There is a room in our house that we used to call the music room but now refer to it as the mausoleum. As well as our  musical instruments it also houses various fans, heaters, rolled up rugs, unhung paintings and the general detritus of modern day living.

Defiantly sitting in the corner are my four saxophones. The tenor I bought when I worked in Cuthbertsons as a seventeen year old. The alto I bought from a guy called Pete Tchaikovsky (aye right !) for fifty quid. The soprano my brother found among the beer barrels while working at Sloans pub and the baritone I bought on e-bay from a New York music store and sweated for weeks until it finally arrived. All untouched for ten years plus and gathering dust.

Was I ever any good as a sax player ? Not really.

As a young flautist I never missed a lesson and I practised diligently. I somehow assumed that I could carry that knowledge and experience to the saxophone. As my school report cards said “Could do better” or “Needs to apply himself”. I picked up tips along the way but I didn’t put in the hard yards.

I would make any excuse to pop up to the repairer’s workshop at McCormacks. Bobby, a septuagenarian giant in Glasgow’s tenor sax community now woodwind repairer asked me to play something for him. I foolishly chose  Pick Up The Pieces by The Average White Band. With a full funky band behind me it might have sounded alright but on it’s own it was just a breathless stuttering mess. A musical tourette’s. Bobby just sighed and proceeded to play the most soulful and mellifluous ballad. I was crushed but hung on to his every word thereafter like a disciple with a benevolent  Buddha.

I just wasn’t one of the world’s woodshedders.

A woodshedder in slang jazz terms is someone who is prepared for intense, secluded and focused practice designed to master difficult material, improve technical skills or memorise music. Presumably from locking yourself in the woodshed far from the main house.

Michael Brecker was born in the suburbs of Philadelphia into a musical family. His father a part time pianist and songwriter, his mother an artist. Being six foot four and a half inches he was almost lured away to basketball. Thankfully for us he took the saxophone player route. He became the John Coltrane of my generation.

He first came to my attention in the early seventies with solos on Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight by James Taylor and Still Crazy After All These Years by Paul Simon.

Being a funk/soul devotee it wasn’t long before The Brecker Brothers showed up on my radar. With his trumpet playing older brother Randy and alto sax maestro Dave Sanborn they were quite a horn section.

I shamelessly ripped off one of their tunes Sneaking Up Behind You and played it in my band Souled Out. (You Gotta) Squeeze It To Please It was the vocal refrain in my instrumental pastiche. What was I thinking ?

Michael Brecker can be heard in over 900 pop, rock and jazz albums. I guess practice pays off. Bassist Will Lee relates a story about first moving to New York and staying with Brecker. Being a country boy Lee thought all the apartments looked the same and would often get lost if it wasn’t for the sound of Becker’s practising leading him back to his digs like a siren call.

Sadly he passed away in 2007 at the age of just 57 following complications with leukaemia.

 Now where is the silver polish ? I might just go and have a look in the music room.

And Bobby this was how I was trying to sound!

(Post by John Allan from Bridgetown, Western Australia – March 2026)