About
Michael Brecker delivers two commanding choruses of tenor saxophone on Mike Stern's "Choices" from his 1987 self-titled Impulse! debut. At approximately 180 BPM over the expansive 80-bar AAB form in C with a straight-eighth feel, his playing demonstrates the qualities that made him arguably the most influential tenor saxophonist since Coltrane: an enormous, burnished sound, seamless technique across the entire range of the instrument, and a vocabulary that synthesized elements of Coltrane, Rollins, and Henderson into something entirely personal. As the first of two soloists, his two-chorus statement establishes the performance's high technical and artistic standard, the extended form providing room for a fully developed improvisational narrative.
Michael Brecker was 37 to 38 years old at the time.
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