Photo Credit: Noel Brennan
“On Brennan's new album Breaking Stretch she expands the agile rhythm section that supported her on her second record. The album represents a huge leap forward, firmly establishing Brennan as a fiercely original talent on the New York scene. Brennan's excellence as a musician has been obvious for several years, but now her abilities as a composer and bandleader are just as sharp.”
Peter Margasak, The Wire Magazine (issue 487), 2024
“The musicians are at the top of their games, feeding off one another’s energy organically and navigating every compositional challenge without a glitch. Breaking Stretch is an impressive showcase of Brennan’s broad musical vision and stands as one of the year’s strongest jazz releases.”
Filipe Freitas, JazzTrail, 2024
“Having shone in the bands of Anna Webber, Matt Mitchell, Michael Formanek, and Mary Halvorson, Brennan has not only absorbed those experiences, but has drawn on her own background to develop a distinctive concept. In doing so she shows herself to be a composer to be reckoned with, to complement her undoubted talents as an improviser. Breaking Stretch is like a finely tuned machine studded with jewels”.
John Sharpe, Point of Departure, 2024
“With Breaking Stretch, Patricia Brennan has established herself as one of the most accomplished leaders in improvised music, one who has a specific vision, can write compelling tunes, and has realized that vision with the perfect musicians”.
James Koblin, The Necessary Blues, 2024
“Vibraphonist/ marimbist/composer Patricia Brennan's third album is an intoxicating blend of avant-garde impulses with bop horns, rhythmic funk and a dash of contemporary classical. Brennan breaks sonic ground here with a septet that includes three horns, bass, drums, percussion and electronics. A playful sensibility runs through all her work, but it's grounded here with the additional instrumentation.”
Ana Gavrilovska, UNCUT Magazine, October 2024 issue
“While also full of nuance, Breaking Stretch is perhaps best heard when blasted loudly, to surround yourself with the distinctive environment Brennan creates. The album is a thoroughly fascinating listen that further cements the leader as a composer to watch.”
Rob Shepherd, PostGenre, August 2024
"This is a best-of-the-year level album, fresh and strong in almost every moment and in almost every way....Brennan leads with a superb balance of interesting compositional ideas and space for the soloists. This is a lesson in what forward looking mainstream modern jazz can be.”
George Grella, Kill Yr Idols, August 2024
“These tracks and the other show Brennan as an inventive composer and arranger, not to mention a shrewd leader in choosing the right players to realize her vision. Every tune has surprises in store, unexpected twists and changes in emphasis, and the album is chock full of moments that make me smile and bob my head. Breaking Stretch is highly recommended for anyone interested in adventurous jazz”.
Jon Davis, Exposé Online, 2024
“(On Breaking Stretch) Brennan threads strands of strange vibraphone magic through all of her very impressive compositions, and this album may be her best yet.”
Phil Overeem, Living To Listen, August 2024
“(On Breaking Stretch) Brennan is equally challenging as an instrumentalist and bandleader which you will find out as soon as you listen to this most impressive recording. It surely is one of the best albums of the year”.
“Patricia Brennan continues to build upon her uniquely inventive style of jazz simply by building up her ensemble. Though from Mexico now living in New York, Brennan is truly a world music musician with world-class musicianship”.
S. Victor Aaron, Something Else!, 2024
“Breaking Stretch looks to be an exciting addition to Patricia Brennan's growing discography, showcasing her unique vision and expanding musical horizons”.
Lawrence Peryer, Spotlight On, 2024
“Wild-willed vibraphonist Patricia Brennan gets straight down to business without any fanciful mission declaration with the Afro-Cuban, effusively powered, clear-the-dancefloor and blow-the-ceiling-off this joint "Los Otros Yo (The Other Selves)," the opening cut of her third album Breaking Stretch. She does so in a captivatingly, wickedly good way.”
Mike Jurkovic, All About Jazz, August 2024
“Patricia Brennan's musical universe continues to expand. Breaking Stretch is an intriguing way station on the voyage.”
“Breaking Stretch sounds modern and combines the broad interests of the Mexican vibraphonist into a dramatic, mesmerizing balance, smoothly moving between groove and flashiness, ethereality and intricacy. Patricia Brennan deftly combines the band's distinctive sound into a densely layered amalgam and a palette of her own instrumental displays.”
