Artist: Randy Brecker

Randy Brecker is an American trumpeter, flugelhornist, and composer. His versatility has made him a popular studio musician who has recorded with acts in jazz, rock, and R&B. 

Brecker attended Indiana University from 1963 to 1966, studying with Bill Adam, David Baker and Jerry Coker, and later moved to New York and performed with Clark Terry's Big Bad Band, the Duke Pearson and the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra. 

In 1967, Brecker ventured into jazz-rock with the band Blood, Sweat & Tears, on their first album Child Is Father to the Man, but left to join the Horace Silver Quintet. Brecker recorded his first solo album, Score, in 1968, featuring his brother Michael Brecker. 

After Horace Silver, Randy Brecker joined Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers before teaming up with brother Michael, Barry Rogers, Billy Cobham, and John Abercrombie to form the fusion group Dreams. The group recorded two albums: Dreams and Imagine My Surprise for Columbia Records before they disbanded in 1971. 

In the early 1970s, Brecker performed live with many artists including The Eleventh House, Stevie Wonder and Billy Cobham. He also recorded several albums with his brother under pianist/composer Hal Galper. 

By 1975, Randy and Michael formed the Brecker Brothers band. They released six albums on Arista  and garnered seven Grammy nominations between 1975 and 1981. Their first record, The Brecker Bros., featured Randy's composition "Some Skunk Funk", and he composed several pieces on this and subsequent albums. 

After the Brecker Brothers disbanded in 1982, Randy recorded and toured as a member of Jaco Pastorius' Word of Mouth big band. It was soon thereafter that he met and later married Brazilian jazz pianist Eliane Elias. Eliane and Randy formed their own band, touring the world several times and recording one album named after their daughter together,  Amanda, on Passport Records. 

In 1977 he founded the jazz club Seventh Avenue South with his brother Michael Brecker 

In 1992 Randy and Michael reunited for a world tour and the triple-Grammy nominated GRP recording The Return of the Brecker Brothers. The follow-up,1994's  Out of the Loop, was a double-Grammy winner. In 1995 he was featured on Turtles, an album by Polish composer Włodek Pawlik. In 1997, Into the Sun  (Concord), a recording featuring Brecker's impressions of Brazil, garnered Brecker his first Grammy as a solo artist.