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Here’s a good way to be prolific: improvise everything. It cuts down on production time when you don’t have to write tunes and rehearse a band ahead of time. Of course, that only works when you and your musical compadres are all so good you can read each other’s minds and pull powerful music right out of thin air. Saxophonist Ivo Perelman is an expert at that, which allows him to release records as often as he feels like it. Thus we get a batch of albums from the free jazz master, rather than just one, and all of them find the horn man teamed up with fellow luminaries in the world of spontaneous composition.
Joined by bassist Joe Morris, drummer Reggie Nicholson, and the great trombonist Ray Anderson, Perelman takes a few steps closer to the jazz mainstream on Molten Gold. That’s not to say he’s suddenly embraced hard bop for this project – it’s still improvised off the floor, and follows any path it likes. But “Aqua Regia” and “Warming Up” (presumably a reference to the temperature, as the musicians definitely sound like they were ready from the jump) sound reminiscent of barnstorming but still tune-conscious free jazz icons like Ornette Coleman and Tim Berne – meaning that, while certainly not easy listening (especially given each track’s near half-hour length), the songs maintain some accessibility outside the avant garde. Not a bad thing, and certainly no compromise on the part of the musicians – just a reminder that controlled chaos is not the only route through the free jazz wilderness.
For the first of a pair of releases on the cool label Mahakala Music (a frequent home for Perelman’s work), Perelman teams up with pianist Dave Burrell and drummer Bobby Kapp for another set of adventures in free improv on Trichotomy. “One 3” revolves around Burrell’s pounding piano – he sounds like Cecil Taylor in a bluesy mood – as Kapp pushes, pulls, and whips the beat around. Perelman responds with some of his most exciting solos on record, lighting the grooves on fire. For “Two 3,” the trio pulls back a bit on the energy level, but still lets their creativity wander, more interested here in exploring the nooks and crannies of their collective sound than in blazing away. Trichotomy brims with energy and imagination.
Perelman goes way off the beaten path on Artifical Intelligence by teaming up with eminent genre-shredding New York multi-instrumentalist/composer Elliott Sharp. E# provides scratches, scrapes, skronks, and splatter on guitar, mandolin, and electronics, over which the saxist provides surprisingly lyrical (though still spontaneously erupted) excursions. Despite the odd backgrounds Sharp paints, Perelman seems to find new avenues of accessibility here, keeping the four tracks in elysian fields. Maybe it’s due to the mostly acoustic nature of the participants’ contributions, but Artificial Intelligence sounds like backporch music: two talented pals hooking up to fart around (Kurt Vonnegut’s vision of that phrase, that is) and cast their own distinctive spell.
Perelman and his cohorts don’t make it easy to find your way into the music – you have to come to them, not the other way around. But there’s an honesty in that – these records are unfiltered self-expression, the players speaking from their hearts and souls, and that in itself will reach the same parts of listeners who value that kind of purity of essence. Take a chance, and you may be surprised to find yourself locking onto Perelman’s wavelength.