Dionizy Piątkowski, ERA JAZZU, 2024
“I’ve seen vibraphonist / marimbist Patricia Brennan live but have not spent much time with her recorded works. If Breaking Stretch is a representative example of the latter, that’s my loss. This is an album on which you’ll discover something new with each listen.”
“The oddest inclusion on paper turned out to be one of the festival highlights. While Dolphy had worked with vibraphonists, most notably Bobby Hutcherson on Out To Lunch, having a solo performance felt odd but only for a few moments before Brennan’s entrancing, completely non-idiomatic approach to her instrument transfixed the room. For 31 minutes, Brennan planted tiny seeds of Dolphy’s themes and watered them with expert control of dynamics, compelling electronic embellishment and, most importantly, reverence for the spirit of the creator.”
“PATRICIA BRENNAN is a young Mexican vibist and marimbist from Veracruz whose new album, More Touch, reveals a unique jazz sensibility and a powerfully indivisible musicianship.”
Morning Star, Chris Searle, 2023
“In greatly expanding the possibilities for vibraphone and marimba, Patricia Brennan’s More Touch takes us to exciting new sonic territory fueled by exceptional musicianship and a lot of gumption.”
Something Else!, S. Victor Aaron, 2023
“With a practitioner like Brennan, the vibraphone’s mallets are in good hands as the instrument enters its second century.”
“More Touch, the stunningly realized second album by mallet percussionist Patricia Brennan, draws from a wealth of influences, including some from her native Veracruz, to shape a new sort of percussion quartet. Brennan's expertise on vibraphone and marimba find a perfect counterweight in the churn of two drummers, Mauricio Herrera and Marcus Gilmore.”
NPR Best Music of 2022, Nate Chinen, 2022
“Patricia Brennan is the most exciting player on her instrument to emerge in a half-century. She has plenty of rivals (and several on this list), but she is rethinking the vibes in the way that Mary Halvorson rethought the guitar.”
Pop Matters The 20 Best Jazz Albums of 2022, Will Layman, 2022
“It's uncanny how More Touch, vibraphonist Patricia Brennan's scarily good follow-up to her head-turning debut Maquishti (Valley of Search, 2021) follows one around all day. Its essence is in the air, in the room, in the conversation. It sneaks around the corner and races down the stairs, out into the street, and breaks into any and all of the machinations that drive the day.”
All About Jazz, Mike Jurkovic, 2022
“More Touch is a vibrant, expressive album that is immediately captivating and keeps offering up more on repeated listening.”
The Free Jazz Collective, 2022
“More Touch is a courageous step and important record from Patricia Brennan, a wonderful vibraphonist who is rapidly becoming one of the most innovative on today’s contemporary jazz scene. The nature of her compositions gives the quartet the chance to stretch and test boundaries, and the musicians respond by adding a unique dimension to her creative vein. There’s nothing conventional here, with Brennan trailing a musical path that we very much urge you to explore.”
Jazz Trail, Filipe Freitas, 2022
“Recorded by Ron Saint Germain and Ryan Streber, and mixed by the estimable Saint Germain (whose praises I’ve sung before in this column), More Touch is one of the best-sounding albums I’ve heard this year.”
James Hale, Sound Stage Experience, 2022
'“The jazz world can get stuck in a battle between the head and the heart, but rarely do you find an improviser like Patricia Brennan, the Veracruz, Mexico-born vibraphonist, marimba player and effects maven, who skirts that dichotomy almost completely. Her music seems to exist in a realm outside the body, but stays loaded with feeling. “More Touch” is the follow-up to Brennan’s spellbinding debut, the solo LP “Maquishti” and it introduces a new quartet of advance rhythmic thinkers: the drummer Marcus Gilmore, the percussionist Mauricio Herrera and the bassist Kim Cass. They venture between dreamy swing, bobbing bolero, the Afro-Caribbean rhythms of Brennan’s hometown, and free time.”
