Jazz Musician, Arranger, Bandleader. He became captivated with jazz music when at age eleven, his father took him to a Count Basie concert. The electrifying experience led him to the conclusion that this was the path he would embark upon and from this, he became acquainted with the piano and clarinet, before settling on the trombone. He studied at the Kansas City Conservatory of Music, but dropped out prior to graduation and served six months in the US Army. Eager to launch his music career, Brookmeyer immersed himself within the New York City jazz-scene of the early 1950s. While a teenager, he had already gained experience as an arranger and performer with such bandleaders as Claude Thornhill and Ray McKinley, but came to prominence with Gerry Mulligan, establishing himself a topnotch valve trombonist with a unique playing style of his own creation. While a member of his ensemble, he contributed innovative arrangement works which helped define Mulligan's sound during that period. He would move onto Stan Getz and Jimmy Giuffre, providing nothing less than high-quality results and appeared with the latter in the documentary "Jazz on a Summer's Day" (1959). By the 1960s, he shared bandleader duties with trumpeter Clark Terry and at the close of the decade was exclusively a television studio musician. Brookmeyer had a stint with Merv Griffin's house band during the 1970s, however his abuse with alcohol led to time in a Los Angeles rehab program. Once recovered he resumed his career and by the 1980s, he was spending much time in Europe as the bandleader of his ensemble New Art Orchestra. He later taught at the Manhattan School of Music and the New England Conservatory. During the course of his career, Brookmeyer's body of work earned him eight Grammy Award nominations. In 2006, he received the honor of National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master. He died from congestive heart failure.