Photo Credit: Noel Brennan
“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
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
“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.”
“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."