Giovanni Russonello, The New York Times, 2022 Fall preview
“Rhythm is paramount for any vibraphonist — we’re talking about a percussion instrument, after all — but it’s rarely foregrounded with the sort of deep intention that Patricia Brennan brings to More Touch. Her second album as a leader is a jostling disquisition on groove, made with a team of aces: Kim Cass on bass, Mauricio Herrera on percussion and especially Marcus Gilmore on drums. The compositions shift easily from in-the-pocket to out-on-a-limb, and Brennan uses electronic effects as a deft enhancement to her enveloping sound. Nov. 18. Pyroclastic.”
Nate Chinen, Jazz Fall Preview 2022, WRTI
”Brennan takes the vibraphone to a new level of avant-garde with this album. There are electronic effects, very modern harmonies and dissonances with the foundation never lost. The result here is a terrific blend of familiar-sounding jazz/cultural riffs with challenging and completely new ideas of how to express them. This is exploratory jazz at its best.”
Winnipeg Free Press, Keith Black, 2022
“We can be sure that this new record will get as much well-deserved attention as its predecessor since Patricia Brennan has again managed to create music as innovative as it is gripping.”
“Twinkling and mesmeric, the debut album from this Mexican-born, New York-based vibraphonist and marimba player mixes composed material with tracks that were improvised in the studio whole cloth. Some are retouched with echoey, scrambling effects, but none is particularly lush or layered. Moving way outside the standard language of jazz vibraphone, Patricia Brennan has created something like a landscape of vapor, full of wandering melodies lost in the fog.”
Giovanni Russonello, Best Jazz Albums of 2021, New York Times
“The songs of the Mexican mallet percussionist Patricia Brennan are sparkling and hypnotic, harnessing the music-box appeal of her instruments. “Maquishti,” her début as a leader, is a majestic work of placidity and release. Performed alone by Brennan, on vibraphone and marimba, this atmospheric album breaks down its own compositional logic over time: gorgeously arranged early tracks give way to wonkier songs, such as “Improvisation VII” and “Point of No Return,” which reveal Brennan’s genius through distortions of rhythm and tone.”
The New Yorker, My Thirty Favorite Albums of 2021, Sheldon Pearce, 2022
“Challenging but never chaotic, contemplative yet too rigorous to be mistaken for ambient music, the experimental vibraphonist’s solo debut carves out its own place in contemporary music. What she crafts on Maquishti are unprecedented sounds: warm and sleek, both modern and eternal. You could say that Brennan drags the vibraphone into the 21st century, but her record suggests that mallet-based percussion was always ripe for exploration.”
Pitchfork, Daniel Felsenthal, 2021
“It is an impressive accomplishment to show off the unusual and intriguing sounds that her various instruments can produce as Brennan does on Maquishti.”
Treblezine, Konstantin Rega, 2021
“The hour-long journey allows the listener to see a multifaceted musician to work out ideas from various musical disciplines that require much concentration and liberation from outside noise and influence. An increasingly rare occasion when a great artist allows you to watch them work . . . alone.”
Jazz Right Now, Gabriel Jermaine Vanlandingham-Dunn, 2021
“Part of the joy of Maquishti is its oddity; in the computer age, almost no sounds feel strange in and of themselves, but there’s something wonderful about hearing instruments you thought you knew turned to such counterintuitive but lovely purposes.”
Chicago Reader, Noah Berlatsky, 2021
“Comfort with long silences and slowly building apexes typify Brennan’s masterful touch as an improvisor. But her more conventional performances—as on “Derrumbe De Turquesas”—are just as creative and impactful, and imbue Maquishti with a beautiful revelry.”
Downbeat, Kira Grunenberg, 2021
“Brennan supplements her dazzling technique with two-handed independence and unexpected tonal shifts courtesy of judicious use of electronics.”
“Morris's "Both Are True", the title track, after all, says it with its title: these musicians can play classic punching big band charts (nearly all, I'd wager, are graduates of jazz education programs where they did just that) and negotiate wilder, more avant-classical spaces. One of the best moments on the whole program is on this track, where Brennan's sumptuous vibes solo (over a swinging rhythm section) allows the entry to a horn arrangement that hints at tradition. In a bit of musical magic, that gives way to a free improvisation that is so pretty and smart that you barely notice as it transitions to a complex written section.”
