Words by David C. Obenour
For as heady as jazz can be, those of us who aspire to write about it can still get a little (or a lot) in our heads when trying to appreciate and articulate it. Which isn’t to say it isn’t worthy of such deep consideration. Far from it, as arrangements twist and weave between players so dedicated to their craft and instruments – bridging the past and the present with an eye to the future. But still, despite it’s intricacies. But still, despite it’s interplay. But still, despite it’s frantic yet completely controlled nature. It’s a vibe.
Which that lazy wordplay makes for as good a jumping off point as any in attempting to appreciate and articulate what Sasha Berliner has accomplished on Fantôme. The young instrumentalist and composer already has an impressive range of accolades, awards, and chart topping accomplishments – all of which demand deep consideration – but her path and position here are arrived for her own. The modern sound is steeped in tradition with from a culmination of sounds. Not only from the many schools of jazz but from an informed and unbound creativity.
Off Shelf: Apologies for asking you to indulge me, but what draws you to the vibraphone as an instrument?
Sasha Berliner: It’s always been the perfect bridge between the percussive and melodic. Given that I started on drums, it sort of facilitated my interest in arranging and composing by introducing me to that melodic side. I also think it just sounds unique and very beautiful, especially with soft mallets.
OS: With a background as a drummer, do you think that gives you a different appreciation or approach to it?
SB: Yes! I think I just had to work harder to build up the harmonic and melodic side of music in order to understand it. I would say though that not everything drumstick related translates to mallets only because mallets feel different in the hands, they have uneven weight on one side, heavier than sticks, etc.
OS: Reading through your biography, I was struck by how many early highlights happened during and around the pandemic. Did that make any of it feel surreal? How does it feel now to be releasing music and being able to enjoy the celebration of it in community?
SB: I think in the moment it doesn’t feel that way, necessarily. [laughs] I’m a pretty harsh self critic so I’m always imagining where I can improve my sound and do better – even in the midst of achievements. There were a couple moments I felt very excited and proud of, of course, and I learned a lot from all of them. The SWR New Jazz Meeting felt surreal because they decided to commission me for that project/workshop/tour all from only my first album. I wasn’t even sure about putting that album out – I was still in college and those were some of my earliest compositions – so I’m glad it had resonated so much with them there! The Letter One Rising Stars Jazz award tour was also my first big international tour. It was exciting but also nerve wracking and really taught me what being on the road as a bandleader is like – not easy! How to handle finances, schedules, sheet music, rehearsals, visas, last minute changes or accidents, everything.
Releasing music now, I think I’ve grown a lot and my sound has become more refined and focused. That’s really rewarding to hear, even if I still feel there’s even more growing to do. I am always so grateful for the communities that celebrate me, especially because it’s hard for me to give that sense of appreciation and reassurance to myself sometimes. It makes me feel better to focus on the connection outside of myself or what I perceive to be my own shortcomings or weaknesses – it draws away from the ego altogether, and I have to remind myself that’s ultimately what music is all about. Focusing on how my music can help and inspire others, it can motivate them to practice, to delve deeper into themselves and their own work, to explore what parts of music pique their interest or help them shape their own voice, their emotions, mark important experiences or moments in their lives – those things give me more meaning and appreciation and a sense of community than anything.
OS: A different sort of confinement, you’ve talked about the restrictions that are set through the categorization of music. In what ways do you find those unique in how jazz is marketed and talked about by the press?
SB: Well, I think part of why I said that is because I don’t know if jazz is always unique in that way. Jazz, of course, has come to mean many things now being hundred plus years in existence, and with multiple different eras and “dialects” of the music – ragtime, swing, bebop, hard bop, fusion, modern, etc. Jazz in its current state exists as an amalgamation of all of these eras that came before, rather than emerging from a single “era” or “dialect”. It’s more like a web of connections than a singular evolution.
But I don’t know if the press or marketing always sees it this way. First of all, press still has a bias that women shouldn’t be presenting their own voice – if they don’t sound exactly like someone who came before them, that’s usually not heralded or celebrated in a way that it is for men, who are dubbed geniuses and trailblazers. They are often encouraged to sound more familiar, and present more familiarly – I’m always asked if I sing or if I’ll start singing. Like being an instrumentalist or composer only makes people uncomfortable. It’s not as familiar. But I love being in the uncomfortable and unfamiliar. I think you find who you really are by exploring that.
Ironically, a lot of popular jazz festivals nowadays have non jazz acts headlining to attract a wider audience – that’s definitely a marketing tool. I don’t necessarily have an issue with that since I certainly don’t only listen to jazz, and now there’s a lot of cross disciplinary, cross genre artists in the mainstream. I just worked on an album with the rapper Juicy J, and he wanted a bunch of jazz musicians on the project, co writing and improvising with him and everything. There’s no doubt a lot of jazz influence in some of the acts that have headlined jazz festivals but aren’t necessarily jazz artists – DJ Pee Wee (Anderson Paak), Tems, Khruangbin, Stevie Wonder, Thee Sacred Souls, Leon Thomas.
