Jakob Dreyer: Roots and Things

Bassist Jakob Dreyer searched for a new sound for his third album as a leader. He has, for his previous two releases, expressed his art via the standard quartet—sax, bass, drums and piano. For Roots and things, the piano is replaced by Sasha Berliner's vibraphone, joining the leader's other new-to-the-fold sidemen, saxophonist Tivon Pennicott and drummer Kenneth Salters.

A vibraphone in the group is an inspired choice. The instrument is seeing a 2024/2025 resurgence. Blue Note Records, in particular, brings the instrument into the mix on albums by like Gerald Clayton's Ones& Twos (2025), Johnathan Blake's, Homeward Bounds (2024) and Joel Ross' Nublues (2024). The luminous sustain of the instrument's sound lends a sheen of modernity and an otherworldly transcendence to the group sound. This is especially so on Dreyer's Roots and Things. The vibraphone is up a bit in the mix, helping to make music that sounds as if it were played inside the church, vibrating off the stained glass windows, summoning the eternal.

Dreyer offers up a strong batch of original compositions. "With A Song In My Heart," written by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart is the lone cover.

The album has a cohesively mesmerizing quality. Berliner paints glowing washes; drummer Kenneth Sanders punctuates the atmospheric moods, snapping and crackling, keeping the cymbal splashies to a minimum. Saxophonist Pennicott blows succinct notes, with a dry elocution. He sounds like a smoldering jazz club guy, his approach getting together with Berliners' forward-looking, assertive vibraphone.

Dreyer's willingness to shake things up, to put together a new ensemble to present his new music, is a good thing. He took a chance, and it worked well.