The Brazil-born/NYC-based saxophonist Ivo Perelman’s profligacy is matched only by his ability to continually extract interesting noises and cool music out of the recording situations he organizes. As always, A Modicum of the Blues was recorded live off the floor, with no outline, plan, or brief, other than to have fun creating music together. Perelman’s partners in crime will look familiar to anyone who follows his career: trumpeter Nate Wooley, vibraphonist Matt Moran, bassist Mark Helias, and drummer Tom Rainey have all gotten the invitation to a round of spontaneous composition before. Thus they don’t even need to read the memo – they just bring their axes, their prowess, and their free spirits whenever Perelman picks up the phone.
This album (we won’t even bother trying to figure out what number it is) lives up to its title – it does indeed have a whiff of one of America’s oldest native musical art forms. As anyone familiar with Perelman’s vision knows, he rarely follows tradition when he works, so the tunes eagerly, even gleefully erase bounds as they flow. “Part 1,” “Part 3,” “Part 4,” and “Part 5” twist collective improvisation into beautiful grotesques, their timbre fierce but performances playful. (The semi-ambient “Part 2” serves as a romantic interlude of sorts.) Though the arrangements sometimes whirl like tornadoes, there’s never a sense of malice or aggression. Each player merely follows his muse wherever she leads, always keeping an ear out for the locus at which each melody intersects.
Perelman has long used the tools of jazz to create edifices of his own design. A Modicum of the Blues is not only one of his best, but even one of his most accessible statements.
