Music

Patricia Brennan is a master composer and improviser on mallet percussion, and her last album, Breaking Stretch, was a high-arcing highlight of 2024 in jazz. The follow-up, Of the Near and Far, is also one of the best and most exciting albums of this year in creative music.

Although Breaking Stretch incorporated subtle electronic elements through Brennan‘s use of percussion instruments, it was primarily a jazz septet album, featuring trumpet, two saxophones, bass, drums, and hand percussion, as well as her vibraphone and marimba. Of the Near and Far cuts, the jazz group revert to a quintet (featuring pianist Sylvie Courvoisier, guitarist Miles Okazaki, bassist Kim Cass, and drummer John Hollenbeck), but expands the whole band to include a string quartet and the electronic musician/turntablist Arktureye. The result is a brand new sound like no other “jazz” record out there.

Simply put, it is as good if not better than Breaking Stretch — yet another revelation and breath of creative fresh air from Brennan. It is more melodic and beautiful than its predecessor, but in no way less daring. If you like the New Jazz of this century but want more of it to provide you with elation, then Of the Near and Far is going to knock your socks off.

The excitement at the center of this record feels new and old at once. It has been 50 years since I last heard a jazz record that fizzled my brain with excitement the way, say, Birds of Fire by the Mahavishnu Orchestra did. That music was complex and rich, but had the power and thrill of the rock of that era. So listen to “Andromeda” on Of the Near and Far, a chattering blend of percussion and strings rat-a-tats for a moment before Patricia Brennan’s vibes bring in a cycling melodic pattern.

It seems like a slippery slice of percussive jazz/rock that is suddenly taken up by the strings. However, before you can absorb it entirely, Okazaki is unleashed with distortion, improvising over a slamming groove. His solo might evoke that Mahavishnu flavor, but it is also electrifying to hear Brennan’s overdriven/distorted vibes, followed by a Sylvie Courvoisier piano solo that blends seamlessly into the ecstatic union of every element of the band. This, my friends, is a whole me kind of fusion.

Recent music under the “jazz” umbrella has learned that adding strings to a project does not have to sound like the old jazz albums where some sweetening was inartfully added to a swinging session. However, Of the Near and Far incorporates its two violins, viola, and cello with unprecedented deftness. At times, you hear a fiddle interacting with the leader or her “jazz band” (“Antlia”), at other times, you cannot find daylight between the string quartet and Arktureye’s electronic textures (“Citlalli”). The strings can be just as percussive as a marimba at times (the very start of “Antlia”). When Patricia Brennan puts the quartet out front melodically, such as on the start of “Lyra”, they are artfully blended with Okazaki’s flowing guitar and the pulse of Cass’s plucked bass.

If this new album seems slightly inaccessible, with all its wild parts, check out “Aquarius”. Gorgeous impressionistic waves of strings, vibes, and piano gather themselves into a syncopated funk that bobs in measures of loping 5/4. The melody that emerges is melancholy, led by Brennan’s vibes but shadowed by the strings. The vibe is relaxed yet haunting, and the melody keeps turning over, repeating and shifting, developing increasing power as Hollenbeck subtly ramps up the heat from his drum kit. There are no solos, just enchantment.

“When You Stare Into the Abyss” is also a tone poem that paints a beautiful picture. Electronics dominate for a couple of minutes, building to a shimmer before the rhythm section and strings enter quietly. Brennan asks the strings to bend notes in harmony as her marimba, the piano, and percussion move along the edges. Slowly but surely, a major-keyed melody grows up through the mist.

It is also notable that Patricia Brennan deviates from the jazz norm in several refreshing ways. While there is plenty of room for improvisation on Of the Near and Far, it rarely takes the form of a string of “solos” sandwiched between statements of a melody. Even on one of the most conventional structures, this is the case. Miles Okazaki’s improvisation on “Antlia” grows gradually out of a chattering ensemble section. We almost don’t realize what we are hearing at first. However, Okazaki is soon in the midst of a passionate statement. Brennan’s solo vibes follow, yes, but it is hard to determine when they end and when the theme returns.

The romantic opening to “Lyra” soon reveals itself to be a suite of connected themes. The string quartet and jazz guitar enchant in the first section, which develops into a pulsing 13/8 pattern that remains danceable. This theme is reflected and altered somewhat in the faster and more urgent closing section, which features Brennan’s most exciting and potent solo of the record. Those bookends are connected by an astonishing piano/vibes fantasia that may be the most magical portion of the album.

Patricia Brennan and Courvoisier play without a set tempo but in a rattling rhythmic thrum that sounds like two pianos and two vibraphones at once. That perfectly sets up the last four minutes of the suite: a return of composed melody and then an opportunity for the string quartet to improvise collectively over a clattering groove until Brennan enters for that great solo.

There is one other notable feature to Of the Near and Far that can be obscured when you drill down on each track as its own astonishing composition. About half of the tracks, as sequenced on a record, quietly bleed into each other. For example, the shimmering “Aquila” ends with the band in a hushed hum and a final cymbal shimmer from Hollenbeck. The split-second pause before the synth shimmer of “When You Stare Into the Abyss” isn’t really noticeable, and you are transported from one of Brennan’s extraordinary sonic dreams into the next.

The backstory of Patricia Brennan’s music often relates to her interest in astronomy, and she has written that most compositions here were derived from applying mathematical data related to constellations to the musical mathematics of the “cycle of fifths”. Perhaps this helps to explain why these constructions and musical settings in no way sound tired — like regurgitations of old forms, such as harmonic patterns from a thousand other “standards”, or the “jazz” you sense you have heard before, even if you can’t name it.

That Brennan has also assembled a unique ensemble featuring strings and electronics, in addition to a jazz quintet, also helps propel Of the Near and Far into the realm of the new and revelatory. Whatever the method, she continues to bend our ears toward astonishment.