May 26, 2026 11:08 AM
Sonny Rollins Passes Away at 95
Sonny Rollins, the iconic saxophonist, composer and improviser whose career stretched from the origins of bebop to 21st…
The band from Patricia Brennan’s Album of the Year: from left, John Hollenbeck, Michael Nicolas, Modney, Pala Garcia, Kyle Armbrust, Brennan, Miles Okazaki, Sylvie Courvoisier, Kim Cass and Eli Greenhoe. Not pictured is Arktureye.
(Photo: Courtesy Patricia Brennan)When last we left Patricia Brennan — just a tad over a year ago, actually — she wasn’t only thinking about the cosmos, she was documenting it. Amazed by the heavens, the vibraphonist had begun to get serious about astrophotography in hopes of appreciating the “balance and symmetry” of the stars. No easy feat.
The results of such deliberations helped conceive last October’s Of The Near And Far (Pyroclastic), her fourth title as a leader, and DownBeat’s 2026 Album of the Year. The 41-year-old Brooklynite enjoys swooning to the majesty above us all, and of course she’s not alone.
“What about the sky, MacIntyre?,” queries Burt Lancaster from his Texas observatory in Bill Forsyth’s 1983 film Local Hero. “The sky here is amazing,” reports Peter Riegert from a Scottish phone box. “There seems to be a lot happening in it all the time.”
Ditto for Brennan’s Milky Way music. As the follow-up to the bandleader’s Breaking Stretch (Pyroclastic), the deeply graceful Of The Near And Far is a bit more demure, yet no less active — there’s a lot happening in it all the time. Subbing strings for horns, its magic comes from the fact that it sustains the lush voicings and pulsing interplay often marking her ensemble work — perhaps two of the reasons why the critics ranked it so high.
Our writers corps didn’t stop with Best Album. Brennan was also voted Vibraphonist of the Year, and she leads the Rising Star Group of the Year (with her septet) voting as well — triple honors that place her in the spotlight once again (she received a similar set of accolades in 2024’s poll). Back then, she was shooting the sky with an iPhone. Since, she’s been gifted a smart telescope, which ups her astrophotography game, making things clearer, deeper, more vivid. Those descriptives can also be used to chart the progress of her elaborate scores. They seem to get more singular and poetic with each new project.
Last year Brennan said that prep for Of The Near And Far found her designing a notation system that turned “the shapes of the constellations into pitch collections” that guided her compositional direction. Her choice of using a string quartet integrated with an ensemble of guitarist Miles Okazaki, bassist Kim Cass, electronics dazzler Arktureye, pianist Sylvie Courvoisier and drummer John Hollenbeck delivered a program of intricacy, each player called on to provide exacting moves that nurture an ever-shifting whole.
The swirl of strings that opens “Lyra” is a good example of a climate that allows for complexity while still making room for choice melodic motifs. Brennan says she gives her charges “lots of duties,” and as “Lyra” blossoms into participation by the full ensemble, it sustains a tenacious poise.
“Of The Near And Far is a little bit of a left turn from [my previous work],” she explains. “Partially, I wanted to show another aspect of myself, which is my past as a new music percussionist. Percussion ensemble music is like a machine that has all these different rhythmic gears, you know? So for ‘Antlia,’ literally, that was the vision: You have the inner workings of a watch or clock and then there’s these gears changing. Everybody is a rhythmic element, including the strings.”
Brennan’s music studies as a youth in Veracruz, Mexico, included piano and percussion, and there’s a smile on her face when she shares the fact that she wrote her first arrangement for strings at the age of 14. Her stint at Philly’s Curtis Institute solidified a classical vocabulary while time spent digesting various New York jazz lingos wooed her toward the intrigue of improvisation. A blend of the two has personalized her art.
“One of Patty’s biggest developments is the emergence of a very personal musical voice,” offered Hollenbeck in a text exchange. “Early on she was absorbing a tremendous amount of information and influence. Over time, she’s become increasingly confident in trusting her own instincts, and her playing now has an identity that’s immediately recognizable.”
“I really like her rhythmic sense,” says Courvoisier. “It’s so strong and sophisticated. You can hear her Mexican roots in the writing but there’s also room for the contemporary side. There’s always a clave, but it’s not obvious.”
Brennan uses strings in several ways. On “Aquarius,” she says they’re making “a texture throughout the whole piece, you know, like water [flowing]. That kind of thing was inspired by minimalist composers like Philip Glass. He writes for strings in a way where it’s not just the classic melodic counterpoint, but a textural sound.”
Hollenbeck says he and Brennan share some similar beliefs. “Rhythm is one of the primary ways music communicates feelings. Something can be rhythmically intricate, even highly structured mathematically, and still be emotionally direct. The listener doesn’t need to understand how something is constructed in order to feel its momentum, tension, release and sense of movement. Patty gets that!”
A key tip Brennan got from Hollenbeck was using a conductor. “One of my first gigs was with John’s big band, and I learned that conductors aren’t just there to keep the beat. They can also remind us of certain cues. ‘When You Stare Into The Abyss’ sounds ethereal, but everything is through-composed. There’s so much going on, it needs guidance. Our conductor Eli Greenhoe is a composer himself. He knows the deal.”
Other big news in Brennanville? She’s started her own record label, Antlia, named after Of The Near And Far’s opening track, which in turn was named after a constellation in the southern celestial hemisphere. In an Instagram announcement of the launch, Brennan mentions that the non-profit imprint would be a home for artists unafraid of “taking risks, evolving and redefining their sound.” It’s a move she’s had on her mind for some time. The first Antlia recording is the recently released Talamanti, a duo outing with Courvoisier.
With David Breskin producing again, the album’s dazzling rapport supports pieces both abstract and melodic. Brennan says it follows in the tradition of Sun Ra and Walt Dickerson’s Visions as much as Chick Corea and Gary Burton’s Crystal Silence. “The Time We Spent” is deeply romantic. “Disparate Chase” is more animated. As the program shifts, catchy themes share quarters with aggressive flurries.
“It’s a combination,” says Courvoisier. “If we want to extend the sound of our instruments, we can do it. But we don’t need to do it. We also play some very simple stuff, very tonal. Patty’s music always feels like a dance.”
Brennan recalls hearing Courvoisier’s 2007 solo album, Signs And Epigrams, during her college days. “I was like, ‘How is she getting those sounds? That’s what I want the vibraphone to sound like.’ When we finally played together, we found we had this really cool chemistry.”
The two also unite in Courvoisier’s Amalthea foursome with Thomas Morgan and Dan Weiss. Brennan’s attraction to the pianist’s approach was immediate. “Playing with Sylvie is easy. She knows what she wants every time she plays. I’ve learned by watching her and listening to her. She arrives with a purpose. Sometimes [our work together] feels like one giant instrument that hasn’t been invented yet.”
That glimpse-of-the-future notion suits this diehard experimentalist’s wish list. She’s perpetually curious about the vibraphone’s possibilities.
“Being rewarded with this recognition makes me happy,” Brennan concludes. “In a way, it seems the mainstream is acknowledging the evolution of the instrument, not just pushing it aside. The idea for the new label is to branch out. I’m interested in artists sharing my vision of taking risks. If so, there’s a home for them at Antlia Records.” DB
Onstage, Rollins would move about restlessly, thrusting his tenor sax in the air as he blew.
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