Jazz Articles about Patricia Brennan

About Patricia Brennan

Album Review

This quartet shares its instrumentation with the Modern Jazz Quartet: piano, vibraphone, double bass and drums. Yet listening closely to the two groups reveals how far jazz has travelled between 1950 and now. Like John Lewis, Sylvie Courvoisier has an allegiance to European art music; where the MJQ cultivated poised, contrapuntal elegance, Amalthea favours abrupt changes of texture, prepared-piano color, metric instability and a more volatile collective energy. Patricia Brennan is similarly concerned to preserve elements of her ...

Album Review

Patricia Brennan and Sylvie Courvoisier: Talamanti

Read "Talamanti" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic

by Mike Jurkovic
September 7, 2026

It is more than fair to say--right from the start of their kinship in early 2023, in the Sylvie Courvoisier 4 with bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer Dan Weiss--that there was something innate, and perhaps more importantly, intimate, between road-clearing pianist Sylvie Courvoisier and rascally vibraphonist Patricia Brennan. Talamanti proves that big time. Organically the sharply focused work of two fearless, free spirits, Talamanti, (the main language of indigenous, Aztec-era Mesoamericans) culminates or, dare one say, ...

Multiple Reviews

Patricia Brennan And Sylvie Courvoisier, Ambrose Akinmusire And Mary Halvorson, Mick Goodrick And Fred Hersch: Playing Doubles

by Doug Collette
July 25, 2026

Watching a musician perform solo vividly illustrates how difficult it is to play music well. And observing a pair of instrumentalists in action together graphically depicts how hard it is for musicians to play well together. In the case of these three teams of doubles, no one individual leads, except occasionally in transitions. Rather, the two individuals move parallel in ascent and descent, to the right or left and forward/backward. The respective dynamics reveal uncanny symbioses, of which the participants ...

Radio & Podcasts

Patricia Brennan, Sylvie Courvoisier, Janek van Laak, Jeff Parker and more

by Lawrence Peryer
June 11, 2026

This hour or Rotations opens with the Oscillating Revenge of the Background Instruments, a/k/a ORBI, making their case to have the supporting players take the leads. They do it with a chamber ensemble take on a classic rock epic. From there, the episode is loaded with music from The Tonearm podcast alumni, including new work from vibraphonist Patricia Brennan and pianist Sylvie Courvoisier, drummer/composer Janek van Laak, and a new track from Jeff Parker's ETA IVTet. Sprinkled throughout you'll hear ...

Album Review

Ben Wendel: BaRcoDe

Read "BaRcoDe" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
May 18, 2026

Il nuovo progetto di Ben Wendel vede il sassofonista canadese a capo di un quintetto senza la tradizionale sezione ritmica ma comprendente quattro acclamati vibrafonisti: Patricia Brennan, Simon Moullier, Joel Ross e Juan Diego Villalobos che ampliano lo spettro strumentale usando anche marimba, balafon, varie percussioni e dispositivi elettronici. L'organico è davvero inusuale ma non ci sorprende. In due decenni di attività in veste di leader, cofondatore dei Kneebody, sideman e produttore, il sassofonista canadese ha mostrato d'essere ...

Album Review

Ben Wendel: BaRcoDe

by Neil Duggan
April 3, 2026

BaRcoDe marks the formation of a new ensemble and the debut album from tenor saxophonist Ben Wendel. An electroacoustic project for saxophone and mallets, it brings together a stellar cast of contemporary vibraphonists and percussionists in Joel Ross, Simon Moullier, Patricia Brennan and Juan Diego Villalobos. A two-time Grammy nominee and co-founder of Kneebody, Wendel has performed and recorded with artists as varied as Bill Frisell, Tigran Hamasyan and Prince, accumulating numerous awards along the way. The ensemble ...

Radio & Podcasts

Patricia Brennan: Star Light, Star Bright

by David Bixler
March 23, 2026

What if the patterns you see in the night sky weren't just constellations, but a musical score? Vibraphonist Patricia Brennan, an avid astronomer, has looked to the stars as the blueprint for her ambitious 2025 recording, Of the Near and Far (Pyroclastic Records, 2025). To bring this cosmic vision down to earth, Brennan enlisted a ten-piece ensemble featuring pianist Sylvie Courvoisier, guitarist Miles Okazaki, and a full string quartet. In this episode of LINER NOTES, we explore how ...