GIG ALERT: Charged Particles with Tod Dickow and Guest Randy Brecker Play the Music of Michael Brecker @ Birdland on September 8

Last year, Bay Area jazz trio Charged Particles and tenor saxophonist Tod Dickow joined forces on the Summit Records album, Live at the Baked Potato!, a heartfelt tribute to the late saxophonist Michael Brecker. They’ll pay homage to Brecker again on Thursday, September 8 at Birdland in New York City with his brother, trumpeter Randy Brecker joining them as a special guest. The performance starts 8:30PM. Also performing are pianist Greg Sankovich, bassist Aaron Germain and drummer Jon Krosnick. Some proceeds from the performance will be donated to the Michael Brecker Family Foundation, which focuses on blood cancer research and jazz scholarship.

The band will be playing new arrangements of compositions by Michael Brecker that were recorded by the quartet (saxophone, piano, bass, drums) on Live at the Baked Potato! Dickow is a first-call player on the San Francisco scene, is a winner of the Outstanding Soloist Award from Downbeat, and was called “one of the best saxophonists in the world” by Jazz Life Magazine. He has captured the essence of Michael’s spirit on the instrument – Brecker’s biographer, Bill Milkowski, said, “the sheer force of Dickow’s lines lift the entire band, while his passionate intensity and Breckerian authority immediately command attention.”  The Birdland evening with Randy Brecker will premier new arrangements by Dickow, adding trumpet for the first time.

Charged Particles is the San Francisco Bay Area’s favorite funky Latin jazz trio – they have toured Indonesia, the U.K., Canada, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, and have performed in the U.S. at famed jazz clubs including Yoshi’s, Birdland, Blues Alley, the Dakota, the Deer Head Inn, the Falcon, Nighttown, and at the Musical Instrument Museum, the Columbus Jazz Festival, the Stanford Jazz Festival, the San Luis Obispo Jazz Festival, the Eureka Springs Jazz Festival, and in hundreds of other venues over their 30 years of music-making.

Downbeat called the band “something special” and “inventive, invigorating, mesmerizing, beautiful, virtuosic, and lyrical.” Their CD of Brecker compositions was named one of the best CDs of 2021 by Jazzwise, JazzTimes, the Jazz Journalists Association, the 16th Annual Jazz Critics Poll, and more. Milkowski said the recording is “staggering in its authenticity.” Randy Brecker said the recording is “smoking and intense from beginning to end.” Downbeat said it offers “exciting, satisfying stuff.”

The show will be preceded by remarks from Dr. David Demsey, Coordinator of Jazz Studies, Professor of Music and Curator of Living Jazz Archives at William Paterson University, and from Milkowski, who will present a gift of thanks to Demsey.

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