‘Chemistry’ Lessons From the Breckers

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In 1981, Randy and Michael Brecker disbanded their highly successful Brecker Brothers group, a jazz/funk unit they formed in 1975 with which they scored a string of several top-selling albums for Arista Records. Both musicians wanted to take a brief break to try different projects.

A few years off became 10. Beside fronting their own individual groups, trumpeter Randy played with the late bassist Jaco Pastorius and tenor saxophonist Michael eventually toured as part of Paul Simon’s “Graceland” band.

Now, they’re back together as the Brecker Brothers, and are appearing Saturday at the Strand in Redondo Beach. Both brothers say the other brings out something special, musically.

“It’s not that the stuff we do separately isn’t good,” said Randy Brecker, 46. “It’s just that we both know we sound best when we’re playing together as brothers, as an entity.”

“There’s always been a special chemistry that takes over when we get on stage together,” said Michael Brecker, 43.

The siblings have a new album, “Return of the Brecker Brothers” (GRP Records). While the project reveals traces of older Breckers’ works, it’s decidedly a different band with a today sound. “The album is our view of contemporary music,” said Randy. “It’s a mixture of be-bop, funk and all the stuff we’ve been listening to through the years.”

The material is diverse. A couple of tracks, such as “Good Gracious,” recall the straight-forward jazz blowing-over-funk riffs that typified earlier Brecker Bros. selections. But tunes such as “King of the Lobby” and “Wakaria (What’s Up?),” based on a Cameroon musical style known as a bikoutsi, demonstrate significant growth.

“King” is a medium-slow funk groove that includes a variety of sampled sounds. “This is our attempt of mixing what we do with the current movement known as ‘house music’ or ‘acid jazz,’ ” said Randy. “I think it works well because it swings. We’ve always been interested in swinging on top of funk beats.”

The Breckers are touring with a six-piece ensemble that features guitarist Mike Stern, keyboardist George Whitty, bassist James Genus and drummer Dennis Chambers, all of whom appear on the album. For the present, the brothers say they’re right where they want to be: playing in their band.

“It’s felt fresh and been fun rediscovering each other again. We really play together ,” said Michael.

Helping Out: When violinist L. Subramaniam shares the stage Saturday at Ambassador Auditorium with flute ace Hubert Laws--who plays in public so infrequently these days--and ex-Police guitarist Andy Summers, a portion of the proceeds will be donated by the producers to Swanirvar, an organization in India established to help the impoverished and the illiterate. . . . Bassist Gary Willis is donating all future publishing royalties from his tune “Paha-Sapa” to the Native American Rights Fund in Boulder, Colo. The title of the tune--which has been recorded by Tribal Tech, a band co-led by Willis and guitarist Scott Henderson, on the album “Illicit”--is the Lakota Sioux word for “The Black Hills,” which translates into “the center of the world; the place where all things began.”

In the Bins: Left-handed bassist John Leitham, who appears Thursday and next Friday at the Grand Avenue Bar of the Biltmore Hotel, is heard on his debut CD, “Leitham Up” (USA Music Group). The date finds the bassist, drummer Jake Hanna and pianist-reedman Tom Ranier spiritedly offering such evergreens of the jazz repertoire as Charlie Parker’s “Moose the Mooche” and Thelonious Monk’s “I Mean You.”