The New York Daily News called Chad Lefkowitz-Brown (or Chad LB these days) a “sax phenom.” At 30, he has already toured globally as a soloist and with jazz stars and pop icons like Arturo O’Farrill, Chris Botti, and Taylor Swift. The Chad LB Quartet will perform at this year’s LJF with Randy Brecker.
Randy Brecker, five time-Grammy winning trumpeter, flugelhornist and composer, has helped shape the sound of jazz, R&B and rock for more than four decades. His performances have graced hundreds of albums by artists like James Taylor, Bruce Springsteen and Parliament/Funkadelic, Frank Sinatra, Steely Dan, Jaco Pastorius and Frank Zappa. A product of a musical family, Brecker’s earliest “big time” professional gigs were with the bands of Clark Terry, Duke Pearson and Thad Jones /Mel Lewis.
In the late 60s he ventured into jazz-rock with the now iconic Blood, Sweat and Tears, then moved on to the Horace Silver Quintet. His first solo album, in 1968, featured an unknown 19-year-old tenor player, his brother Michael Brecker. Randy next joined Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and then teamed up with Michael, Barry Rogers, Billy Cobham, and John Abercrombie as the seminal fusion group Dreams.
From 1975 to 1982 he and Michael fronted the world renowned Brecker Brothers Band. This influential group won seven Grammy nominations. Parting ways to pursue solo careers, the two reunited in 1992 for a world tour and the triple-Grammy nominated GRP recording, The Return of the Brecker Brothers. In 2004 Randy toured as co-leader with Bill Evans of the band Soulbop. With that group he played for the last time with Michael who succumbed to leukemia in 2007, despite exhaustive attempts by the jazz community to find a bone marrow donor.
The first of Brecker’s Grammys came in 1997 with his impressions of Brazil on Into the Sun’(Concord), a third in 2007 for Randy Brecker Live with the WDR Big Band (Telarc/BHM) and the last with Michael, at the Leverkusen Jazz Fest, and the most recent, Randy in Brazil. In 2011The Jazz Ballad Song Book: Randy Brecker with the Danish Radio Big Band and The Danish National Chamber Orchestra, garnered four Grammy nominations. In 2012, Sony Legacy recaptured history with release of The Brecker Brothers – The Complete Arista Albums Collection. A Brecker Brothers Band Reunion tour of European festivals in 2013 re-introduced familiar faces from the past to sell-out crowds—Dave Sanborn, Mike Stern (who will performing at LJF Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon), Will Lee, Dave Weckl, and George Whitty. Ada Rovatti, Randy’s talented wife, sat in the ‘hot saxophone’ seat, keeping it all in the family.
Randy Brecker continues to compose and perform and is in demand as a Yamaha clinician. This is his first appearance on the Litchfield stage since 2001 when he joined us and the Don Braden Octet.
A native of Elmira, New York, Chad Lefkowitz-Brown began performing at 11 under George Reed, known for backing legends Teddy Wilson, Buddy Tate, and Marian McPartland. He received his formal education at the Brubeck Institute, a selective fellowship program at the University of the Pacific. There he performed with Mr. Brubeck and as a member of the Brubeck Institute Jazz Quintet. His early accolades include 15 DownBeat Magazine Student Music Awards. He is a member of the multi-Grammy award winning Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra and is on faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory. Downbeat Magazine selected his latest release, Onward, as 2017 Editor’s Pick and said his “technical abilities mask the difficulty of his wondrously intricate lines.”
Chad has performed on four continents and appeared at Carnegie Hall, the Super Bowl, and Madison Square Garden. His debut album, Imagery Manifesto, was named “Debut Album of the Year” by jazz critic, Doug Ramsey. Onward, his newest effort, features Randy Brecker.
This is Chad’s first appearance at Litchfield Jazz Festival– if you do not include the year he played with his Litchfield Jazz Camp Combo as a kid! Like so many young headliners who appear later on the Litchfield fest stage, bandmates are often friends from camp days. Jimmy Macbride, the Chad JB drummer, was a Litchfield Jazz Camper for many years and one of our youngest ever. Vita Muir who considered him for scholarship first heard him as leader of Jimmy & the Has Beens – his bandmates consisting of his father, a Haart School professor/pianist and other “oldtimers.” Jimmy was eight at the time and proudly announced at the Camp’s first meeting, “I”m nine now.”
Steven Feifke, on piano, Raviv Markovitz, on bass, complete the CHAD LB QUARTET.
Artist Website