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Brennan, Patricia Septet (Irabagon / Shim / O'Farrill / Gilmore / Herrera / Cass): Breaking Stretch (Pyroclastic Records)

For her third album as a leader, NY vibraphonist and composer Patricia Brennan expands her band to a septet with bassist Kim Cass, drummer Marcus Gilmore, percussionist Mauricio Herrera, saxophonists Jon Irabagon and Mark Shim and trumpeter Adam O'Farrill also on electronics, for an exciting, widely embracing and fully modern album of compelling modern jazz, bound to be a 2024 top 10!
 

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Personnel:



Jon Irabagon-alto saxophone, sopranino saxophone

Mark Shim-tenor saxophone

Adam O'Farrill-trumpet, electronics

Marcus Gilmore-drums

Mauricio Herrera-percussion

Kim Cass-bass

Patricia Brennan-vibraphone, electronics, marimba


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Includes a 24-page color booklet with band and artistic images, detailed liner notes from Patricia Brennan and credits.

UPC: 020286248392

Label: Pyroclastic Records
Catalog ID: PR 35
Squidco Product Code: 35182

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2024
Country: USA
Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold
Recorded at Power Station Berklee NYC, in New York, New York, on September 16th and 17th, 2023, by Ben Greenberg.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"Wild-willed vibraphonist Patricia Brennan gets straight down to business without any fanciful mission declaration with the Afro-Cuban, effusively powered, clear-the-dancefloor and blow-the-ceiling-off this joint "Los Otros Yo (The Other Selves)," the opening cut of her third album Breaking Stretch. She does so in a captivatingly, wickedly good way.

Brennan-who has added much vitality to music by such other big thinkers as Vijay Iyer, Mary Halvorson, Anna Webber, Michael Formanek-began her musical education at 4 years old listening to her father's salsa records and her mother's Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin albums. Thus she holds no allegiance to any musical trend or definition save for creating a sound that was not there before she and her chosen cohorts injected it into the nerve grid and bloodstream. She laid this credo bare for all to hear and relish on 2021's fiery Maquishti (Valley of Search) and the correspondingly forceful More Touch (Pyroclastic, 2022).

Here on Breaking Stretch she expands the core band from 2022 album-bassist Kim Cass, drummer Marcus Gilmore and percussionist Mauricio Herrera-with the intriguing and fully engaged alto/sopranino saxophones of Jon Irabagon, Mark Shim's tenor, and the always ready for action Adam O'Farrill on trumpet and electronics. So the title track languishes and swaggers, each voice its own moment and a textured compliment to the other. Irabagon and Smith hold sway, Gilmore bashes away, O'Farrill flares in bursts and Brennan comps along. Smith leads "03 555," charting out dreamily and nebulously until the track gathers itself and dashes headstrong into a rush of syncopation at about 3:05. It is here Gilmore and Herera steer into a hyper-insistent groove (with O'Farrill now charging) that takes the track to the finish line. It is invigorating on so many levels that it is hard to keep track of them all.

Cass intros and defines "Palo de Oros (Suit of Coins)," until Brennan decides that everyone should join in with a really big band wallop. Horns dart, electronics zing. Irabagon's sopranino stings. Brennan steps to fore between drums and percussion high energy. After the relative quiet of "Sueños de Coral Azul (Blue Coral Dreams)," the party continues full speed ahead with "Five Suns," a careening whirlwind of solos that Cass somehow keeps from flying off the handle to merge and meld into a white-hot whole.

With its polyrhythms and mathematical tensions taut as a snare drum "Manufacturers Trust Company Building" comes on like a free jazz blow-out but is really a study in the balance between free jazz indulgence and the more constructed ensemble work Brennan is quickly becoming adept at. The floating closer "Earendel" (the oldest and most distant star mankind has yet discovered) reflects again Brennan's keen adaption of all things upon all musical things. And all musical things upon the advancement of the species."-Mike Jurkovic, All About Jazz


Includes a 24-page color booklet with band and artistic images, detailed liner notes from Patricia Brennan and credits.

Artist Biographies

"The winner of the 2008 Thelonious Monk Saxophone Competition, Irabagon has since topped both the Rising Star Alto Saxophone and the Rising Star Tenor Saxophone categories in the DownBeat Magazine Critics' Poll and been named one of Time Out New York's 25 New York City Jazz Icons. Jon was also named 2012 Musician of the Year in The New York City Jazz Record and is an integral member of such high-profile ensembles as the Mary Halvorson Quintet, the Dave Douglas Quintet and Barry Altschul's 3Dom Factor, as well as an established bandleader in his own right.

