Painting with Sound: Patricia Brennan Speaks
From L to R: Marcus Gilmore, Kim Cass, Patricia Brennan, Mauricio Herrera. Photo by Deneka Peniston.
by Stephanie Jones
Blocks from the Gulf of Mexico, Patricia Brennan’s childhood home hummed with distant melodies. In her native city of Veracruz, the artist and composer encountered profound cultural exchange among immigrants from all over the world, with Afro-Cuban music behind every dune. “It was everywhere,” says Brennan, “particularly in the ports. There’s this whole array of cultures and people that have made Veracruz their home.”
With the release of More Touch (Pyroclastic Records), the vibraphonist and marimbist’s homage to her hometown, Brennan unleashes her creative energy on the traditional percussion ensemble. Assembling a quartet that features equally imaginative artists and musical historians, Brennan creates new vessels for mixing tradition and experimentation. She spoke with the Gallery about her textural aesthetic, studio preparation and transforming longing into inspiration.
The Jazz Gallery: I'd love to start by hearing your interpretation of collective texture, how it directly relates to the percussion ensemble and how it really shapeshifts in this band, on this record. How do you relate to this concept and what were you interested in exploring texturally on this record?
Patricia Brennan: Essentially this concept comes from the percussion ensemble and a lot of the repertoire I used to play in those groups. I used to have a percussion quartet—many, many years ago, I would say it’s my past life. And a lot of the composers who write for percussion are fairly new because the repertoire itself is probably from the 1940s, 1950s and forward. And then percussion ensemble is a whole other thing where you have mostly composers from the ’70s, ’80s and on. So it’s pretty new, that concept of collective texture.
I start with texture first because I always think as a percussionist. It’s not that we don’t think about pitch; it’s more that pitch is just one color out of many. A tempered note would be the same as a bang on a piece of metal or wood. It’s all part of the same fabric or sonic palette. And then there’s the collective aspect. In a percussion group, there’s no hierarchy. Everybody is completely equal. Every layer is as important as the other. As a collective, you enter almost this whole other universe. Each individual line has its own rhythmic pattern, its own phrasing, and so on. But when you put it all together, it becomes this other organism. And you need each piece, each person, for it to become this new organism.
So for this project, I wanted for the four of us to have an equal voice. On a lot of the pieces, we get into these moments of literal collective texture where it just becomes one sound, alone. There’s no melody or rhythm per se that you could pinpoint—it’s a combination of all of that. That’s one of my favorite parts of percussion quartet or percussion music. Once you get into that trance, you forget the individual and you focus more on the whole.
TJG: With these three specific artists, did you have in mind where you might be able to go with the idea of collective texture, anything intentional in your mind reflective of these distinct musical personalities, or was it more, “Let’s get together and see what we can do with this music…?”
PB: I wouldn’t say it was written for them, but before putting the band together, I put a lot of thought as to who was going to be part of it. The collective texture concept, that was a big one. I needed to make sure I chose musicians that could think in a particular way—I wanted to find four percussionists. But there were many other things.
I wanted the dynamic to be comfortable and fluid. Kim, I’ve known him now definitely 10 years. He doesn’t really think like a bass player even though he can definitely take that role. He’s a drummer. And he embodies that persona. So getting together to just see what happens, that also happened—but I think because I already knew how they think about music and how they react, what their instincts are, that helped bring what I wanted out of the music.
Marcus is another. The drummer was a tricky one because I needed somebody that could really be completely malleable. But also, there’s a lot of groove elements to this record. I needed somebody who could embody that in a really in the pocket way [laughs]. Somebody who could also think like a contemporary percussionist—that could think about sound in this very open and creative way. Marcus checks all those categories. He’s such a musician. Even when I was a classical percussionist, I’ve always said there’s the percussionists that play percussion and there’s the musicians that play percussion. Marcus is a musician that plays the drums. How he hears music, how he reacts to it, really makes my job as a leader so much easier.
Mauricio was one of the hardest roles to fill because in that tradition; it’s hard to find percussionists that can be flexible. It’s such a fixed tradition—the patterns are fixed, the tradition itself is very tight. Mauricio is one of the few percussionists that knows the tradition extremely well and can tap into it whenever he wants, but he also has that flexibility of thought. Especially something like this, it’s very unorthodox for that type of instrument [laughs]. We had to work together to figure out what we could use from the tradition, so we [could] still give a hint to where the instrument comes from. That was important for me, to try to imply the tradition a little bit.
