Patricia Brennan Trio at Bar Bayeux

Patricia Brennan Trio
Bar Bayeux
New York, NY
September 24, 2025

If you've heard of Patricia Brennan, it's likely the awareness is recent. The Mexican vibraphonist isn't new to the scene, having been quietly honing her reputation through high-caliber collaborations in New York and elsewhere since at least the early 2020s. Yet she's traveled a little under the radar, even within the avant circles in which she belongs stylistically.

Now, all of a sudden, Brennan seems to be everywhere. She's garnering awards (including top vibraphonist and best album, Breaking Stretch (Pyroclastic Records, 2024), in the 2025 Downbeat Critics Awards) and amassing a crowded calendar. Last week alone, Brennan played twice in Brooklyn, lending her luminous talent to Mary Halvorson's Amaryllis sextet in the theater setting of Roulette and leading her own trio at the cozy Bar Bayeux.

Brennan's Bayeux set featured mostly original compositions with support from husband Noel Brennan on drums and bassist Kim Cass. While past vibrophone trios—including several led by Gary Burton—have used that instrumentation, many such assemblages have been drummerless, perhaps because a band led by a vibraphonist was considered to be percussive enough.

Brennan's trio made the most of its instrumentation with an hour-long set that was often rhythm-forward. Husband and wife Brennan also sometimes pursued intense sticks-and-mallets duet passages, playing the same rhythmic patterns in tight syncopation—or maybe competition. Occasionally, Brennan introduced cyclical loops, creating a sound that more conjured up the minimalist percussion figures of contemporary classical icon Steve Reich than the sound of a typical jazz-vibes group.

The set's rhythmic distinction, and innovation, also derived from its shifting assortment of time signatures, including a set-ending original in 15/16 time. The trio navigated the shifting times assuredly, as they did in the occasional passages in which Brennan led them into freer waters that still never entirely let meter or harmonic structure go.

Cass was commanding through it all. In a chat after the set, Brennan said she includes the bassist in all of her bands because he's so focused on rhythm. "He thinks like another percussionist." Indeed, at times, three players were all rhythmically assertive, creating spiky three-pronged passages in tight synchrony. Elsewhere, Cass and Noel Brennan sustained avant-funk grooves over which the vibraphonist laid a carpet of expansive notes.

Overall, the trio created a dense, yet never forbidding, sound that leaves no obvious space for other players to join in. Given that completeness, it's fascinating to see and hear Brennan (in a video stream available free under the Media tab at roulette.org) as a member of Halvorson's sextet last week. As a sidewoman within the bigger group, she's far less prominent, naturally, and is a deft team player. Yet some of her signature inclinations still stand out, like the occasional repeating figures and sly harmonic innovations.

Brennan's compositions are as distinctive as the approach of her trio. They're melodic, in an avant vein, yet also dissonant They engage your attention while challenging the ear. Brennan explains that she favors "creating tension within my pieces" through pushing some notes to the edges of, and sometimes even beyond, the composition's key,

How bracing Brennan's compositions are was underlined by how harmonically conventional the set's sole cover sounded—and it was from a late composer who herself often favored canny dissonance. Carla Bley's "Ida Lupino," with its lovely and lilting theme, was the tender heart of the set.

Brennan's itinerary is no less busy through the fall. There are European tours with Talamanti, her duo with pianist Sylvie Courvoisier and the Halvorson Amaryllis Sextet, before her own week with various ensembles at the The Stone At The New School in mid-November. Every one of these lineups promises to show a different facet of this adventurous and yet accessible artist.

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