OS: Your third album now, can you think of ways that you felt restrictions had been set on your previous releases?
SB: I wouldn’t say restrictions were set as much as I just learned more about how to write and develop good compositions and solos as time went on. I honed in on my voice. I became more confident. It’s possible that that helped me become less “restricted” in a way, although you could argue that I used more restrictions to hone in on my sound.
I guess one thing I would say is that on my first album, I was still in college and juggling a million things just trying to finish with a degree, so I didn’t have the space and time to develop that I did during Onyx, which I primarily wrote and recorded at the end of my time in college and also during the pandemic.
OS: How did your approach on Fantôme address that? In composition, performance, and maybe other ways – such as album art or the things you set as intentions when discussing the music?
SB: I just became a more confident and focused artist. I knew how to conduct a more efficient rehearsal, how to articulate when I did or didn’t want a certain sound, how to write music charts that were as straightforward and clear as possible. I guess I would say that Fantôme did have significantly less recording and rehearsal time than Onyx – this was due to my label at the time of Onyx’s release, JMI – and Onyx was recorded to tape whereas Fantôme was not, and tape can take more time and have more restrictions when it comes to overdubbing, restricting digital methods of recording or emitting sound. I think tape sounds amazing but it is definitely more time consuming, and you also have less room for error since you can’t really edit tape in the way you can edit a digitally tracked recording project.
OS: The interplay between you and Taylor Eigsti at the end of UMMG hits me every time. There has to be many, but can you share some moments between you and the others that stand out to you from the album?
SB: Yes, that was so much fun to record! And such a ride, too. To me it’s kind of like a winding roller coaster or something. It’s exciting, it’s got all of these twists and turns. I wanted to start the album with a bang and a statement and I thought it was the perfect song to do that, whereas on my first album, say, the first song really served as an introduction and a slow introduction into the rest of the album.
Other favorite moments.
The end of Zenith was so much fun. I told the horn players to just go off and each do their own things, play off of each other while soloing, and there’s this really amazing moment towards the end where Rico and Dave kind of match each other’s same exact note. I decided not to fade out the song earlier because of that moment. I couldn’t leave it out! It really has this amazing freedom.
I loved putting the shadow effect on my vibraphone on The Worst Person in the World. That’s the lower octave you can kind of hear shadowing the main vibraphone melody notes. I got that idea from a Jason Moran album called The Sound Will Tell You. My engineer Ben Kane totally pulled off this effect and made it seem natural. We introduced it kind of in and out of the song in different parts to emphasize certain phrases or moods. It adds a whole other layer of depth to this song. You do really have to listen for it!
OS: You named your song Khan Yunis after a city in Palestine that is now largely destroyed. The playing is certainly charged, but I was wondering how you feel the music speaks to this?
SB: I think Khan Younis embraces a lot of different emotions, which reflects how many of us feel about the situation. Hopeless, horrified, trying to find some method of hope or fight. There’s a darkness introduced by the chords and the textures of the beginning. The melody also takes sort of a hopefully spin towards the end before diving back into the dark feeling at the top of the song. That kind of mimics what I think the children in particular feel in their state of innocence and what it feels like to have that all taken away. I actually feel like this song gets charged for a moment during the solos and maybe towards the end, but I don’t think it holds that feeling the entire time at all. I think there’s a sensitivity in this song and a definitive darkness, twistedness, and at the end, kind of a wild dream of a future without war. I think many people in my generation are very anti war and that will become a hallmark of our values.
OS: Do you have a hope for how your music is heard and considered by listeners? For these songs in particular, what listening to it will leave them feeling?
SB: I don’t think I have a specific hope other than that it is received with an open mind and heart. That’s how I try to listen to music. Find what you like, what images the music conjures that relate to your own experiences. You might understand it as jazz, as alternative, as fusion, as folk, as gentle, all in different points of the album. It is again that call to evade categorization and just listen to something for what it is. Some of these songs have deeper meanings – Khan Younis (Palestine), The Worst Person in the World (after the film), Private Investigation (after many crime/mafia films such as Chinatown, Goodfellas, The Godfather). Some of them are just done because they are interesting to me and I think they would be interesting to someone. One of my favorite writers, Susan Sontag, wrote an essay called “On Style” from her book Against Interpretation – one of her big arguments was that we shouldn’t seek to decode every little thing in art as having a deeper meaning or needing interpretation because it can take away from the immediate sensory impact of something. A lot of modern art, including “modern jazz”, benefits from this approach from time to time. Fantôme asks to stop needing jazz to sound a certain, familiar, categorical way, and just to take a lot of it as is.
If you don’t understand something, or it challenges your ears, if it’s something new, that’s a sign to be pulled in closer, not push it away. Ultimately everyone at the end of the day relates (or fails to relate) to music in their own way, and that’s not something that I wish to control. But again, I hope it will be approached with an open heart and a mind for challenge and the spectrum of human experience.
It’s really a project of an open heart and full passion. It has a lot of rigor and diligence, and also a lot of heart and depth. Moments of softness and vulnerability. It wouldn’t be me without all of those things. I think all of those things will be felt.