For Perpetual Motion, a project of Moondog arrangements, Jon (along with French saxophonist/clarinetist/composer Sylvain Rifflet) has been awarded a French-American Cultural Exchange grant from the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, with generous funding from the Cultural Services of the French Embassy, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Florence Gould Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Institut Français, Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication, and Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs de Musique ("SACEM"). In addition, Jon has received a 2012 Mabuhay Award by the National Association of Filipino-Americans and a 2014 Philippine Presidential Award.

Jon's own record label, Irabbagast Records, has currently released five of his efforts, including I Don't Hear Nothin' but the Blues Volume 2: Appalachian Haze (with Mike Pride and Mick Barr), Outright! Unhinged (with Ralph Alessi, Jacob Sacks, John Hebert and Tom Rainey) and It Takes All Kinds (featuring Mark Helias and Barry Altschul), and most recently, the dual release of Behind the Sky (featuring Tom Harrell, Luis Perdomo, Yasushi Nakamura and Rudy Royston) as well as Jon's first solo saxophone recording, Inaction is an Action."

-Jon Irabagon Website (http://www.jonirabagon.com/bio/)
4/9/2025

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Mark Shim is a jazz tenor saxophonist. Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Shim's family moved to Canada when he was eight and then settled in Richmond, Virginia five years later. He started on sax in seventh grade, graduating from high school in 1991 and attending Virginia Commonwealth University and William Paterson College. In 1994 he moved to Brooklyn, where he played and recorded with Hamiett Bluiett in Harlem. He then played with Elvin Jones, Mose Allison, Betty Carter, Greg Osby, and the Mingus Big Band. Shim's debut record for Blue Note appeared in 1998, with two more following on the label in 2000."

-Blue Note (https://www.bluenote.com/artist/mark-shim/)
4/9/2025

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Adam O'Farrill is a trumpet player and composer from Brooklyn, NY. As a trumpeter, he has performed and/or recorded with artists such as Rudresh Mahanthappa, Mary Halvorson, Arturo O'Farrill, Mulatu Astatke, Brasstracks, Stephan Crump, Onyx Collective, Anna Webber, and Samora Pinderhughes. As a composer and bandleader, he has led the quartet, Stranger Days, comprised of Chad Lefkowitz-Brown, Walter Stinson, and Zack O'Farrill. Their eponymous debut (2016, Sunnyside Records) was inspired by film and literature, while the follow-up album, El Maquech (2018, Biophilia Records) covered everything from Mexican folk music to Irving Berlin, as well as O'Farrill's original compositions. Both were critically acclaimed, with the New York Times writing of the first release, "Marshaling a sharp band of his peers, Mr. O'Farrill establishes both a firm identity and a willful urge to stretch and adapt.". The latter album was listed as one of the best jazz albums of 2018 by the NPR Jazz Critics Poll, The Boston Globe, and Nextbop. Adam's newest project, Bird Blown Out of Latitude, is an electro-acoustic nonet, playing original music inspired by the feeling of being pushed off a perceived path.

O'Farrill comes from a rich musical background, with his grandfather being the Afro-Cuban-Irish composer and arranger Chico O'Farrill, his father being the cultural boundary-pushing composer and pianist Arturo O'Farrill, his mother Alison Deane being a classical pianist and educator, and his brother Zack O'Farrill being a drummer, composer, and educator. Adam is of Mexican, Cuban, and Irish heritage on his dad's side, and Eastern European Jewish and African-American on his mom's side. This, combined with growing up in a place of immense cultural diversity, has shaped his tendency to break stylistic borders within not only his original music, but also in terms of who he works with a sideman. O'Farrill was subject of an article in Jazztimes entitled, "Adam O'Farrill Does Not Play Latin Jazz", where he spoke about the unfair treatment and pigeonholing of Latinx musicians.

Adam made his professional recording debut on Chad Lefkowitz-Brown's debut album, Imagery Manifesto, in 2013. In 2015, he appeared on two critically acclaimed records; Rudresh Mahanthappa's Bird Calls and Arturo O'Farrill's Cuba: The Conversation Continues. Adam toured internationally with Mahanthappa's band from 2014 to 2017, performing at the Newport Jazz Festival, Chicago Symphony Hall, North Sea Jazz Festival, Cape Town International Jazz Festival, and more. In 2016, in addition to releasing Stranger Days, O'Farrill appeared on Stephan Crump's album, Rhombal, also garnering acclaim. Other projects he has recorded include Stimmerman (eponymous debut), Olli Hirvonen's New Helsinki, Gabriel Zucker's Weighting, and Onyx Collective's Lower East Suite Part One. Adam will also be featured on upcoming albums from Mary Halvorson, Anna Webber, Raf Vertessen, Thomas Champagne, and Idan Morim.

