Till Brönner – “Midnight” (1997)

Universal Music has just issued German trumpeter Till Brönner’s wonderful Midnight on vinyl for the first time ever. First issued in early 1997, Midnight was only Brönner’s fourth solo recording, but it also marked the trumpeter’s first album to be recorded in the United States. The album is also Brönner’s first foray into nineties-era contemporary jazz, peopled with such first-call studio musicians as Michael Brecker, Anthony Jackson, Dennis Chambers and Manolo Badrena.

It is one of the era’s best, if least well-known, recordings and a highlight of the trumpeter’s diverse and compelling catalog.

I contributed a brief note to this new vinyl issue of the all-instrumental Midnight, placing the disc in the context of this virtuoso performer’s expansive career (he’s also an accomplished photographer as well). But there is even more to the story of Midnight, a remarkably enduring recording that never found its footing in history but is much loved among listeners who know about it.

In 1995, trumpeter Till Brönner was approached by producer Uwe (pronounced Ooh-Va) Buschkötter with an offer to record an album in New York City for his fledgling Button Records label.

It’s likely both men saw this as an opportunity to push the musician, whose star was quickly rising, out of the confines of the otherwise burgeoning German jazz scene and introduce him to an international audience. Remarkably, for a producer, Buschkötter, who called the trumpeter “the talent of a century,” even gave Brönner his choice of American musicians to work with.

The 24-year-old trumpeter was already a veteran of the RIAS Big Band and Peter Herbolzheimer’s ensemble and had two albums to his name, including his solo debut, Generations of Jazz, with American heavy-hitters Ray Brown and Jeff Hamilton.

Buschkötter (b. 1939) was an industry veteran – a musician, composer, producer and music publisher – who had run the prolific UMB Records, a German label that primarily issued library music for use on TV and in film. The Button label was intended by Buschkötter to be a home for jazz, having already released albums by trumpeter/arranger Chris Walden and frequent Brönner accompanist, pianist Frank Chastenier.

Whether or not it was a bit of hubris, Buschkötter set out to grant all – or probably most – of Brönner’s requests. The producer secured the formidable talents of no less than saxophonist Michael Brecker (1949-2007), guitarist Dean Brown, bassist Anthony Jackson, drummer Dennis Chambers, percussionist Manolo Badrena, George Whitty and David Mann.

Buschkötter had previously worked with Brecker on his own Button album Coast to Coast (1995), billed to the German producer’s nom-de-record “Georg Pommer,” and would work again with David Mann on the “Hans George Pommer” disc Late Night (1999).

(Of course, the American musicians here worked with one another in various aggregates on many sessions in those days. But it’s interesting to note that the quartet of Brecker, Jackson, Chambers and Badrena had previously recorded together on guitarist Steve Khan’s 1994 disc Crossings.)

Midnight was recorded over several sessions between September 1995 and May 1996 at four New York studios, including the famed Power Station – which became Avatar Studios shortly after these sessions (Brönner’s disc German Songs was also recorded during this period and issued in late 1996, prior to Midnight‘s release). Given the number of German hands in the mix – Ingo Cramer, Rolo Rodriguez, Hans Georg Arlt, RIAA Big Band Brass, e.g. – it’s likely that uncredited overdubs and additional recording was also done in German studios.

The sessions were helmed by David Mann (“Little Giant’s Talking,” a nice feature for guitarist Dean Brown, “In the Meantime” and “Tribeca”), who was at the time in the Tower of Power Horn Section, and George Whitty (all other tracks), a charter member of the then-reformed Brecker Brothers band. Interestingly, Mann and Whitty appear together on German guitarist Leni Stern’s Words (1995) and Black Guitar (1997) – suggesting how their names might have come to Brönner’s attention in the first place. Dennis Chambers frequently collaborated with Ms. Stern during this period as well.

The American “supergroup” – with Michael Brecker beautifully set as Brönner’s foil – appears on only two tracks, Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Goin’ On” and Stevie Wonder’s “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing.” These are ideal choices for Brönner’s first American recording and both are sumptuously arranged by George Whitty. Brecker’s welcome presence here is magical. Even though it’s just a session job, he never phones it in. He was the real thing; a force of nature and still much missed in music.

