The Egyptian Bennu bird was adapted by the Greeks as the Phoenix, which bathed in a well each dawn when the Greek sun-god Apollo would stop his chariot to listen to the bird’s song. These collective pieces of mythology arise in my mind each time a new album issues from the lips of this extraordinary artist and his collaborators, and here are three more from 2015, but the Phoenix has not burned and there are no ashes to scatter.
IVO PERELMAN/MAT MANERI/TANYA KALMANOVITCH – Villa Lobos Suite
(Leo Records – CD LR742)
Ivo Perelman, Tenor Saxophone; Mat Maneri, Viola; Tanya Kalmanovitch, Viola
Recorded at Parkwest Studios, Brooklyn, NY, May 2015
No, this is not a collection of Villa Lobos tunes, but is merely intended as a tribute to Ivo’s fellow Brazilian composer and more or less by accident. What is not unintended is the pairing of the two violas. The free improv of the previous year’s encounter between Perelman and Maneri proved so endearing that the saxophonist was bold enough to consider that a second viola could only lead to better things. Part of this reasoning stemmed from his wish to experiment with musical schemes arising out of string sections.
The two violas interrelate beautifully, often sounding as just one, their compassionate understanding being so sophisticated that with Perelman’s sax straining to become a third string, there is a distinct frisson of a classical mode which maybe gave rise to the echo of Villa-Lobos, but without the sense of his compositional structures. Listening particularly to the second track, Kalmanovitch is revealed as an immensely intellectual performer when she is heard without Maneri’s exchanges. One can perceive her direction before she sets out on it, so strung is she to the notions of improvisation.
It is understood that each of these artists is well known and well established in the world of the contemporary avant-garde, so it is not really surprising that they could come together in such a bold encounter without resistance one to the other. Their initiatives arise from such ingenuity and innovation that each is free to negotiate with influence the enactment of their particular presentation. This in turn leads to considerable empathy, such that free improvisation becomes their norm and gives us some of the most profuse free music available today.
Reviewed by Ken Cheetham
(Leo Records – CD LR742)
Ivo Perelman, Tenor Saxophone; Mat Maneri, Viola; Tanya Kalmanovitch, Viola
Recorded at Parkwest Studios, Brooklyn, NY, May 2015
No, this is not a collection of Villa Lobos tunes, but is merely intended as a tribute to Ivo’s fellow Brazilian composer and more or less by accident. What is not unintended is the pairing of the two violas. The free improv of the previous year’s encounter between Perelman and Maneri proved so endearing that the saxophonist was bold enough to consider that a second viola could only lead to better things. Part of this reasoning stemmed from his wish to experiment with musical schemes arising out of string sections.
The two violas interrelate beautifully, often sounding as just one, their compassionate understanding being so sophisticated that with Perelman’s sax straining to become a third string, there is a distinct frisson of a classical mode which maybe gave rise to the echo of Villa-Lobos, but without the sense of his compositional structures. Listening particularly to the second track, Kalmanovitch is revealed as an immensely intellectual performer when she is heard without Maneri’s exchanges. One can perceive her direction before she sets out on it, so strung is she to the notions of improvisation.
It is understood that each of these artists is well known and well established in the world of the contemporary avant-garde, so it is not really surprising that they could come together in such a bold encounter without resistance one to the other. Their initiatives arise from such ingenuity and innovation that each is free to negotiate with influence the enactment of their particular presentation. This in turn leads to considerable empathy, such that free improvisation becomes their norm and gives us some of the most profuse free music available today.
Reviewed by Ken Cheetham
