that was a defining characteristic of his playing. “When Can I Kiss You Again?” may be a slow tempo tune with softer edges, but Brecker manages to mine surprising depths of emotion here as well.

They say that music has healing power. It may not have been able to prevent the inevitable with Brecker's illness; but for brief time, a scant five months before his death, it's clear that music gave him the strength to record a watershed album that represents a remarkable end to an equally extraordinary musical life.

— John Kelman