But his colleagues also joked that Mr. Brecker could be unintentionally cruel. “The most treacherous position in jazz,” Mr. Metheny said, “was being the guy on the bandstand who has to take a solo right after Mike Brecker.”
[Uit de NY Times recensie van de Michael Brecker Memorial van afgelopen donderdag in NewYork]
Sanborn can attest to that. “I made the mistake one time of letting Mike take the first solo on the tune,” he recalled. “I never made that mistake again. Because he’d finish playing, and I would step up to the mic, and it was like the stage was napalmed. You know, there’s one sad little B flat lying in the corner that I picked up. That’s all that was left.”
[Ode to a Tenor Titan, Bill Milkowski, 2021]