TJG: Mauricio is actually playing a number of drums, including batá; can you clarify which instruments he’s playing at various points?
PB: He has the three batás in one setup. Then he has the conga drums—the quinto, the conga, the tumbadora. And then he has a bunch of smaller [instruments], especially for those pieces that are free and textural and kind of liquid. I love his creativity with that. For percussionists, instead of 12 notes, any sound becomes part of our scales. There are so many times when he answers something melodic with the perfect sound in the perfect place. I couldn’t have written it that way.
TJG: Can you share specifically, for our gearhead readers, what programs and digital equipment you're exploring throughout More Touch?
PB: It’s important for me that everything happens live. There’s no post-production sounds [on the record], even though it might sound that way sometimes [laughs]. I have this amplification system, basically each bar of my vibraphone is a pickup. And that goes through a mixer and the mixer goes through a guitar pedal rig. And in this case, I recorded through an amp, which gives the vibraphone an interesting tone.
To get really specific, on this particular record, I used the Jazz Chorus amp, which gives a very smooth, clean, almost liquid sound to the tone of the vibraphone. A lot of those bending elements, it’s the whammy pedal. I grew up listening to Jimi Hendrix, but I never could play guitar. When I created this setup I thought, This is my time to do something closer to that [laughs]. That’s just another way of painting with sound. And that particular rig allows me to do that.
I use a bunch of other sounds. One that stands out is the Kaoss Pad. It’s kind of an older model that has a touch screen, and that’s where you get that kind of scratchy sound. That comes from an influence of turntablism. My husband is a turntablist. I love that tradition. I don’t know how to do anything on the turntable, but it’s another percussion instrument in a way. They have their own rudiments. So I really wanted to be able to incorporate a little of that aspect into the record. Then I have some delay and granular pedals.
TJG: This ensemble's use of space is masterful, as is its collective shape creation. What excites you about the prospect of touring this record with these artists and seeing where you're all able to take the music?
PB: It’s something I definitely have in mind—something that I have to plan in advance so everybody can make it [laughs]. The collective aspect is super important for me. And, as you were saying, we all have that sense of space as individuals, but as a collective, getting to that space was really important for me. We get into the space of collective texture, but we also get into the space of collective state of mind, breathing together. In chamber music and percussion ensembles, there’s exercises you do to know how to breathe together, to be on the same physical, emotional and mental wavelength.
Before the record, I asked everybody basically to hold an entire week. We rehearsed together I think for six or seven hours for three days straight. And it wasn’t just playing—it was being in the room hanging out together, getting to know each other. All of those things have to do with the music. Our instincts and personalities, the music is an extension of that. And I really believe having those three days of rehearsal had a lot to do with us finding that space easily in the recording studio. So the idea of touring this group and expanding to three days to a week or more, that makes me super excited. For me, that’s the ultimate music making: it’s reactionary, it’s instinct, but it’s just a conversation like you and I are having right now.
TJG: What are you hoping listeners will receive from this record, if anything?
PB: The honesty behind it. That’s really important for me. When I go to a concert, I always think, What are the elements that are making me react to the music? Sometimes it’s not something technical—the emotion, the honesty, the drive. Those groove songs, I think there’s something visceral that we can all relate to, regardless of if the melody’s angular or not. There’s elements of this record that are tapping into natural instincts that we all have as human beings. “The Woman Who Weeps,” that’s a very personal song about an aunt who passed away, but we all are familiar with that feeling [of loss]. So I’m hoping parts of the record can trigger an experience or emotions that are more raw and more general than something very specific about the music.
TJG: Is there anything you’d like to add?
PB: A lot of the record is a love letter to where I’m from. The instrumentation alone, and having Mauricio as a percussionist which [creates] kind of an unusual quartet. Every song is a little hint of things that I grew up with, things that I love listening to or feeling or smelling. Songs about the ocean. As an immigrant, a part of you is always missing that. And there’s always a part of you that wishes one day you’ll go back. So this record is bringing it a little closer to me, and sharing it with other people. It’s a little piece of who I am at a deeper level.
Patricia Brennan plays The Jazz Gallery on Friday, Dec 9, 2022. The band features Ms. Brennan on vibraphone & electronics, Kim Cass on bass, Marcus Gilmore on drums, and Mauricio Herrera on percussion. Sets are at 7:30 and 9:30 P.M. EDT, $30 general admission ($10 for members), $40 limited cabaret seating ($20 for members). Purchase tickets here.