Adam studied at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School, and obtained his Bachelor of Music degree from the Manhattan School of Music. He's studied trumpet with Jim Seeley, Nathan Warner, and Thomas Smith, and composition with Reiko Fueting and Curtis Macdonald. In 2014, O'Farrill won 3rd place honors at the Thelonious Monk Institute Jazz Trumpet Competition. He was also a recipient of the ASCAP Herb Albert Young Jazz Composer Award in 2013.

-Adam O'Farrill Website (https://www.adam-ofarrill.com/bio)
4/9/2025

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Marcus Gilmore (born October 10, 1986) is an American drummer. In 2009, New York Times critic Ben Ratliff included Gilmore in his list of drummers who are "finding new ways to look at the drum set, and at jazz itself", saying, "he created that pleasant citywide buzz when someone new and special blows through New York clubs and jam sessions"..

Marcus Gilmore is the grandson of Roy Haynes, who gave him his first drum kit at the age of ten, and the nephew of Graham Haynes.

A graduate of the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, Marcus also received full ride scholarships to the Juilliard School of Music and Manhattan School of Music. He has been touring professionally since the age of sixteen.

Marcus has performed with some of today's best known contemporary jazz artists, including Chick Corea, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Nicholas Payton, Steve Coleman, Vijay Iyer, and Ambrose Akinmusire. He is also embarking on solo projects with his bands "Actions Speak" and "Silhouwav."

He has been named a protégé of the 2018 Rolex Mentors And Protégé project.

In August 2020, Gilmore contributed to the live streamed recording of the singer Bilal's EP VOYAGE-19, created remotely during the COVID-19 lockdowns. It was released the following month with proceeds from its sales going to participating musicians in financial hardship from the lockdown.

[...]

Like his grandfather, Gilmore draws upon a wide variety of influences from Tony Williams to free jazz drummer Milford Graves. When talking about Graves in Modern Drummer, he said "A lot of Milford's playing deals with rhythm, but not in a very metric way-it's non-metric, a lot of waves. It's still melodic, even more so because it's very linguistic. Milford doesn't even really play snares. He keeps the snares off. His drumming sounds very melodic and very lyrical. It sounds like a language." He has specifically cited Elvin Jones on the album Speak No Evil and Tony Williams' Lifetime as influences."

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Gilmore)
4/9/2025

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Mauricio Herrera is from the eastern province of Holguin, Cuba. The interest in music comes from the musical legacy of his family but He first entered the world of music was at age 7 playing violin, but by 14 began studying percussion where he found his niche. After graduation from the Jose Maria Ochoa Conservatory in Holguin, he began playing in various local popular and folkloric groups and was on faculty at Escuela Vocacional de Arte. In 1994 he moved to La Habana to broaden his horizons, where he played, toured, and recorded with several of the most prominent Popular bands in the Nineties in Cuba as Paulito FG y su Elite, Manolito Simonet y su trabuco, Manolín el Medico de la salsa, Pachito Alonso y sus Kini Kini. Juan Kemmel y la Barriada, Hector Valentin, Angel Bonne., In 2001 he relocated to Mexico where he played with several projects including Otra Idea Orquestra, Amaury Gutierrez, David Torrens, and many others.

In 2005 Mauricio moved to New York where he currently resides. He has played, recorded and toured with: David Sanchez, Stefon Harris, Nicholas Payton, Christian Scott - 90 Miles Project, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Ignacio Berroa, Yerba Buena, Lila Downs, Manuel Valera and the New Cuban Express, Alfredo de la Fe, Bryan Lynch, Luis Perdomo, The Rodriguez Brothers, Dave Samuels and The Caribbean Jazz Project, Hector Martignon, Batyr Shukenov, La India, Spanish Harlem Orquestra, Steve Coleman, Jackie Terrasson, John Benitez, Mark Weinstein, Lew Soloff, Aruan Ortiz, Candido Camero, Yerba Buena, Osmany Paredes , Pedro Martinez y Grupo Ibboru, Cimarron project, Francisco Mela, Robby Ameen featuring Ruben Blades, Yosvany Terry Afrocuban Roots & Sextet and many others.

Mauricio Herrera Has Given Concerts and Master Classes in Different Music Colleges and Universities as, Boys & Girls Harbor ,The Banff Centre in Canada, Berklee College of music, Yale University, Harvard University, Stanford University, JAZZUV University in Xalapa Mexico. and also performing around the World with Several major artists from the Scene of Jazz and other Musical Genres.

Mauricio is Currently Endorsed by Latin Percussion LP and Vic Firth Drum Sticks."

