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photo: Randy and Michael Brecker

The great saxophone player Michael Brecker died of leukemia last saturday at a NY hospital. Brecker had been diagnosed in 2005 and needed a bone-marrow transplant which never happened.

You will know Michael, among other things, for his tenor sax playing in the Springsteen song «Tenth Avenue Freeze» in 1975’s album Born to Run. During his long career Michael recorded and performed with a long list of legendary artists, including Horace Silver, George Benson, Larry Coryell, Todd Rundgren, John Lennon, James Taylor, James Brown, Lou Reed, B.J. Thomas, Paul Simon, Charles Mingus, Parliament, Frank Zappa, Sting, Funkadelic, Steely Dan, Diana Ross, Chic, Jaco Pastorius or Eric Clapton. Rest in peace.

Read more: Philadelphia Inquirer website.

According to the Appleseed website, Bruce will be one of the participans in the new CD project from the label, titled «Feels Like Home».

The CD is part of a project in collaboration with the Berklee School of Music Internship Program as part of the “Give Us Your Poor” national public awareness initiative based at UMass Boston. “Give Us Your Poor: Homelessness & the U.S.” is the umbrella title for the project, which will include a documentary film as well as the Feels Like Home CD.

The official Bruce Springsteen website has announced that some unreleased Springsteen recordings (from the 1986 Bridge School Benefit) are now onsale at iTunes. Here’s the official announcement:

Beginning today, iTunes will be selling a second installment of the Bridge School Concert LP — commemorating the 20 year anniversiary of the benefit series.

The album is packed with legendary performances, including the often-bootlegged but previously unreleased Springsteen favorites– Born In The USA and Helpless (w/ Bridge Benefit founder Neil Young).

This release will only be available on iTunes, and a portion of proceeds will be donated to the Bridge School, an educational program dedicated to ensuring that children with severe speech and physical impairments achieve full participation in their communities through the use of augmentative and alternative means of communication.

And it was a blast. Bruce Springsteen rocked the house last night at the Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank, when he joined the Bobby Bandiera Band for a rousing set that included «Darlington County», «Seaside Bar Song», «Spirit in the Night» and more. All with a full band which included up to 8 horn players (incl. La Bamba, Mark Pender, Joey Stann and others).

Check out full set list.

To give you an idea, here’s some words from Stan Goldstein’s report of the event:

«It’s nights like this when I so much appreciate that I live at the Jersey Shore. When you can see one of the biggest rock stars in the world, Bruce Springsteen, play an incredible 35-minute set to a theater-sized crowd of 1,400 people, it’s just an incredible experience. And this followed an appearance by another of the world’s top rock stars, Jon Bon Jovi. A 3 hour and 45-minute show ended on such a high that everyone leaving the Count Basie Theater in Red Bank, N.J., probably didn’t even have to get into their cars to get home, they were floating from a spectacular Bruce Springsteen finale».