| Jazz |
Frequent listeners will immediately recognize the European cultural roots of this composer and double bassist. Yet, like any artist who has lived for years in the United States, his influences have been nourished by other traditions, and between the origins of jazz, classical sources, and folk idioms, an especially compelling concept takes shape. Some bassists, when composing, try to escape the gravitational pull of the rhythm section, take, for example, Renaud Garcia-Fons,, so as to make their instrument a full-fledged character and open a kind of dialogue. In Jakob Dreyer’s case, however, a quiet rhythmic insistence slides into what becomes his identity. And when one turns to his sixteen-track album, the perspective shifts entirely.
Roots And Things presents Dreyer’s most personal work to date. Sixteen pieces, an unusual abundance in a world of minimalist statements, invite deep listening rather than casual sampling. The album, available on Fresh Sound Records, feels at once urban and introspective, cinematic and meditative. Its long arc unfolds like a journal of moods, or perhaps a suite of inner monologues.
The sheer number of tracks cannot be accidental. As we move through the album, the music begins to cling to us, looping in the mind long after it stops. Only then does the urban energy, the daily rush, the search for meaning, reveal itself. And what if that meaning were simply the way we choose to see our surroundings? Dreyer’s compositions seem to ask this question quietly, without rhetoric. They explore perception itself: how rhythm becomes thought, how melody mirrors reflection.
One naturally wonders which musicians shaped such a sensibility. Mastery of this kind does not spring from nowhere. Dreyer has shared the stage or studio with artists such as Steve Wilson, Jochen Rueckert, Rich Perry, Anna Webber, Glenn Zaleski, Sasha Berliner, Jon Davis, Tobias Meinhart, Jamie Baum, Mike Holober, David Berkman, Ron Blake, Kenneth Salters, Tivon Pennicott, Billy Drewes, Mareike Wiening, Troy Roberts, Colin Stranahan, Marta Sánchez, Alex Goodman, and Manuel Valera.
It is fascinating that most of these musicians belong to the same ecosystem of postmodern jazz I so often return to in these pages. It is therefore no coincidence to find here the remarkable young vibraphonist Sasha Berliner, precise, elegant, and fiercely individual. She slips seamlessly into Dreyer’s world while retaining her own unmistakable timbre. She is, without exaggeration, one of the most compelling voices of her generation. The quartet she joins here pursues excellence at every level, with compositions that possess both intellectual ambition and emotional clarity.
Such ambition inevitably evokes literary parallels. One might think of Thomas Mann, for whom music was both reflection and exaltation. His *Doctor Faustus*, whose protagonist is a haunted composer, reminds us that sound can embody metaphysical inquiry—that to write music is to probe the limits of reason and spirit alike. Dreyer’s work, though free of Mann’s tragedy, touches on that same impulse: to elevate experience through structure, to find grace in discipline.
Strangely enough, this album also brought to mind Patrick Süskind’s play “The Double Bass”. One could imagine Dreyer’s music underscoring that monologue, adding an extra layer of introspection beyond words. Dreyer’s music, above all, raises the mind. Sixteen compositions: not a collection, but a statement.
Each track becomes a question, a reflection, a note in an unfinished diary. What emerges feels less like a jazz album and more like a chamber symphony for a jazz ensemble, an invitation to dream, to drift, to listen deeply.
Every note reveals a fragment of beauty; every silence, an echo of thought. This album may not be for everyone, it demands attention, patience, and surrender. But for those who allow themselves to be carried by its current, there awaits a form of grace.
November, it is said, will be another month of abundant culture. If so, we owe it to artists like Jakob Dreyer and his collaborators, whose music reminds us that the art of listening remains one of the rarest, and purest, human acts.
Thierry De Clemensat
Member at Jazz Journalists Association
USA correspondent for Paris-Move and ABS magazine
Editor in chief – Bayou Blue Radio, Bayou Blue News
PARIS-MOVE, October 23rd 2025
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Musicians :
Jacok Dreyer, double bass
Tivon Pennicott, tenor sax
Sasha Berliner, vibraphone
Ken Salters, drums
Track Listing :
- The Fifth Floor (Jakob Dreyer) 2:10
Constellation (Jakob Dreyer) 5:56
03. Follower (Jakob Dreyer) 4:34
04. June Tune (Jakob Dreyer) 5:49
05. Land of 1000 Blues (Jakob Dreyer) 0:21
06. With a Song In My Heart (Rodgers-Hart) 5:16
07. Bodega (Jakob Dreyer) 0:31
08. Downtime (Jakob Dreyer) 6:21
09. Fight or Flight (Jakob Dreyer) 5:44
10. MTA (Jakob Dreyer) 0:40
11. Hold On (Jakob Dreyer) 5:12
12. Room 1102 (Jakob Dreyer) 1:54
13. Roots and Things (Jakob Dreyer) 5:20
14. Invisible (Jakob Dreyer) 0:18
15. Big Apple (Jakob Dreyer) 5:03
16. Choral Diner (Jakob Dreyer) 0:40
Recording Engineer: Ryan Streber
Mixed & Mastered by: David Darlington
Photos: Anna Yatskevich
Produced by Jakob Dreyer
Executive Producer: Jordi Pujol
This sound recording © 2025 by Fresh Sound Records
Blue Moon Producciones Discograficas, S.L.