(D)IVO SAXOPHONE QUARTET - (D)IVO
Mahakala Music / Digital Album (Streaming and Download)
Ivo Perelman: Tenor Saxophone; Tim Berne: Alto Saxophone; James Carter: Baritone Saxophone; Tony Malaby: Soprano Saxophone
Recorded at Park West Studios, Brooklyn, NY Jan 2022
The format of the quartet is itself unusual and whilst it may be compared with both Rova and the World Saxophone Quartet, (D)IVO employs more radical strategies to effect change in the established musical order, with the goal of achieving their musical freedom. The interactions between the four are so harmonious, continuous and eerie, one could be excused for thinking they were mind-reading. These seven pieces of free improvisation are locked together in execution by the creative eccentricities of the four players. The collective sound is adroitly and gracefully managed by Perelman, blowing at the very top of his form. The four voices come together in enthralling equilibrium and this collective visualisation doubtless was a procreation from Perelman’s restively curious thought processes.
Tony Malaby is for me the odd man out of this saxophone quartet, in that I have no real listening experience of him. I know that he is based in Boston and is on the faculty at Berklee. Listening now, he is full of energy and confidence and has an insightful approach to improvisation. He usually sticks to tenor, but here he demonstrates his skill with the soprano to the point that his dexterity matches that of his three colleagues.
There is drama in the performances. Each musician’s personal cogitations shift between wild enthusiasm and melancholic reflection and as each duo in the quartet is revealed, so does it open a privileged interpretation of their mutually inspiring discourse.
This music is naturally challenging, especially for anyone not familiar with Free-jazz or atonal music of any genre. It is highly animated and confrontational, but poignant and liberating too, for musicians and their audiences alike.
It is worth noting that while Rova and WSQ concentrated on synchronisations that demonstrated the wealth of variety in the resonance of their instruments when brought together, (D)IVO seeks out highly discrete enunciation, expectation and instinctive responses. WSQ was much like a classical string quartet, with tenor playing the part of the cello, naturally.
The seven pieces are numbered rather than named and each is distinct in nature, yet may still be seen as a part of the larger whole. All is unpolluted creativeness. Four musicians, responding to each other’s inner inventions, generate a continuous amity from within which each is able to envisage another’s ideas. Part Five is a particular example of this and it is unusual in that it relates to rhythms and their intricacies, whereas we more usually concern ourselves with tones. Each saxophonist seems to have decided to play to a rhythm of his own, no doubt ‘reading the mind’ of at least one other. The result is a cloud of fragments, formed individually like snowflakes shaped by forces of nature.
The unusual format of the group also contains an echo of one of the major evolutions in jazz as we knew it – away from the trumpet as the principal solo or lead instrument to the saxophone in its many shapes and sizes. This is jazz and while the album is clearly a uniquely creative concept, it is the music as it is played that locks that concept into the ethos of jazz music and its progression into the culture of Free-jazz.
Reviewed by Ken Cheetham
Mahakala Music / Digital Album (Streaming and Download)
Ivo Perelman: Tenor Saxophone; Tim Berne: Alto Saxophone; James Carter: Baritone Saxophone; Tony Malaby: Soprano Saxophone
Recorded at Park West Studios, Brooklyn, NY Jan 2022
The format of the quartet is itself unusual and whilst it may be compared with both Rova and the World Saxophone Quartet, (D)IVO employs more radical strategies to effect change in the established musical order, with the goal of achieving their musical freedom. The interactions between the four are so harmonious, continuous and eerie, one could be excused for thinking they were mind-reading. These seven pieces of free improvisation are locked together in execution by the creative eccentricities of the four players. The collective sound is adroitly and gracefully managed by Perelman, blowing at the very top of his form. The four voices come together in enthralling equilibrium and this collective visualisation doubtless was a procreation from Perelman’s restively curious thought processes.
Tony Malaby is for me the odd man out of this saxophone quartet, in that I have no real listening experience of him. I know that he is based in Boston and is on the faculty at Berklee. Listening now, he is full of energy and confidence and has an insightful approach to improvisation. He usually sticks to tenor, but here he demonstrates his skill with the soprano to the point that his dexterity matches that of his three colleagues.
There is drama in the performances. Each musician’s personal cogitations shift between wild enthusiasm and melancholic reflection and as each duo in the quartet is revealed, so does it open a privileged interpretation of their mutually inspiring discourse.
This music is naturally challenging, especially for anyone not familiar with Free-jazz or atonal music of any genre. It is highly animated and confrontational, but poignant and liberating too, for musicians and their audiences alike.
It is worth noting that while Rova and WSQ concentrated on synchronisations that demonstrated the wealth of variety in the resonance of their instruments when brought together, (D)IVO seeks out highly discrete enunciation, expectation and instinctive responses. WSQ was much like a classical string quartet, with tenor playing the part of the cello, naturally.
The seven pieces are numbered rather than named and each is distinct in nature, yet may still be seen as a part of the larger whole. All is unpolluted creativeness. Four musicians, responding to each other’s inner inventions, generate a continuous amity from within which each is able to envisage another’s ideas. Part Five is a particular example of this and it is unusual in that it relates to rhythms and their intricacies, whereas we more usually concern ourselves with tones. Each saxophonist seems to have decided to play to a rhythm of his own, no doubt ‘reading the mind’ of at least one other. The result is a cloud of fragments, formed individually like snowflakes shaped by forces of nature.
The unusual format of the group also contains an echo of one of the major evolutions in jazz as we knew it – away from the trumpet as the principal solo or lead instrument to the saxophone in its many shapes and sizes. This is jazz and while the album is clearly a uniquely creative concept, it is the music as it is played that locks that concept into the ethos of jazz music and its progression into the culture of Free-jazz.
Reviewed by Ken Cheetham
