For his appearance at the 2000 ITG Conference, Brecker was joined by three SUNY Purchase jazz faculty including Doug Munro, guitar; Charles Blenzig, piano; and acclaimed bassist Todd Coolman.  Drummer Jason Anderson is a recent Master's graduate of SUNY Purchase. 

Listeners expecting to hear original material from Brecker's recordings may have been disappointed, but not for long.  Because he was not playing with his regular band, Brecker chose a program of standards and well-known jazz tunes.  He began with a medium­up rendition of Falling in Love With Love, followed by Wayne Shorter's Footprints. Old Folks, performed as a duo with Charles Blenzig, was the highlight of the program for many listeners, and he closed the one-hour set with Billy Strayhorn's Take the 'A' Train and Sonny Rollins' Tenor Madness.

Brecker's hard-edged style has echoes of Miles Davis and Clifford Brown, but his primary influence is Freddie Hubbard.  His harmonic conception, like many players today, owes a debt to John Coltrane.  Brecker relies heavily on pentatonic scales and fourths, and while his playing is usually punchy and funky, he frequently plays outside of the time with ripping lines that have a rhythmic energy and logic that defies the tyranny of the beat and bar line.