Pop Matters, Will Layman, 2020
“Inscrutable rhythms recur on “Taut Pry” and “Be Irreparable,” when Okazaki, Mitchell and vibraphonist Patricia Brennan, respectively, play heads that actively oppose the pulses.”
“Brennan’s bowing produces a dreamy bell-like tone that clashes extremely well with the harsher quality of Reid’s cello. The vibraphonist’s switch to mallets comes with a change in her demeanor. Brennan more employs active lines that directly interact with Reid’s playing while Fujiwara adds a bit more force to his drumming… Both Brennan and Reid deliver solos with such high quality lyricism that many will end up wanting to press rewind immediately.”
Next Bop, The Next Generation of Jazz, Brian Kiwanuka, 2019
“Brennan employed electronically-processed using Digitech programmable pedals. When the electronics were engaged, it produced a somewhat spacey and ethereal sound that was quite melodic and beautiful and never harshly distorted. I've never heard vibes sound quite that way.”
All About Jazz, Dave Kaufman, 2019
“Haven’t seen the Brooklyn drummer’s newest ensemble yet, but the buzz that floated around after their Roulette hit last fall was sizable, and the notion of Tomeka Reid’s cello trading lines with Patricia Brennan’s vibraphone is fetching in itself. Fujiwara fans realize he takes composition as seriously as he does improv, so the ensemble’s approach may stroll between notes on the page and rambles juiced by rapport. A debut disc is said to be arriving in September on the Rogue Art label.”
Lament For A Straight Line, Jim Macnie's Music Blog, 2019
“Raíces Jarochas is an unhurried love letter to Patricia Brennan’s hometown in Mexico, presented in its premiere on December 26, 2019, at National Sawdust, in the latest installment of John Zorn’s monthly Stone Commissioning Series.”
National Sawdust Log, Lana Norris, 2019
“A percussionist and composer whose main instruments are the vibraphone and marimba, Brennan has recently started to make her presence known on the New York avant-garde, working with such prominent bandleaders as Matt Mitchell and Michael Formanek.”
“Serious music, O'Farrill operates in Ambrose Akinmusire territory a little while again Brennan contributes substantially to the sound and her contributions impress most of all.”
Marlbank, Stephen Graham, 2019
“The season finale, on April 18, brings together Richard Valitutto, a keyboard superstar from the vivacious Los Angeles new-music community, currently in residence at Cornell University, with Patricia Brennan, a dynamic Mexican-born, Brooklyn-based vibraphonist.”
The New Yorker, 2019
“Brennan and Okazaki also bring their special sounds to light, culminating a sequence of improvisations that comes in reverse order from what is normally expected.”
”A vibraphonist to watch out for - Patricia Brennan played a solo set showing an exquisite, delicate touch with four mallets, even binder clips.”
NYC Jazz Record, 2018
“The night’s most lavishly shapeshifting number was Hollenbeck’s muscular arrangement of Kenny Wheeler’s Heyoke: among its several solos, a bittersweet couple of turns from tenor saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock and some deliciously deadpan piano voicings from vibraphonist Patricia Brennan stood out the most brightly.”
"Drummer and composer Tomas Fujiwara began a five night residency at The Stone, accompanied by cellist Tomeka Reid (he's a member of her quartet) and Patricia Brennan. The scene was set for a meshing of chamber jazz, modern classical composition and improvisation, although most of Fujiwara's music sounded well organised in advance. All three players rose to an individual expression, working as a composite unit to deliver solo embellishments. Roles were malleable, as the listener decided whether everyone was soloing, or no-one. All three members were devoted to establishing a sensitive group consciousness, and they succeeded eminently."
"Last night at National Sawdust, pianist Vijay Iyer joined with bassist Linda May Han Oh and vibraphonist Patricia Brennan to create a somber, stunned, broodingly opaque and occasionally picturesque backdrop for Teju Cole‘s allusively harrowing spoken word narrative, Blind Spot...Brennan took the lead when Iyer went into Lynchian soundtrack mode, adding shivery chromatic phrases over macabre piano allusions that Iyer quickly embellished so as to keep the suspense from ever reaching any kind of resolution. The three finally reached toward closure with a concluding requiem, but even there the gloom didn’t lift."