COMPOSERS: Ivo Perelman
LABELS: Leo
PERFORMER: Ivo Perelman (ts), Joseph Scianni (p), Jay Rosen (d)
CATALOGUE NO: CD LR 309
The prolific Perelman is a Brazilian with a liking for drinking rocket fuel, if what comes out of his saxophone is anything to go by. This brusque, chattering meeting with Americans Scianni and Rosen sees him sometimes mollifying his most explosive side, but there are still plenty of moments when he’s not far from achieving blast-off, particularly in the herculean 23-minute blow-out of ‘Fruition’.
Although the seven themes are all credited to Perelman, they play like freely formed triologues into which the pianist and drummer are just as eager to get stuck. Brooding and tearful one moment, exultant the next, Perelman is a throwback to earlier generations of free-formers: he’s careless about pitch and position even when he’s playing a ‘tune’, and he cracks notes and goes for batsqueak territory with an almost madcap abandon.
Still, you only rarely feel that he’s not in control. It’s exhausting, but exhilarating too. Although the booklet notes are full of enjoyably pretentious waffle about how the music relates to Perelman’s own ‘action painting’, the music’s the thing. Richard Cook