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/MATTHEW SHIPP – Complementary Colours
(Leo Records – CD LR744)
Ivo Perelman, Tenor Saxophone; Matthew Shipp, piano
Recorded at Parkwest Studios, Brooklyn, NY, April 2015
This is yet another set of improvised performances from this hugely fertile, telepathic and telekinetic partnership. There are ten tracks named after colours expressive of the disposition of each ‘tune’ (there aren’t any tunes, of course). The two play as though from a common cerebellum, perfectly attuned each to the other, and flawlessly synchronized so that the ostensible calm itself becomes an elaborate exercise in invention.
This is the duo’s second album of 2015 (the earlier Callas was reviewed here too). The originality andresourcefulness of their inventiveness leads to such deliberation and vigour in their performance that improvisation becomes second nature, voiced as fundamental freedom as though by right. Each initiative sanctions the Free impetus and endorses their place in that culture.
The music is intensely thoughtful and intelligent, earnest and entrancing and the dialogue is warm and enthralling.
Reviewed by Ken Cheetham
(Leo Records – CD LR744)
Ivo Perelman, Tenor Saxophone; Matthew Shipp, piano
Recorded at Parkwest Studios, Brooklyn, NY, April 2015
This is yet another set of improvised performances from this hugely fertile, telepathic and telekinetic partnership. There are ten tracks named after colours expressive of the disposition of each ‘tune’ (there aren’t any tunes, of course). The two play as though from a common cerebellum, perfectly attuned each to the other, and flawlessly synchronized so that the ostensible calm itself becomes an elaborate exercise in invention.
This is the duo’s second album of 2015 (the earlier Callas was reviewed here too). The originality andresourcefulness of their inventiveness leads to such deliberation and vigour in their performance that improvisation becomes second nature, voiced as fundamental freedom as though by right. Each initiative sanctions the Free impetus and endorses their place in that culture.
The music is intensely thoughtful and intelligent, earnest and entrancing and the dialogue is warm and enthralling.
Reviewed by Ken Cheetham
