After many months of hard work, today we finally released "The Practice Notebooks of Michael Brecker." As you might know, during his whole career Michael kept extensive notes on noteworthy things that came up during his practice regime. These notes were just for himself and were not publication-worthy in their original form. But after we graciously got permission to publish them from Michael's widow, Susan Brecker, we went ahead and re-engraved everything that we could from his original notebooks. So now they are supremely legible and easy to use to guide your own practicing. The url for the book's webpage is https://www.shermusic.com/9780991077359.php.
Michael was, of course, one of the greatest saxophonists in the history of jazz and his innate talent was linked with a serious work ethic, fueled by his conviction that he never sounded as good as he wanted to. There's a story in Bill Milkowski's wonderful bio of Michael, "Ode to a Tenor Titan," about the time Michael called Will Lee to come be the bassist in one of his early fusion bands. Will was from Tennessee and had never been in a big city in his life, so when he got to Manhattan he couldn't tell one street from another and all the buildings looked the same. But when he went out to the store, all he had to do was put his ear to the wind and he could get back home by following the sound of Michael's practicing!
In any case, everyone here at Sher Music did an incredible job on this project and big thanks to every one of them:
Larry Dunlap for his world-class music engraving and the musical intelligence to figure out ambiguous passages in the original notebooks. David Demsey and Tim Armacost for figuring out the saxophone fingerings from Michael's cryptic notes - now a "Saxophone-Specific Appendix" in our book. Art Khu for his expert proofreading. Our graphic artist, Attila Nagy, for making it all look as beautiful as it sounds. Matt Heister for great help getting the digital version to work correctly and Bob Afifi for everything under the sun. We sincerely hope you enjoy this real labor of love! - Chuck Sher
