This is also the first “new” music heard from him since the final album as a leader with Pilgrimage (Heads Up, 2007). As the sadly missed saxophone icon said in Metheny's podcast on the making of the album, “there was everything before 80/81 and everything AFTER 80/81”. The album is also the first chapter in a new phase of Michael Brecker's playing with this gig occurring just a month after taping Pat Metheny's 80/81 (ECM, 1980) and album that signaled a marked shift in the tenor man's facility and conception. The set list consists uncompromising versions of well known tracks that are mostly drawn from the then recent George Duke produced Detente (Arista, 1980) and their other Arista recordings, including The Brecker Bros (1975), Don’t Stop The Music (1977) and extended, far superior versions of nearly all of the compositions that appeared on Heavy Metal Bebop (1978). The recently unearthed two CD Brecker Brothers: Live and Unreleased recorded at the famous club Onkel Po's in Germany on Jfeatures the band in their absolute prime.

As the seventies wore on, the brothers would log valuable time as members of Billy Cobham's group and individually as session musicians running the gamut from Parliament Funkadelic, Frank Zappa, James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, and Michael Franks among others.

The Brecker Brothers would then move on to join the Horace Silver Quintet- Michael would only appear on In Pursuit Of the 27th Man (Blue Note, 1972) while the trumpeter would appear on three albums: You Gotta Take A Little Love (1968), The United States of Mind Phase I, That Healin' Feelin (1970) and the aforementioned In Pursuit Of the 27th Man. Dreams, featured luminaries like Billy Cobham, guitarist John Abercrombie, bassist Doug Lubahn (who appeared on three of the Doors' albums) and trombonist Barry Rogers, and with the vocal driven+ horns combination the group entered territory close to early Terry Kath era Chicago and Blood, Sweat and Tears. 1970) and the Tony Williams Lifetime's pivotal Emergency (Polydor, 1969) it ushered in an amalgamation of jazz and rock that was completely fresh and something that would continue into the decade most notably with Mahavishnu Orchestra, Return to Forever, and the Latin driven sound of Caldera.

Dreams, the brainchild of vocalist/producer/composer Jeff Kent is significant because like Bitches Brew (Columbia, 1969, rel. They initially made a splash in 1970 as part of the horn section on Dreams (Columbia) the self titled debut album from the studio driven band of the same name. At the dawn of the 80's Randy and Michael Brecker had been one of the hottest commodities on the music scene.

Unearthed by C.J. Barry