As eclectic as the program might seem, it is a surprisingly cohesive set of nineties-era contemporary jazz: not exactly straight ahead but nowhere near as snoozy or as mindless as so much smooth jazz of the period was. It’s also not as dated as too much of that music was. Brönner swings throughout, engaging and breezy, blowing lines like kisses in the wind.

In addition to the Motown tracks with Brecker, highlights include George Whitty’s wonderfully spunky “Reporting from Rangoon” – which has surprisingly not had coverage elsewhere (it would have made a good fit for the Brecker Brothers band) – both David Mann’s “In the Meantime” and “Tribeca” (that latter of which also appears as heard here on Mann’s 2001 disc Touch), as well as Brönner and Stefan Raab’s suitably moody title track.

Worth noting, too, is the timeless cover art of Midnight, featuring the handsome and always dapper trumpeter bathed in the cool and warm tones that his playing is so well known for. The design, which is so striking in the LP format, is classic, with the photo and text working perfectly to suggest what a listener can expect from the disc.

Midnight‘s cover is the work of German designer Knut Schötteldreier, who has designed many discs released by American and European jazz artists on the ITM, West Wind, Intuition, Jazzline and Universal Music labels – including several that this writer worked on by, among others, Peter Thomas, Freddie Hubbard, Tom Scott and Dave Grusin.

Midnight was released in early 1997 to surprisingly little acclaim. Despite Button securing a distribution agreement for the disc with the heavy-hitting BMG (formerly RCA), Midnight did not get a release outside of Europe or Japan. Till Brönner’s American debut would come shortly thereafter with his subsequent album and Verve debut, Love (1998), which also began a long relationship with the late, great American guitarist Chuck Loeb and bassist Tim Lefebvre.

Love is also Brönner’s debut as a vocalist, securing the trumpeter-singer’s reputation as the “German Chet Baker,” an appellation Brönner apparently welcomes. ( A Chet Baker equivalent to Midnight is likely the 1959 album Chet, featuring the trumpeter with pianist Bill Evans, guitarist Kenny Burrell, flautist Herbie Mann, bassist Paul Chambers and drummers Philly Joe Jones and Connie Kay.)

In 2001, Midnight was reissued by Uwe Buschkötter on his UBM label as Trumpet Vibes, with painfully generic cover art and an altogether different track order. What’s especially odd about this particular release is that the two “all-star” songs, “What’s Going On” and “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout A Thing,” were omitted altogether and replaced by “Time Journey” and “Coma,” both Brönner originals and presumably recorded during the Midnight sessions.

Universal Music eventually acquired the rights to the UBM catalog and, in 2009, reissued Midnight on CD for Verve, Brönner’s label at the time, thus finally introducing the disc to an international audience. Verve restored the original Button graphics and text, replacing the cover’s arty “W” (likely indicating the artist “with” his guests) with the classic Verve logo. Now, it even looks like a classic Verve disc.

The two tracks unique to Trumpet Vibes, however, were not included on the Verve CD and are, likewise, not a part of the new vinyl edition either.

Brönner has since released 15 solo discs – including several soundtracks and two Christmas recordings – as well as being a featured soloist on discs by Madeline Peyroux, George Benson, Kurt Elling, Seal, Jeff Goldblum and Take 6 (which garnered the trumpeter a Grammy nomination). Brönner has also produced two albums for singer Mark Murphy and collaborated with the legendary Bob James on the 2020 disc On Vacation.

Nearly three decades on, Midnight still feels fresh today. There is a warmth and energy here – some may call it romanticism – that Till Brönner naturally became well known for. But there is also a welcome consistency and pitch-perfect programming to the disc that is sometimes lacking on the trumpeter’s later efforts.

Vinyl is the ideal way to appreciate the glow of Midnight, the measure of a young up-and-comer holding his own with the veteran American heavyweights.