The Michael Brecker Band extensively toured in the late 1980s and 90s, and was widely expected to feature on Brecker's major label debut as a leader in 1987. In the event they did not feature on Michael Brecker, or on commercial recordings at all (probably the band's best-known representation of this line-up is on the allegedly ‘unoffical’ recordings of The Michael Brecker Band Live 1989, on Jazz Door).

This official Jazzline release presents well-recorded radio broadcasts of both the Brecker brothers with their respective bands, at the Fabrik, an excellent music venue in Hamburg. With both sessions recorded on the same night for NDR radio, it promises much. But in the end, it flatters to deceive.

The Michael Brecker Band occupy the first CD of this double set and open with ‘Nothing Personal,’ clocking-in at 21-plus minutes. Brecker opens with a long tenor solo that is, in effect, an exposition of his technique and mastery of the interval of a fourth (signalled early on by signifying on ‘Freedom Jazz Dance’). It is a curiously unmoving pattern-based display of technique for technique's sake. ‘Fragment’ sees Brecker move to EWI, signifying on ‘Jean Pierre’ (taken from Miles Davis’ We Want Miles) with a harmon muted trumpet sample to the delight of the crowd and the despair of those who have heard it quoted far too often. ‘Upside Downside’ begins with EWI simulated turntable scratching that launch both Brecker and Stern into widdly-widdly mode. Brecker is on tenor for ‘My One and Only Love,’ whose beautiful melody is treated insensitively. For a moment, Stern's solo totters on the brink of run-on fingers but calms down to show an accomplished guitarist lurking under his head banging image. ‘Original Rays’ is back to EWI and a synth sound that for all the world could come from a MIDI interface. Glossy and replete with widdly-widdly-isms for 20 minutes, this concert is a rare Mike Brecker misfire.

His brother Randy's acoustic quintet takes up disc two, and is in keeping with the return to the hard bop climate in American jazz of the time, championed by Wynton Marsalis. The quintet is a quartet for the opening two numbers, the first featuring Randy Brecker, the second featuring the highly competent Bob Berg. Then the quintet's calm council explores four numbers together and does not so much attempt to raise the roof, but rather, restore calm with barely a bead of perspiration spilt.