Brackeen Interest

Joanne Brackeen Quartet - African Aztec

OK, kids! It's piannaversary time! This show is all of two whole years old, but its creator is headed for 90. I, for one, hope she gets to 100!!

This lady is another of those people I should have put on here years ago, but that's the fun, isn't it? After almost 12 years of this page, there are still megaluminaries that need and deserve tribute, right?

I know I've been very Piano Jazz lately. I must be living in Marian McPartland, which is geographically close to The Ivory Towers lololol.

Of course I thought about saving this one for her next birthday in 11 months, but we may all be who knows where by then, so I am doing it now.

I mean, once they fake an "alien invasion" and turn off the internet so douchebag can be president for the rest of his obese and worthlessly misery-generating life, they may imprison me for caring about Jazz and you'll never see me again.

Luckily this speculation, entertaining as it may be, has nada to do with Joanne Brackeen, as underrated a keyboardist as has walked the world during our rapidly-diminishing lifetimes.

At it since the 1950s, she's played with everybody from Dexter Gordon to her saxophonist hubby Charles Brackeen, another of those brilliant cats associated with the Strata East label out of Detroit.

She has led her own groups since the 1970s, and recorded 20+ albums as a leader over the last 50 years.

I love the music of Joanne Brackeen especially for the variety of compositions she has created and the loose-yet-tight, complementary way she comps behind a soloist.

She also has a pretty distinctive tone -- never easy for keyboard people, who you always hear on a different piano every time -- and way of voicing chords, somewhere between McCoy Tyner and Horace Silver.

Also a tremendously rhapsodic solo player, there are a couple of examples during this performance where she plays alone and just transports the audience to another, far more romantic and lush world.

Like I was saying, this concert is from only two years ago in NYC. As far as I know JB still leads her own quartet, even at 87!

Joanne Brackeen Quartet

Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola 

New York City, New York USA

8.23.2023

01 intro/JB announcement

02 Days of Wine and Roses

03 African Aztec

04 Someday My Prince Will Come

05 Cuban Exchange

06 Body and Soul

07 Giant Steps

08 JB announcement

09 Invitation

10 Resignation

11 Zapatos Espanoles

12 Wave

13 Mythical Magic

14 Tricks of the Trade/outro

Total time: 2:26:13

disc break goes after Track 07

Joanne Brackeen - piano

Steve Wilson - saxophone

Ugonna Okegwo - bass

Adam Cruz - drums

soundboard master of indeterminate origin from the collection of Jazzrita

edited, retracked, denoised & remastered by EN, July/August 2025
799 MB FLAC/direct link

I worked on the 2 1/2 hours of this thing for 5 hours, just denoising it of the hundreds of ticks and pops that were on the capture -- which is otherwise of official-live-LP quality -- for whatever reason.

Is this it for August? Maybe. I might do one more birthday, if I can get out of this slow traffic to the right I am always stuck in, honking my horn like a spoiled child.

That's a decision for next week, though! Right now it's time to make the scene with some pianoversary Joanne Brackeen, and long may she ivorize those ebonies, or is it ebony on those ivories?--J.