Gordon Brisker
b. 6 November 1937, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. Educated at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, Brisker began playing professionally while still at high school. He played tenor saxophone in jazz and dance bands and once played piano in a Las Vegas rock ‘n’ roll show. He later studied at Berklee College Of Music, where he also wrote arrangements for the Herb Pomeroy band. In 1960 he joined Woody Herman's big band and by the time he left, in 1963, had attracted attention in the jazz world. Since then Brisker has written for, and played with several leaders, including Louie Bellson, Freddie Hubbard, Stanley Clarke, Jack DeJohnette, Airto, Pat Longo and Bobby Shew. Brisker's musical tastes are wide: in addition to recording with numerous jazz musicians he has worked with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Cincinnati and Boston Symphony Orchestras, and has written for both James Brown and Rosemary Clooney. In the mid-80s he was back at Berklee, this time teaching and once again writing charts for the Pomeroy band. He has also taught at universities in Oregon, Hawaii and California. In 1987 he recorded an album of his arrangements for his own big band. Two years later he was touring as musical director and accompanist to singer Anita O'Day. A robust, bop-orientated player, it is as a writer that Brisker seems destined to make his biggest mark on jazz in general and on big band music in particular.