-Mauricio Herrera Website (http://www.mauricioherreramusic.com/bio-2)
4/9/2025

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Bassist Kim Cass is from an island off the coast of Maine, where he was introduced to bass playing at age 10. He quickly developed a unique style on the electric bass and began playing the upright bass at age 13. Developing this instrument in a jazz context became Kim's passion, as well as composing music featuring his upright playing.

When studying at the New England Conservatory of Music, Cass received personalized instruction from several virtuoso musicians including George Garzone, Ran Blake, Joe Morris and Joe Maneri. Cass currently resides in New York City. He has been featured in a wide variety of ensembles, executing music that is ever challenging and beautifully mysterious. Cass has performed with the likes of Matt Mitchell, Tyshawn Sorey, John Zorn and Bill McHenry. The solo album KIM CASS, released on Table and Chairs, is a showcase of Kim's upright bass playing and compositions. He is currently composing and practicing material for his next recording project, scheduled for 2018."

-Miller Theatre (https://www.millertheatre.com/explore/bios/kim-cass)
4/9/2025

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Mexican born vibraphonist, marimbist and composer Patricia Brennan has been always surrounded by music. She inherited a deep love and appreciation for musical tradition from both parents, as well as being exposed to the musical richness of her native Port of Veracruz. She started studying music at 4 years old, playing latin percussion along salsa records with her father and listening to Jimmy Hendrix and Led Zeppelin records with her mother. Also, around the same age, she started playing piano, influenced by her grandmother who was a concert pianist.

At the age of 17, Patricia was selected from musicians all over the Americas to be part of the Youth Orchestra of the Americas. During this time, she toured every country in the Americas and performed with renowned musicians such as Yo-Yo Ma and Paquito D'Rivera. Before moving to the U. S., Patricia was already performing with the top symphony orchestras in Mexico, such as Xalapa Symphony Orchestra and Mineria Symphony Orchestra. Also, she had already won several awards on marimba competitions and young artist competitions in Mexico and abroad. She was accepted at the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where she was able to perform alongside high caliber musicians from all over the world and conductors such as Simon Rattle and Charles Dutoit. She also performed with the prestigious Philadelphia Orchestra and other acclaimed new music groups such as members from Eight Blackbird.

Patricia's search for freedom in her musical expression led her to find her voice through the vibraphone and mallet percussion in improvisational music and composition.

Currently, Patricia is a member of Grammy nominated John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble and Michael Formanek Ensemble Kolossus. She is also a member of Blind Spot with Teju Cole, a project led by renowned pianist Vijay Iyer along with bassist Linda Oh and writer Teju Cole. She has also collaborated with Vijay Iyer in other projects, including the large ensemble project Open City and several small ensemble performances along with renowned musicians like bassist Reggie Workman and trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith. She is also a member of Phalanx Ambassadors, a project led by pianist Matt Mitchell, and she is also a member of Tomas Fujiwara's 7 Poets Trio along with cellist and composer Tomeka Reid. Among Patricia's own projects include the newly recorded solo project Kaleidoscope and MOCH.

Patricia has performed with many renown musicians including singer and composer Meredith Monk and Theo Bleckmann, saxophonists Jon Irabagon and Scott Robinson, trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire, drummer Marcus Gilmore, guitarist Mary Halvorson and many others. She has performed in venues such as Newport Jazz Festival, SF JAZZ, and Carnegie Hall, as well as international venues such as Wiener Konzerthaus in Vienna, Austria, Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City and Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She has also appeared on National Television and Public Radio several times.

Patricia has appeared on several recordings, including an ECM recording with Michael Formanek Ensemble Kolossus called "The Distance" and Matt Mitchell's featured recordings "A Pouting Grimace" and "Phalanx Ambassadors" under Pi Recordings. Also, Patricia recorded a new record with the Grammy nominated John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble called "All Can Work" which was released in January 2018 under New Amsterdam Records. Patricia will be releasing her debut solo album "Kaleidoscope" in 2019."

-Patricia Brennan Website (http://www.patriciabrennanvibes.com/bio)
4/9/2025

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



1. Los Otros Yo 5:14

2. Breaking Stretch 7:54

3. 555 6:50

4. Palo de Oros 9:41

5. Suenos de Coral Azul 5:23

6. Five Suns 5:44

7. Mudanza 4:09

8. Manufacturers Trust Company Building 3:38

9. Earendel 7:30

Related Categories of Interest:


Improvised Music
Jazz
Free Improvisation
Jazz & Improvisation Based on Compositions
NY Downtown & Metropolitan Jazz/Improv
Septet recordings
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