San Francisco-reared vibraphonist Sasha Berliner finds herself at the crest of two waves in the music business.
For one, she’s a leading force on an instrument that has been embraced by a brilliant cadre of young players, taking the vibes from the margins to the center of the contemporary jazz scene. Meanwhile, she’s part of a wave of young jazz artists who’ve relocated from New York City to Los Angeles, transforming the Southland scene.
Thriving as a player, bandleader, collaborator and educator, she returns to the Bay Area several times in the coming weeks for a series of gigs, performing in different contexts with bands that reflect L.A.’s rise as a 21st-century jazz mecca.
Her Bay Area engagements start Dec. 7 at Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society in Half Moon Bay with a quintet featuring Bay Area bassist Giulio Xavier Cetto and the L.A. tandem of pianist Javier Santiago and drummer Anthony Fung, both graduates of the prestigious Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz at UCLA.
Rounding out the group is trumpeter Anthony Hervey, a New York connection of Berliner’s who recently took a position at San Francisco Conservatory’s Roots, Jazz and American Music program. The performance will also be live-streamed.
“Anthony happened to be there when this gig was coming around and the Bach people really wanted me to bring in a quintet,” said Berliner, 27. “He’s an amazing player. We’ve actually never played together but there was a while when we were seeing each other around the world, in L.A., the Netherlands or Belin, but never New York.”
She returns to the Bay Area for a Dec. 27 Miner Auditorium double bill as part of SFJAZZ Executive Artistic Director Terence Blanchard’s UpSwing Series on a program with the stellar vocalist Michael Mayo. She’s again joined by Cetto on acoustic and electric bass and Santiago on piano, players who’ve worked widely together in duo, trio and larger configurations. Drummer Myles Martin and saxophonist Tristan Cappel round out this quintet.
She met Martin in L.A. and he played on her April album release gigs for her new album “Fantôme.” Santiago has performed with her several times, “and it’s great to have musicians who’ve played your music before,” she said. She used to run into Cappel when they both lived in New York and has reconnected with him in L.A.
“He’s really sweet and nice to work with,” Berliner said. “He can play alto sax, flute, and bass clarinet, and add a lot of colors.”
She concludes the spate of Bay Area shows with a Stanford Live performance at The Studio Jan. 17. Rather than a quintet it’s a duo concert with piano star Paul Cornish, who’s been performing internationally with saxophonist Joshua Redman and recently released his debut album on Blue Note Records, “You’re Exaggerating!”
They’ve known each other for several years. Like Berliner, Cornish relocated from New York to Los Angeles. “He’s made such a name for himself,” Berliner said. “Paul has such a unique sound. It’s cool he’s pioneered his owns style. We did a duo show at the Healdsburg Jazz Festival last year and wanted another opportunity.”
The piano/vibes duo is a format inextricably linked to Chick Corea and Gary Burton, who recorded a series of popular ECM albums together starting with 1973’s “Crystal Silence.” Burton was one of Berlin’s early influences, and in the duo setting she tends to play with four mallets, a Burton trademark, “so it could conjure that kind of vibe,” she said. “And we did Chick’s ‘Windows’ at Healdsburg, but Paul’s comps are nothing like his. It’s its own thing.”
She and Cornish are also linked as fellow members of the music faculty at UC Irvine, a position she’s held since 2023. It’s not a school known for its jazz program, “and there are a lot of non-jazz majors, which brings a different perspective,” she said. “I like students interested in multiple things as long as they’re working hard.”
Hard work has been the hallmark of her rise to prominence, an ethic that has led to international collaborations like a September concert with the storied German jazz outfit the Frankfurt Radio Big Band featuring arrangements of her compositions.
In October, graduate students at the Amsterdam Conservatory presented a concert of her music, and at Boston’s Berklee College of Music concluded a seminar focusing on her compositions with a program by the Sasha Berliner Berklee Ensemble.
It’s been a dizzying schedule that doesn’t seem likely to slow down anytime soon. With jazz stars like Christian McBride, Cécile McLorin Salvant and Tyshawn Sorey calling her for gigs, every new challenge sharpens an artist who has sliced through the noise to flourish as a full-spectrum creative force.
Contact Andrew Gilbert at jazzscribe@aol.com.
SASHA BERLINER
When & where: 4:30 p.m. Dec. 7 at Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society, Half Moon Bay; $40-$50 ($12 livestream); bachddsoc.org; 7:30 p.m. Dec. 27 at SFJAZZ Center, San Francisco; $44.50-$94.50; www.sfjazz.org; 7 p.m. Jan. 17 at The Studio at Stanford University; $30.24-$54; live.stanford.edu